He should have also listed "#!" AKA "shebang" / "hashbang"
There are also many different ways that people pronounce -> and =>, although it might vary depending on programming language.
ASCII Pronunciation Rules for Programmers [2008]
51–60 of 89 posts
Re: ASCII Pronunciation Rules for Programmers [2008]
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
uphill and downhill assume going left to right. forward slash and backslash both assume going left to right. How is this an improvement? Maybe call them right-slash and left-slash, with the lean prefix implied? This would probably help our right to left language friends.
I'm a little ashamed to admit it, but I always had a hard time remembering where the "hinge" was on the slashes. Let me explain: Assume that the slash begins like a pipe |. If the slash has a hinge at the bottom (like most people intuitively assume), then / is "leaning forward " and \ is "leaning back ". However, if, when you look at the slash, you assume the hinge is on the top, then it looks like / is "swinging bac…
It has nothing to with where the 'hinge' is. '/' is just 'slash'; it's the only one that existed before computers. '\' was invented so you could write the mathematical symbols for 'and' and 'or' as /\ and \/. Since it is a backwards version of the slash, it was named 'backslash,' and 'forward slash' later came about in analogy with 'backslash.'
Re: ASCII Pronunciation Rules for Programmers [2008]
#53When I first started programming, I didn't know which of the two symbols / or \ was "forward slash" or "back slash", so I got into the habit of calling them "uphill" and "downhill", respectively. I still tend to use those terms when I'm working with people who aren't computer savvy, and those terms tend to be a bit more intuitive and help avoid confusion.
Wow. "Uphill" and "downhill" are brilliant. I hope I remember that next time I need it.
I tend to use "the slash with the question mark" and then either "the slash near backspace" or "the slash NOT near the question mark", since the backslash keyboard position isn't completely standard.
Of course, these experiences are when dealing with having to have an end user type them in (thank you, internet).
Re: ASCII Pronunciation Rules for Programmers [2008]
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
In Poland it's very often simply called "ape" (often giving e-mail addresses), before I often heard "elephant's ear".
Some people in Germany call it 'Klammeraffe', which would roughly translate as 'an ape that clings to something' or 'spider monkey'.
Finns often call it "miumau" (meow meow) because it looks like a cat's tail.
Re: ASCII Pronunciation Rules for Programmers [2008]
#55I don't know if I would call this a "pronunciation guide", in the sense that it doesn't tell you how to actually stress the syllables or say any particular letters. Instead, it's more of a "naming guide" or "verbalization guide" for glyphs that don't map to specific vocal patterns.
Nitpick? Yes. This is HN, after all.
Re: ASCII Pronunciation Rules for Programmers [2008]
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
Swedish also has a funny name for the @-sign, named after the trunk of an elephant. In fact, quite a few languages do. Here's a short sample from the Wikipedia article: In Swedish and Danish the sign is known as the "snabel a" (literally trunk a), owning to the resemblance between the sign and the trunk of an elephant. In Norwegian the term most commonly used is "krøllalfa" (literally: curled alpha). In Greek the sig…
And in the Netherlands, we call it a ape's tail (we use 'ape' both for monkeys and ape's.)
Witch makes overheard conversations quite weird, since apenstaart is quite a long word: «yea, that is em-dot-dee-ee-vee-ar-eye-ee-es monkeytail hotmail-dot-com»
Re: ASCII Pronunciation Rules for Programmers [2008]
#57It's also in (and probably a copy of) the Jargon File: http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/A/ASCII.html
Yes, The New Hacker's Dictionary is a distillation of the Jargon File. Both are maintained by Eric S. Raymond.
Re: ASCII Pronunciation Rules for Programmers [2008]
#58I refer those interested in this topic to the INTERCAL character naming conventions, now hallowed by tradition and skirting the edge of madness. As a taster . is one-spot : is two-spot , is tail and ; is hybrid. # is mesh. <- is known as an 'angle worm' and is pronounced 'gets'. It goes on from there.
These are in Jeff's chart. And really most of them shouldn't be: they aren't "rare" pronunciations -- they're non-existent pronunciations. Nobody uses them, except to point out how silly INTERCAL is. And rightly so, since INTERCAL was created to be unusable.
However, there are a couple that, despite the INTERCAL authors' best efforts, have entered common usage, according to the chart: "mesh" and "splat".
Re: ASCII Pronunciation Rules for Programmers [2008]
#59One of my co-workers uses "cash" for $. I think that's the worst possible choice for pronunciation since it sounds just like "cache", which is another thing you need to talk about fairly frequently.
Also could easily be mistaken for "hash".
Re: ASCII Pronunciation Rules for Programmers [2008]
#60He should have also listed "#!" AKA "shebang" / "hashbang"
There are also many different ways that people pronounce -> and =>, although it might vary depending on programming language.
How do you pronounce it?
I usually say "arrow", or "dash-greater-than"... but come to think of it, I very rarely have to ever actually say this.