- cross-posted to:
- programmerhumor@lemmy.ml
- cross-posted to:
- programmerhumor@lemmy.ml
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Why are they even named like this?
When I read code, I want to be able to read it…
Is this from a time when space was expensive and you wanted to reduce the space of the source files on the devs PC???
For me (with a native language != english), this made it a lot harder to get into programming in the first place.
I recently held a science slam about this topic! It’s a mix of the first computer scientists being mathematicians, who love their abbreviations, and limited screen size, memory and file size. It’s a trend in computing that has been well justified in the past, but has been making it harder for people to work together. And the need to use abbreviations has completely gone with the age of auto completion and language servers.
mathematicians, who love their abbreviations
Man, I hate that so much. I swear this was half the reason I struggled with maths and physics, that these guys need to write this:
Rather than this:
At some point, they even collectively decided that not having to write a multiplication dot is more important than being able to use more than a single letter for your variables. Just what the fuck?
Thing is, you usually define all your variables. At least we do in engineering (of physical variety, rather than software).
Mostly because we can’t expect everyone reading the calculation to know, and that not everyone uses the same symbols.
Not explaining each variable is bad practice, other than for very simple things. (I do expect everyone and their dog reading a process eng calc to know PV=nRT, at a minimum).
Just like (in my opinion) not defining industry specific abbreviations is also bad practice.
Mathematicians don’t do this? Shame on them.
Try to write the above with pen and ink and then tell me if you can read it back yourself.
Single letters is not a good system but it was the less bad one.
I can’t remember it, but I read one Microsoft blog post (in Vista era?) about how one team at Microsoft would develop some amazing new Windows component. They’d proudly name it AmazingNewService.dll. And then the operating system team would come in and say “that’s all fine and good, but you have to conform to the naming convention.” 8+3 filenames. First two letters probably “MS”, because of reasons. …and 15 years later, people still regularly go “What the fuck is MSAMNSVC.DLL?”
sounds interesting~, any chance that I can find this post?
Like I said this was in the Vista era. Or possibly before the Vista release, part of the Longhorn hype train (Longhorn got some super hyped features, such as an epic next-generation filesystem to replace NTFS, which Microsoft ultimately canned, and Vista ended up, you know, being Vista).
This was so long ago that I unfortunately don’t remember what exact feature this was about, but it was about some new Windows component.
man -kto the rescue:mbsrtowcs,strxfrmandwcstoldare C functions.wcsoll is a mispronunciation of wcscoll
Oh no. You tell them forbidden knowledge of reading manual.
Rhowch, cwtch, mwyn have to be Welsh. Classicly Welsh sounding words, and mbrsrtowcs, strxfrm can’t possibly be Welsh. Source: my welsh uncle taught me to pronounce Welsh place names.
Wcstold, wcsoll wmffre could be either but sound really weird as Welsh to me.
Wmffre is actually the Welsh spelling of the name “Humphrey”
I love the Welsh, but holy shit that’s not what those letters are supposed to be for. They and the Irish just made a bunch of shit up when they started to standardize spelling. It makes me understand how Russians feel when Westerners use Cyrillic letters improperly.
the letters are “supposed to be” for Latin, a language with only five different vowel sounds.
everyone since has just been making a bunch of shit up.
I thought I would be better at this game than I am.
Rhowch, mwyn, and wnffre are Welsh. The rest is nonsense.
What are those in English?
Rhowch = give / enter supply? Kinda? Like “enter password” is where i’ve seen it.
Mwyn = mine as in dig
Wmffre = welsh version of humphrey and i only know that due to my great-grandfather.
