C pronunciation question

[Ben Bacarisse]

so how do professional programmers pronounce these things?

I seem to be in the majority except for:

6. x = y

"becomes" or "gets" (when I say it a lot)

7. x += n

"plus becomes". Ugly, but there are not C recitation prizes.

 

[Default User]

Default User said:


Is that "bow" as in "arrow", or "bow" as in "curtsey"?

Yes.



Brian

 

[Keith Thompson]

What is Sheesh?

Presumably a snide reference to C#.

 

[James Harris]

last week in class I witnessed somebody reading a C program to
another person and they were having some difficulties because of
different pronunciation of some C language terms...so how do
professional programmers pronounce these things?

You've had a lot of answers already - good and amusing by parts - but
I don't think you've had all of these yet: (You'll note a higher
degree of pedantry here than in the other answers but you did say
people were reading these out in class so I assume we are talking to C
learners and I think the pedantry is apt)

1. '\0'

blip, backslash zero, blip

2. '\n', '\a', '\b', '\f', etc.

blip, backslash, blip etc

(Once a person is used to the idea that apostrophes are needed for
these the words, "blip," would no longer be needed.

3. NULL, nul (how to distinguish these two?)

Don't call a variable 'nul' and if you do spell it each time.

4. char (3 possible ways I've heard are 4a) like the 1st syllable in
"character", 4b) like "char coal", and 4c) like "car"

The one I've heard most often is 4b: char as in coal

5. Motif (like "motive" or more like the French word?)

no idea how this relates to C!

6. x = y, x == y (how to distinguish these two?)

(I suspect the hacks will dislike this)
x equal(s) y, x equal(s) equal(s) y

7. ++x, x++, x += n

plus plus x, x plus plus, x plus equal n

8. argc, argv

arg C, arg V

You'll have to tell us which ones you would use ...........

 

[Joe Wright]

You've had a lot of answers already - good and amusing by parts - but
I don't think you've had all of these yet: (You'll note a higher
degree of pedantry here than in the other answers but you did say
people were reading these out in class so I assume we are talking to C
learners and I think the pedantry is apt)


blip, backslash zero, blip


blip, backslash, blip etc

(Once a person is used to the idea that apostrophes are needed for
these the words, "blip," would no longer be needed.


Don't call a variable 'nul' and if you do spell it each time.


The one I've heard most often is 4b: char as in coal


no idea how this relates to C!


(I suspect the hacks will dislike this)
x equal(s) y, x equal(s) equal(s) y


plus plus x, x plus plus, x plus equal n


arg C, arg V

You'll have to tell us which ones you would use ...........

Victor Borge could explain this. RIP.

 

[James Harris]

Victor Borge could explain this. RIP.

Haha - a man of farsighted wisdom. He anticipated the introduction of
programming languages by decades. Maybe it was his desire to assist a
radio audience to learn to write code.....?

 

[Chris Hills]

Victor Borge could explain this. RIP.

Along with the barrel of bricks.........

 

[John Bode]

True, but irrelevant, since (as I'm semi-reliably informed) Sheesh is a
cheap knock-off of Java, not of C++.

Richard

<lurching further OT>

At first glance C# is almost indistinguishable from Java, but there
are some subtle differences that give C# a slight edge IMO. I'm not
an expert in either language, but it seems that the C# event model is
a little saner than Java's, the .Net class libraries seem to be better
organized, and the property concept is interesting.

 

[James Harris]

....

....

Victor Borge could explain this. RIP.

Haha. A man of vision! He predated and anticipated the pedanticism
needed for low level programming by a matter of decades. He also
considered how to explain linguistic detail to a radio audience. An
ideal example.

 

[Peter 'Shaggy' Haywood]

Groovy hepcat Richard was jivin' in comp.lang.c on Fri, 26 Oct 2007 2:01
am. It's a cool scene! Dig it.

Sounds too hard to even consider and even then it sounds like 2
syllables :-;

I also pronounce printf (and sprintf) as a single sillable, as Phillip
does. But maybe I should call it "function formerly known as
printf".