• Davey (unregistered)

    Ruchard: I realize that "learnt" is an acceptable spelling, but could you at least try to start using "learned" instead? I think it would be better for all parties involved. Don't be so hardened to change man.

  • Richard Peat (unregistered)

    I guess you going to want me to drop the 'u' in colour, and start using 'z' instead of 's' all over the place next!

  • Davey (unregistered)

    Honestly, I wonder what UK code looks like. Is it filled with comments such as "Changed the colour to red" and things of that nature? That would be quite confusing for the American reader. And how do you guys use Visual Studio with intellisense? You have to type color.red not colour.red! I bet that is frustrating. Maybe there is a UK edition of Visual Studio?

  • Phil Scott (unregistered)

    It would have to be a UK edition of the framework for Colour to be used.

  • domovoi (unregistered)

    flock:
    IIRC, the candidate (according to his resume) just graduated from a well-known CS program, though I forget the name of the school. He supposedly had a graduate degree as well. However, as the interview progressed, it became apparent to my friend that the candidate knew very little about computer science. So he threw out that question to make sure.

  • Phil Scott (unregistered)

    I did some tutoring for CIS students when I was at college. I asked one of them to bring up the project they were working on (it was a VB6 app), and they went to their shared network drive.

    The machine kinda sat there for a second, and suddenly 4000 files pop up in the root of their shared folder. And the guy started opening up Project1a, Project1b, Project2, Project11, Copy of Project 1a, etc until he found the project he was working on. He also had well over 50 different forms of Form1 in the directory too.

    I kinda causually mentioned that it might make sense to put things in sub folders with better names, but I just got a blank stare in return.

    Yeah, he's got a CIS degree from my university now.

  • Lore Weaver (unregistered)

    I get a kick out of doing HTML/CF/Tango/PL/SQL Web/PHP/Whatever else...

    And I have to use color='#000000' instead of colour :D

    At least in England they aren't hybridized with the American spellings, like we are in Canada :D

    And yes, my comments do say "Colour" and not "Color".

    Ey Spel Reel Goud.

  • David Grant (unregistered)

    I heard someone try to say that C# was called C# because the pound symbol looks like two ++'s stacked on top of each other.

    Almost had to beat their face in for that.

  • Dan (unregistered)

    I had to rough up a fellow co-worker for saying exactly that!

  • Jane (unregistered)

    David and Dan - I swear I remember seeing something like that in a book on programming in C# and saying to myself it doesnt look like two +'s (as opposed to ++'s) on top of each other. It must have been somewhere around when it became an ECMA standard, so things have changed since then...but...

    Y'know, when I first tried to learn C#, nobody ever told me how to call it, but having a musical background I called it c-sharp. Someone told me it was c-pound, but that sounded stupid, so I kept insisting on c-sharp.


    So now everyone who tells me its not c-sharp gets emailed a copy of that program that's at the end of the book Programming in the Key of C#, a program that plays a short song in the key of C# :)

  • Dan (unregistered)

    Can you program in C# on a Mac? Is that even possible?

  • foxyshadis (unregistered)

    Sure. All you need is mono. It includes the compiler and CLR, and is compilable on almost any *nix based system.

    It's not as pretty or friendly as Visual C#, but you take what you can get, no?

    There are also C# -> Java conversion utilities, and vice versa, so you can use your favorite Java editor/compiler that way.

  • foxyshadis (unregistered)

    Sure. All you need is mono. It includes the compiler and CLR, and is compilable on almost any *nix based system.

    It's not as pretty or friendly as Visual C#, but you take what you can get, no?

    There are also C# -> Java conversion utilities, and vice versa, so you can use your favorite Java editor/compiler that way.

  • foxyshadis (unregistered)

    Sure. All you need is mono. It includes the compiler and CLR, and is compilable on almost any *nix based system.

    It's not as pretty or friendly as Visual C#, but you take what you can get, no?

    There are also C# -> Java conversion utilities, and vice versa, so you can use your favorite Java editor/compiler that way.

  • foxyshadis (unregistered)

    Dammit, I hate the lack of confirmation that a submission has been fully uploaded and doesn't need resubmission when the page times out. (What do you do when it's clicking the 'submit order' button? >_>) This would be a great area for a certain open source web browser to take up the slack.

  • smartypants (unregistered)

    Does anyone want to insert of joke about "mono" here?

  • Dee Major!! (unregistered)

    D-Flat eh? Makes sense. C-Sharp was designed by Anders Hjelsberg, the man who created Turbo Pascal and Delphi. "D" is the nickname for Delphi, and C-Sharp is obviously a flattened version of Delphi, so this all makes complete sense. Oh sure, C# is as good as Delphi, only down a half step!!

  • Pseudo (unregistered)

    I had to listen to a lecturer tell me a year ago that the language was pronounced c-hash, and that c# was an addition to c++ that supported aspect orientated programming.
    Needless to say I didn't go to another lecture.

  • Fred (unregistered)

    C-sharp always sounded like a marketing effort at covering up a horrible choice for a name.

    I'm aware that Microsoft call it C-sharp, but I call it C-hash (by CHOICE, please pay attention any mindless pedants out there).

    Likewise, I am aware that many within Microsoft call SQL "Sequel", but I'm not about to start that either.

  • Stoop (unregistered)

    Fred: SQL origins from "Sequel". Sequel: Simple English QUEry Language. SQL is just a shorthand.

  • james (unregistered)

    It's Structured Query Language, so "sequel" is not a short-hand. Lots of people (believe it or not) say it as "squirrel", too.

  • Cliff (unregistered)

    I guess one could create the colour class and just inherit from color ;-)

    but 5 yrs is just about possible for C-noughtsandcrossesgrid, considering at M'oft the language has been around at least that long in various pre-alpha incarnations.

    Unlikely this candidate has this though ;-)

  • Pendant (unregistered)

    I hate to be nit picky, but sharp and hash are certainly not the same thing. Hash is 0x0023, and Sharp is 0x266F.

    Do you see any people programming C\x266F?

  • Fred (unregistered)

    Stoop: SQL's origins were in IBM's SEQUEL certainly, but it is no longer SEQUEL, it is SQL.

    Win95 isn't pronounced "DOS", PKZIP isn't pronounced "LZW".

  • Merv (unregistered)

    I prefer "Squeal".

  • beppo (unregistered)

    When I first read I called it "C-dièse". Why do these marketing-guys choose nonsense names like this one?

  • Chui Tey (unregistered)

    It's C-HASH.

  • Bob (unregistered)

    I am still waiting for INTERCAL.NET...

  • John (unregistered)

    The real WTFs are

    1 - Why you even phoned this guy for an interview after looking at his resume

    2 - Why you asked for a code snippet after the phone interview. You must be a government agency...

  • Mike (unregistered)

    maybe you should actually read the comments before knocking Scott.

    see: 11/1/2004 2:36 PM Scott C Reynolds

  • anonymouse (unregistered)

    You tha man dawg. You tha man.

  • dasmb (unregistered)

    I wouldn't go too hard on the cat for naming (thought I would for being completely worthless as a programmer). I've called it "C-Hash" before, mostly as a joke with 'NIX programmers, but more importantly I've embraced a lot of other alternative pronunciations. I tried to use SQuirreL instead of SeQueL, used "OGgLe" for Open GL, and consistantly mispronounce "char."

    And of course, you're going to see a lot more designer-only programmers in the 21st Century. We have to do more work to do, more of it is repetitive, why should we be writing it out longhand when generators do it better and faster than we can? Code Generators are an easy way to stave off the need to send work overseas. Of course, trying to pass off a generator's work as your own makes you a complete dipshit...but I can definitely see a lot of areas where a candidate could tell me "I don't know the answer, as I'll never need to do this in my career and if I do I can look it up" and I would accept that.

  • (unregistered) in reply to WanFactory

    <font style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #efefef">In the Treble Clef, the note C# is the same as Db.  C# & Db are the semitone between C & D.</font>

  • (unregistered)

    1. It's pronunced C-Sharp, that's how MS call it.

    2. The first thing you need for a job is good education, i.e diploma, so the first thing you need to see is some sort of graduation.

    Good Day

  • (cs)

    I would never pronounce C# as anything but "Cee Sharp" in an interview. Of course, in private I use it's proper name, that being "That Goddess-awful Java clone with the VB.Net object model slapped on the side of it."  [8o|][N]

    (Just kidding. I don't know enough about C# to hate it that much... yet.)

  • (cs) in reply to Vitani
    :
    Wish we had a shortage of .NET developers in the UK. I could really use a better paid job than my current one!


    Well, as many of the examples posted here should make clear, the problem isn't a lack of .Net developers, it's a lack of competent .Net developers.

    (Of course, there are those who claim that "competent .Net developer" is an oxymoron, but that's simply rude...)


  • (cs) in reply to Schol-R-LEA

    are you talking about "that Java improvement with Delphi model?" don't worry, you'll learn to love it when Java is replaced <:o)
    It's just a shame that Anders Hejlsberg killed his own baby for money by finally providing Win32 developers with a real development tool. Now Delphi developers have to show some real efforts to make the best apps ;-)

  • (cs) in reply to wtijsma

    Well, first there has to be decent forum software in .NET ofcourse *-)

  • Peter Kovacs (unregistered) in reply to flock
    Anonymous:

    That question is exactly the kind of question you shalt ask in an interview. What you will learn with that is that someone knows a lot of concepts, not that someone knows how to use them, which are very different things and I am sure you don't want an employee who is all good at theorizing and all bad at practicing, do you?


    That all depends.  If the canididate had "BS Computer Science" on their resume, I would expect that they know the running time of a binary search.  I would also expect that they would give it in a big O notation.

    Although I would agree that a better question would be, "Explain how you would search an <insert data structure> to find an item."  Hopefully they'll ask how big the structure is, and how its organized so that they can pick the most efficient algorithm to use.
  • (cs)

    if it is C sharp, couldnt we just write ####### ?
    or maybe bbbbb?

    i guess it isnt the same unless it is spread out on the staff.

  • Unforgiven (unregistered) in reply to bitz

    I find it interesting that no one has mentioned yet that C# can't possibly by C-Sharp, because according to Unicode, # is not the sharp character. Unicode codepoint 0023, #, is the pound, hash, crosshatch or octothorp, but not sharp. Unicode codepoint 266F, ?, is the musical sharp sign. [:P]

  • (cs) in reply to bitz
    bitz:
    if it is C sharp, couldnt we just write ####### ?
    or maybe bbbbb?

    i guess it isnt the same unless it is spread out on the staff.


    Ah but then you might confuse it with the competing language A#m that I just made up [;)]
  • Jeff H (unregistered) in reply to Jeff S

    Anonymous:
    I honestly would not worry about someone calling it C "pound" or whatever. I don't care how they pronounce it, I care how they can program. Of course, this particular candidate was 0-for-2 on both counts so I guess it didn't really matter. :)

    I'd worry because not knowing the common way of pronouncing it suggests to me:

    • a. (as previously stated,) he's trying to be l337
    • b. he's never read the introduction to any book on C#
    • c. he's never been to a lecture or users' group meeting or discussed the language with an experienced developer.

    Point c especially worries me, as  there's a fair amount about the .NET framework and C# that is non-obvious. It puts the candidate in the category of "likely to have little professional experience with it".

    Sure, it doesn't rule someone out, but it's a <FONT color=#ff0000 size=4>big red flag</FONT>.

  • C What? (unregistered) in reply to Jeff H

    Hmmm... I pronounce the following as followed:

    The C Language : The "Sea" Language

    The C++ Language : The "C Add Add" Language

    The C# Language : The "C-Shift-3" Language

     

    People point and laugh, but then I rewrite their code and they lose their job.  They don't laugh anymore.[;)]

  • Cameron (unregistered) in reply to StuP

        As a professional musician (a string player), I must object to the above; nobody in current performance practice uses Pythagorean tuning. If you do that, you'll be flat. Some intervals, namely perfect fourths, perfect fifths, and perfect octaves, will be pure at times, but no others, except in rare circumstances. In particular, the third and seventh scale degrees of a scale will be considerably higher than what is dictated by Pythagorean ratios. Even when tuning, violins, violas, and cellos, whose strings are tuned in perfect fifths, don't conform to the Pythagorean ratio of 3:2; our fifths are tighter than that.
        I think it's largely a semantic argument whether you consider a C-sharp and a D-flat to be the same note or not. Personally, I consider them to be the same. I know other string players who would disagree. Let me clarify my position: I believe that there's a need for the two different markings of C-sharp and D-flat. If I'm playing a piece in D-flat major, and the final tonic triad consists of a C-sharp, an F, and an A-flat, then I would say that the chord was misspelled, in the same sense that "kat" is misspelled (it should be "cat", though I think "kat" would be pronounced the same). The C-sharp should be a D-flat. In fact, musicians use that very word, "misspelled", when we run across a situation like that. However, I don't really consider them to be different notes.
        The normal argument for considering enharmonic notes, such as D-flat and C-sharp, to be literally different notes, rather than two names for the same note, is that they are played a little bit differently. This ignores the fact that a C-sharp in one harmonic context will be played diferently from a C-sharp in another harmonic context. The note C-sharp by itself isn't even played the same, even within the context of a single piece. By this argument, we would have to consider a C-sharp as being a different note from a C-sharp, which is just silly.
        Intonation (on string instruments) is not only affected by harmonic context, but also by tempo. If I were to play a C-sharp major scale, first slowly, and then quickly, the B-sharp, for example, would be higher in the fast version than in the slow one. This is because a person's ear is more prone to interpret a long note as a chord tone, and a fast note as a passing tone not necessarily belonging to the present chord. The fast note is heard more "horizontally", rather than "vertically". In addition to that, string players even disagree as to the normal relationships between such notes as C-sharp and D-flat. A violin or viola player would typically say that C-sharp is higher than D-flat, but bass players with whom I've discussed intonation are quite insistent that C-sharp is lower than D-flat.
        Pianists, on the other hand, don't need to worry about playing in tune. However, pianos aren't tuned so that each half-step is in the ratio of  ( 2^(1/12) ) : 1. Due to the stiffness of piano strings, the overtones of each string don't line up where they "should" ideally. Tuning octaves in the ratio of 2:1 would sound quite terrible because of this. To fix the problem, piano octaves are actually a bit wider than you'd expect them to be on paper, and all other intervals are expanded accordingly. This can cause problems for the violinist who has learned to play all of his octaves perfectly in tune and then goes in to rehearse with a pianist.
        As you can see, the situation of intonation can get pretty complicated, but I think it's warranted to consider C-sharp and D-flat to be different names for the same note.

  • Cameron (unregistered) in reply to StuP

        As a professional musician (a string player), I must object to the above; nobody in current performance practice uses Pythagorean tuning. If you do that, you'll be flat. Some intervals, namely perfect fourths, perfect fifths, and perfect octaves, will be pure at times, but no others, except in rare circumstances. In particular, the third and seventh scale degrees of a scale will be considerably higher than what is dictated by Pythagorean ratios. Even when tuning, violins, violas, and cellos, whose strings are tuned in perfect fifths, don't conform to the Pythagorean ratio of 3:2; our fifths are tighter than that.

        I think it's largely a semantic argument whether you consider a C-sharp and a D-flat to be the same note or not. Personally, I consider them to be the same. I know other string players who would disagree. Let me clarify my position: I believe that there's a need for the two different markings of C-sharp and D-flat. If I'm playing a piece in D-flat major, and the final tonic triad consists of a C-sharp, an F, and an A-flat, then I would say that the chord was misspelled, in the same sense that "kat" is misspelled (it should be "cat", though I think "kat" would be pronounced the same). The C-sharp should be a D-flat. In fact, musicians use that very word, "misspelled", when we run across a situation like that. However, I don't really consider them to be different notes.

        The normal argument for considering enharmonic notes, such as D-flat and C-sharp, to be literally different notes, rather than two names for the same note, is that they are played a little bit differently. This ignores the fact that a C-sharp in one harmonic context will be played diferently from a C-sharp in another harmonic context. The note C-sharp by itself isn't even played the same, even within the context of a single piece. By this argument, we would have to consider a C-sharp as being a different note from a C-sharp, which is just silly.

        Intonation (on string instruments) is not only affected by harmonic context, but also by tempo. If I were to play a C-sharp major scale, first slowly, and then quickly, the B-sharp, for example, would be higher in the fast version than in the slow one. This is because a person's ear is more prone to interpret a long note as a chord tone, and a fast note as a passing tone not necessarily belonging to the present chord. The fast note is heard more "horizontally", rather than "vertically". In addition to that, string players even disagree as to the normal relationships between such notes as C-sharp and D-flat. A violin or viola player would typically say that C-sharp is higher than D-flat, but bass players with whom I've discussed intonation are quite insistent that C-sharp is lower than D-flat.

        Pianists, on the other hand, don't need to worry about playing in tune. However, pianos aren't tuned so that each half-step is in the ratio of  ( 2^(1/12) ) : 1. Due to the stiffness of piano strings, the overtones of each string don't line up where they "should" ideally. Tuning octaves in the ratio of 2:1 would sound quite terrible because of this. To fix the problem, piano octaves are actually a bit wider than you'd expect them to be on paper, and all other intervals are expanded accordingly. This can cause problems for the violinist who has learned to play all of his octaves perfectly in tune and then goes in to rehearse with a pianist.

        As you can see, the situation of intonation can get pretty complicated, but I think it's warranted to consider C-sharp and D-flat to be different names for the same note.

  • Cameron (unregistered) in reply to StuP

        As a professional musician (a string player), I must object to the above; nobody in current performance practice uses Pythagorean tuning. If you do that, you'll be flat. Some intervals, namely perfect fourths, perfect fifths, and perfect octaves, will be pure at times, but no others, except in rare circumstances. In particular, the third and seventh scale degrees of a scale will be considerably higher than what is dictated by Pythagorean ratios. Even when tuning, violins, violas, and cellos, whose strings are tuned in perfect fifths, don't conform to the Pythagorean ratio of 3:2; our fifths are tighter than that.

        I think it's largely a semantic argument whether you consider a C-sharp and a D-flat to be the same note or not. Personally, I consider them to be the same. I know other string players who would disagree. Let me clarify my position: I believe that there's a need for the two different markings of C-sharp and D-flat. If I'm playing a piece in D-flat major, and the final tonic triad consists of a C-sharp, an F, and an A-flat, then I would say that the chord was misspelled, in the same sense that "kat" is misspelled (it should be "cat", though I think "kat" would be pronounced the same). The C-sharp should be a D-flat. In fact, musicians use that very word, "misspelled", when we run across a situation like that. However, I don't really consider them to be different notes.

        The normal argument for considering enharmonic notes, such as D-flat and C-sharp, to be literally different notes, rather than two names for the same note, is that they are played a little bit differently. This ignores the fact that a C-sharp in one harmonic context will be played diferently from a C-sharp in another harmonic context. The note C-sharp by itself isn't even played the same, even within the context of a single piece. By this argument, we would have to consider a C-sharp as being a different note from a C-sharp, which is just silly.

        Intonation (on string instruments) is not only affected by harmonic context, but also by tempo. If I were to play a C-sharp major scale, first slowly, and then quickly, the B-sharp, for example, would be higher in the fast version than in the slow one. This is because a person's ear is more prone to interpret a long note as a chord tone, and a fast note as a passing tone not necessarily belonging to the present chord. The fast note is heard more "horizontally", rather than "vertically". In addition to that, string players even disagree as to the normal relationships between such notes as C-sharp and D-flat. A violin or viola player would typically say that C-sharp is higher than D-flat, but bass players with whom I've discussed intonation are quite insistent that C-sharp is lower than D-flat.

  • Cameron (unregistered) in reply to StuP

        As a professional musician (a string player), I must object to the above; nobody in current performance practice uses Pythagorean tuning. If you do that, you'll be flat. Some intervals, namely perfect fourths, perfect fifths, and perfect octaves, will be pure at times, but no others, except in rare circumstances. In particular, the third and seventh scale degrees of a scale will be considerably higher than what is dictated by Pythagorean ratios. Even when tuning, violins, violas, and cellos, whose strings are tuned in perfect fifths, don't conform to the Pythagorean ratio of 3:2; our fifths are tighter than that.

        I think it's largely a semantic argument whether you consider a C-sharp and a D-flat to be the same note or not. Personally, I consider them to be the same. I know other string players who would disagree. Let me clarify my position: I believe that there's a need for the two different markings of C-sharp and D-flat. If I'm playing a piece in D-flat major, and the final tonic triad consists of a C-sharp, an F, and an A-flat, then I would say that the chord was misspelled, in the same sense that "kat" is misspelled (it should be "cat", though I think "kat" would be pronounced the same). The C-sharp should be a D-flat. In fact, musicians use that very word, "misspelled", when we run across a situation like that. However, I don't really consider them to be different notes.

  • (cs) in reply to Cameron

    Well, I think we all know how Cameron feels.

  • (cs) in reply to Blue
    Blue:
    Well, I think we all know how Cameron feels.

    You bet. Interesting discussion for a programming forum. I think I've missed my real goal in life until now ;-)

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