• Jerry Kindall (unregistered) in reply to A Brit
    A Brit:
    To be honest being British, these americanisms in programming languages are very annoying. I hate having to spell colour for example, the american way without the u. C# is full of them in the System namespace such as changing all the S's to Z's (like in Globalisation)

    "Colour" rhymes with "velour," right?

  • Shakespeare (unregistered) in reply to me too

    Wherefore?

  • Wizard Stan (unregistered) in reply to me too

    By which thou dost mean "wherefore"?

  • Bogglestone (unregistered)

    What a "clever" way to ensure to never get a contract from that company again.

  • mark (unregistered) in reply to Bogglestone

    This reminds me of old SCO systems that I used to work with. We had to type 'whence' instead of 'where' ... very Shakespearian.

  • Verloc (unregistered)

    Whilst is a perfectly cromulent keyword for a loop.

  • Ranxerox (unregistered)

    A quarter century ago I was looking at some of the code in System V Unix. Someone had actually created a huge pile of C code using #defines that changed all of the keywords to those shell script keywords.

    I was impressed ... but not in a good way.

  • Back In My Day (unregistered)

    You think this is bad? Imagine being a C++ programmer who has to deal with this crap in your codebase:

    #define private public #define protected public

    Only then will you know the true pain that bad C++ can bring to a software engineer.

  • Stitch (unregistered)

    I'd like to see the other entries used to make the code more elegant, such as

    #define perchance if #define locomote goto /it has been posited that locomote may be deleterious, mayhap we shan't use it henceforth/

  • German B. (unregistered)

    This is one of those things that, when you see them, you go "Whast the fuck?!"

  • Lewis Carroll (unregistered) in reply to German B.
    German B.:
    This is one of those things that, when you see them, you go "Whast the fuck?!"
    And hast thou slain the jabberfuck?
  • Richeh (unregistered) in reply to Outlaw Programmer

    So is that Charles I as in "Charles the First" then?

  • RN (unregistered) in reply to A Brit

    I'm so sorry that we Americans are wrong in our English spelling. Could you at least be a bit respectful of us lesser beings and spell Americanisms with a capital 'A'?

  • Arlie (unregistered) in reply to A Brit

    They're annoying? Boo hoo. Localization does not apply to programming languages or APIs. So it's basically arbitrary -- who ever builds the thing gets the privilege of choosing.

    So quite griping. Microsoft is an American creation, so you get the American spelling. Don't like it? Build your own thing.

    When I'm in the UK, I don't whine about having to see "colour" everywhere.

  • SomeCoder (unregistered) in reply to Back In My Day
    Back In My Day:
    You think this is bad? Imagine being a C++ programmer who has to deal with *this* crap in your codebase:

    #define private public #define protected public

    Only then will you know the true pain that bad C++ can bring to a software engineer.

    And that, sir, is when you go and kill the programmer who wrote those lines.

    I love C++ but #define/macro abuse just... gah.

  • Publius (unregistered) in reply to Pink Duck

    Plus it's an extra letter to type and introduces no benefit other than to a single individual - but of course the contractor needs to maintain his belovéd creations :)

    e-grave, not e-acute, for "no elision" marks in past participles

  • Steve (unregistered) in reply to nt
    nt:
    Shmurk:
    I forgot which program it was but there was a famous UNIX program (Bash?) that used this kind of trick all over the place, things like:

    #define IF(x) if(x) { #define ENDIF(x) } #define FOREVER for(;;) { #define ENDFOREVER }

    It's very ugly but not that uncommon, I've seen it in some places, sadly...

    The original (1977) Bourne shell, actually. Here's the source.

    Ah...would that make it a list of Bourne identities?

  • Kill 'em all, let god sort 'em out (unregistered) in reply to SomeCoder
    SomeCoder:
    And that, sir, is when you go and kill the programmer who wrote those lines.
    I'm don wit dat.
  • Richard Sargent (unregistered) in reply to FredSaw

    [quote user="FredSaw]We like to think we came to prominence with the Boston tea party and the concept, "No taxation without representation".[/quote]

    I wonder why your nation's capital has so many license plates and bumper stickers lamenting this same issue today?

    Methinks the whole set of publically stated reasons for the war of independence were nothing but smoke screens. From what little I read, it seems like there were more than a few leaders of the rebellion who were determined to have independence regardless of whether England addressed the grievances.

  • Loyalist (unregistered) in reply to FredSaw

    We like to think we came to prominence with the Boston tea party > and the concept, "No taxation without representation".

    So what happened? Got complacent?

  • (cs) in reply to pitchingchris
    pitchingchris:
    A Brit:
    To be honest being British, these americanisms in programming languages are very annoying. I hate having to spell colour for example, the american way without the u. C# is full of them in the System namespace such as changing all the S's to Z's (like in Globalisation)

    What do you expect from a company that is resided in America? If Microsoft was in Spain or England, it would have went differently.

    Gone.

    :-P

  • (cs) in reply to FredSaw
    FredSaw:
    AdT:
    FredSaw:
    Well, you guys were once the empire upon which the sun never set. What happened? Got complacent?

    They overextended themselves. It can happen to anyone. What was the name of the next country Cheney wants to invade?

    Iran.
    [remainder of belligerent rant snipped] It doesn't make sense that you want to impeach the President while you specifically vilify the VP as well. You don't put both on trial at once. Can you say, President Cheney?

  • (cs) in reply to Richard Sargent
    We like to think we came to prominence with the Boston tea party and the concept, "No taxation without representation".

    I wonder why your nation's capital has so many license plates and bumper stickers lamenting this same issue today?

    Because the District of Columbia is a federal district, not a state; so as part of the principle of separation of powers, it has no representation in the legislature. That's the reason; whether you agree with it or not is up for debate.
    Methinks the whole set of publically stated reasons for the war of independence were nothing but smoke screens. From what little I read, it seems like there were more than a few leaders of the rebellion who were determined to have independence regardless of whether England addressed the grievances.
    Scandalous!
  • Boing (unregistered)

    In an ill-advised crossover between my appreciation for theater and my major in computer science, I created an alias in my bash profile so I could type "exeunt" instead of exit. I never included it in production code, though. Nor did I think it was actually an improvement... I just liked the style of it.

  • Anonononymous (unregistered) in reply to A Yank
    A Yank:
    Technically, english from US and UK should be considered two different languages. It might be annoying, but it's not as difficult as trying to figure out that "medarbejder" is danish for co-worker. Thought it was dutch at first, but the dutch translator spits the word right back at me.

    British English and American English are still clearly the same language. We spell color and armour differently, but both spellings are understood on both sides of the ocean. There are other differences in vocabulary, slang and accent, but nothing major enough to call them distinct languages.

  • Charles (unregistered)

    Early in my career I worked with somebody who had just learned C, but who preferred Fortran. He wrote a bunch of macros to make C code look as much like Fortran as possible.

  • GregM (unregistered)

    Don't forget the classics unless() and until()

    #define unless(x) if(!(x)) #define until(x) while(!(x))

  • A Yank (unregistered) in reply to Anonononymous
    Anonononymous:
    A Yank:
    Technically, english from US and UK should be considered two different languages. It might be annoying, but it's not as difficult as trying to figure out that "medarbejder" is danish for co-worker. Thought it was dutch at first, but the dutch translator spits the word right back at me.

    British English and American English are still clearly the same language. We spell color and armour differently, but both spellings are understood on both sides of the ocean. There are other differences in vocabulary, slang and accent, but nothing major enough to call them distinct languages.

    During the American Revolution, Noah Webster published a dictionary distinguishing US from Britain. In this respect, these are two languages of two different nations. Similar to how other Asian nations borrowed from the Chinese. In fact, Webster wanted to completely reform English, but his changes were narrowed down.

  • 28% Genius (unregistered) in reply to jim
    jim:
    I used the word "unbeknownst" in a bug report today. But it was tongue in cheek. (And before you rag me, YOU try saying "unbeknownst" with tongue in cheek.)

    Ow! Bit my tongue!

  • DropDeadThread (unregistered) 
    whilst thee_value dominate not twenty_and_five
  procure thine data thusly
shouldst thou faileth thine task
  announce 'hear ye, hear ye!' 
return from whence you came
  • Lawrence (unregistered) in reply to A Brit
    A Brit:
    To be honest being British, these americanisms in programming languages are very annoying. I hate having to spell colour for example, the american way without the u. C# is full of them in the System namespace such as changing all the S's to Z's (like in Globalisation)

    Speaking as a Kiwi (NZ'er)...

    While I found the American (capital A, BTW - don't be rude) spelling a little jarring at first, I have to concede that on the whole it's much more logical and more faithful to the actual (modern/current) pronunciation. I would argue that if you say 'z', spell it 'z', and it you insist on spelling it with 's', at least have the consistency to pronounce it as an 's'.

    And let's face it, if an American company is going to provide you with a zillion lines of free framework, I think they get to spell it using their native way, not yours.

    And anyway, there are more American's than Brits, Kiwis and Aussies (Auzzies???) put together.

    Just my two bits... don't steam at the ears <grin>.

  • Kelly (unregistered) in reply to me too

    Well, Whyst not? Darest thou not hither and thither whilst pondering the question....

  • Yankee Doodle (unregistered) in reply to A Brit

    Thats because we invented software development. If you Brits had been busy developing a superior way to program computers, you could have filled with "colour", "defence", "whilst", "blood pudding", and other such Britishims. Instead, you have wasted the last 40 years of computer science opportunity destroying your healthcare system and filling up the country with violent, disaffected Muslims. BTW, you are more than welcome to move to America.

  • Yankee Doodle (unregistered) in reply to FredSaw
    FredSaw:
    AdT:
    FredSaw:
    Well, you guys were once the empire upon which the sun never set. What happened? Got complacent?

    They overextended themselves. It can happen to anyone. What was the name of the next country Cheney wants to invade?

    Iran. Please god, let it happen. Maybe if we get our collective ass whipped into submission we (that is, the administration) will get a clue.

    Let the record show that I drive around Dallas with a bumper sticker that says, "Save our bill of rights! www.impeachbush.org"

    Addendum (2008-01-25 09:13): Lend your support. Let's kick that asshole out. Impeach Bush

    Let the record show that you are a homosexual who wants to take large sums of money away from hard working IT employees and give it to lazy jerks.

    Let the record show that you will never again attempt to politicize this forum --- dickhead

  • Andrew (unregistered)

    wtfst.

  • Walleye (unregistered) in reply to Soviut
    Soviut:
    A Brit:
    To be honest being British, these americanisms in programming languages are very annoying. I hate having to spell colour for example, the american way without the u. C# is full of them in the System namespace such as changing all the S's to Z's (like in Globalisation)

    I'm Canadian and spell it "colour" with the u as well. But I'd rather languages standardize to "american english" and know to always spell it "color" than to have to guess or check the docs for every single language I use.

    (I know captcha quoting is going out of style but this one says: dolor ...weird)

    Use COBOL, it accepts either spelling.

    (I can't believe I just recommended COBOL!)

  • (cs) in reply to Yankee Doodle
    Yankee Doodle:
    Thats because we invented software development. If you Brits had been busy developing a superior way to program computers, you could have filled with "colour", "defence", "whilst", "blood pudding", and other such Britishims. Instead, you have wasted the last 40 years of computer science opportunity destroying your healthcare system and filling up the country with violent, disaffected Muslims. BTW, you are more than welcome to move to America.

    If was Colossus that broke Enigma. Not ENIAC, which was little more than a science project during WWII. And, supposing you are American, critici(s|z)ing any healthcare system is very unwise.

    Or should that be "suppozing"?

  • My Name (unregistered)

    In this topic, moronic English denizens argue with moronic American denizens, whil/e|st/ the half-intelligent citizens of both sides giggle at the intercontinental pissing contest.

  • (cs) in reply to A Brit
    A Brit:
    To be honest being British, these americanisms in programming languages are very annoying. I hate having to spell colour for example, the american way without the u. C# is full of them in the System namespace such as changing all the S's to Z's (like in Globalisation)

    But mostly you're just ticked that no one in GB has been able to get a computer language into the mainstream.

  • (cs) in reply to A Brit
    A Brit:
    To be honest being British, these americanisms in programming languages are very annoying. I hate having to spell colour for example, the american way without the u. C# is full of them in the System namespace such as changing all the S's to Z's (like in Globalisation)
    Revenge: change all the 'S's to 'SZ's. When someone asks, "WTF is this?", tell them it's Hungarian notation.
  • Andrew (unregistered) in reply to FredSaw
    FredSaw:
    Pink Duck:
    The contractor ought to check into the reasoning behind his decision to use 'whilst' over 'while'. Both are derived from ancient words, 'while' is the older and 'whilst' has mainly dropped out of usage in the US. 'whilst' is usually considered more formal and literary, which is certainly not the point of code. Plus it's an extra letter to type and introduces no benefit other than to a single individual - but of course the contractor needs to maintain his belovéd creations :)
    Sounds similar to the raging will/shall controversy, which of course is enflamed by the King James zealots with their wilt/shalt controversy.

    The difference between will & shall is important legally. "I shall pay $100." is an immediate obligation. "I will pay $100 (at some undefined future time)." means I can put it off until I die.

  • Not an English Major (unregistered)

    I just want to know who's responsible for this mess -

    tough though through trough

  • Kevin Kofler (unregistered)

    "#define a=b b=a" is not accepted by current standards-compliant preprocessors, as a=b is not a valid token.

    Qt 4 actually defines forever (and foreach): http://doc.trolltech.com/4.3/containers.html#the-foreach-keyword

    As for the use of American spelling in APIs: most KDE developers are Europeans, yet one of the API cleanups in KDE 4 was that they changed all the instances of "colour" or "dialogue" in class or method names to "color" and "dialog", respectively (and most were already using the American spelling).

  • Matthew (unregistered) in reply to A Brit
    A Brit:
    To be honest being British, these americanisms in programming languages are very annoying. I hate having to spell colour for example, the american way without the u. C# is full of them in the System namespace such as changing all the S's to Z's (like in Globalisation)

    Actually, the OED says that the correct spelling is with a z

    The OED:
    Hence globalism, internationalism; globalization, the act of globalizing; globalize v. trans., to render global; so globalized ppl. adj.
  • Russ (unregistered) in reply to FredSaw
    FredSaw:
    AdT:
    FredSaw:
    Well, you guys were once the empire upon which the sun never set. What happened? Got complacent?

    They overextended themselves. It can happen to anyone. What was the name of the next country Cheney wants to invade?

    Iran. Please god, let it happen. Maybe if we get our collective ass whipped into submission we (that is, the administration) will get a clue.

    Let the record show that I drive around Dallas with a bumper sticker that says, "Save our bill of rights! www.impeachbush.org"

    Addendum (2008-01-25 09:13): Lend your support. Let's kick that asshole out. Impeach Bush

    Like that's going to happen. Why don't we just take a deep breath and wait another 11 months for him to step down. That is unless he decided to tell the public that if we don't extend the presidential term limits then the terrorists win. The general populace being the dumb scared sheep that they are just might believe him and go for it.

  • (cs) in reply to DropDeadThread
    DropDeadThread:
    whilst thee_value dominate not twenty_and_five
  procure thine data thusly
shouldst thou faileth thine task
  announce 'hear ye, hear ye!' 
return from whence you came

    Can we all take a few minutes from the US/UK bashing and focus upon this masterpiece of a post? I see a new contest on the horizon...!

  • iToad (unregistered) in reply to Outlaw Programmer
    Outlaw Programmer:
    DropDeadThread:
    whilst thee_value dominate not twenty_and_five
  procure thine data thusly
shouldst thou faileth thine task
  announce 'hear ye, hear ye!' 
return from whence you came

    Can we all take a few minutes from the US/UK bashing and focus upon this masterpiece of a post? I see a new contest on the horizon...!

    I see a new language on the horizon...

  • GrandmasterB (unregistered) in reply to DropDeadThread
    DropDeadThread:
    whilst thee_value dominate not twenty_and_five
  procure thine data thusly
shouldst thou faileth thine task
  announce 'hear ye, hear ye!' 
return from whence you came

    Greatest Post Ever.

  • (cs)

    Fine, the Real WTF is that his coworkers obviously need a lesson on their language of choice. After all it should never have taken months, or even minutes for that matter, to know that the word had been redefined.

  • (cs) in reply to DropDeadThread
    DropDeadThread:
    whilst thee_value dominate not twenty_and_five
  procure thine data thusly
shouldst thou faileth thine task
  announce 'hear ye, hear ye!' 
return from whence you came

    Simply Beautiful.

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