• (cs) in reply to FredSaw
    FredSaw:
    Xaox:
    I've always liked "ess-cue-ell", here's why:

    CFO - "$accountingSystemVendor says we need a 'MS-sequal' server. Why do we need another server if we already have one?"

    How does saying "ess cue ell" change the CFO's understanding of the word "server"?

    It doesn't. The joke is that the CFO heard "SQL" as the word "sequel", and (fairly logically) thought that a "sequel server" was an additional server related to one the company already had, by analogy with a sequel to a novel or a film. If "SQL" had been spelled out instead of pronounced as "sequel", this blunder would not have occurred.

  • Nada (unregistered) in reply to SnapShot

    It's pronounced "C Sharp", the pronunciation is derived from music terminology where # indicates the note is to be played sharp rather than on key or flat.

  • russ (unregistered) in reply to SnapShot

    it's c++++ :)

  • Josh (unregistered) in reply to Moo

    Actually, it's B Flat.

    C Sharp is half an octave higher than C. B is a full octave higher than C. B Flat is half an octave lower than B, which just happens to be equal to C#.

    So, C-Sharp is B Flat.

  • Anon (unregistered)

    The real WTF is the number of "it's c tic-tac-toe" posts. It wasn't funny the first time and it isn't funny after the tenth time either.

  • (cs) in reply to Someone You Know
    Someone You Know:
    FredSaw:
    Xaox:
    I've always liked "ess-cue-ell", here's why:

    CFO - "$accountingSystemVendor says we need a 'MS-sequal' server. Why do we need another server if we already have one?"

    How does saying "ess cue ell" change the CFO's understanding of the word "server"?

    It doesn't. The joke is that the CFO heard "SQL" as the word "sequel", and (fairly logically) thought that a "sequel server" was an additional server related to one the company already had, by analogy with a sequel to a novel or a film. If "SQL" had been spelled out instead of pronounced as "sequel", this blunder would not have occurred.

    Why? That was my original question... why would it not have occurred? He heard "sequel server" and thought it meant another computer. My question: why would he not have thought the same thing when he heard "ess cue ell server"? If he doesn't know what "MS Sequel Server" is, then he doesn't know what "MS Ess Cue Ell Server" is, either.

    Addendum (2008-03-06 12:57): Cancel that... I just got it. "Sequel" as in, a followup to the one they already have. Sorry, maybe I need another cuppa.

  • (cs) in reply to Josh
    Josh:
    C Sharp is half an octave higher than C. B is a full octave higher than C.
    Silly me, imagining that C is a full octave above C.
  • dave (unregistered)

    Hmmm. is it ess cue el or see quel?

  • DiverKas (unregistered)

    Bleh.. you guys are all wrong...

    Its C-Matrix. It only caught on as a language since the movie ;-}

  • Matthew Wakeling (unregistered) in reply to SnapShot
    SnapShot:
    So which is it, C Sharp, C pound, C hash, C number sign or C octothorp?

    Come on, do your research. The Register did an in-depth study on this very subject, and determined that it should in fact be "C Splat".

    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2002/07/04/why_microsoft_makes_a_complete/

  • - (unregistered) in reply to SnapShot
    SnapShot:
    So which is it, C Sharp, C pound, C hash, C number sign or C octothorp?

    are you retarded?

  • Fernando (unregistered) in reply to J

    Well... I have no idea who taugh you spanish, but where I live

    Gato == Cat and tictactoe == 'Tres en raya'

    http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tres_en_raya

    Nice history... A bit sad, but still nice.

    It explains why this site has so many articles.

  • mister (unregistered) in reply to SnapShot

    In english, it's C shift-3. In spanish, C altGr-3.

  • zolf (unregistered) in reply to SnapShot
    SnapShot:
    So which is it, C Sharp, C pound, C hash, C number sign or C octothorp?

    Number C

  • mister (unregistered) in reply to Fernando
    Fernando:
    Well... I have no idea who taugh you spanish, but where I live

    Gato == Cat and tictactoe == 'Tres en raya'

    http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tres_en_raya

    From that same page, first paragraph: "also known as 'the cat game'". On my country (Chile) it's called "Gato". On Argentina, I think it's called 'ta-te-ti'.

  • my name is missing (unregistered)

    C you later!

  • RK (unregistered) in reply to SnapShot

    [quote user=SnapShot]So which is it, C Sharp, C pound, C hash, C number sign or C octothorp?[/quote]

    Octothorp for certain...

  • James R. Twine (unregistered)

    Well, MS calls it "See-Sharp," and developers that use it call it See-Sharp. But since it is usually written with a hash/pound/octothorpe (#) instead of a real sharp symbol (♯ - use &#9839 in HTML), I think we should call it as written.

    Using the word octothorpe for the "#" symbol, it becomes C-octothorpe, pronounced as COCKTOTHORPE!

    Just a little venting, nothing to see here...

    • In case you cannot see the differences, a hash/pound/octothorpe symbol has angled vertical lines and straight horizontal lines, while a sharp symbol has straight vertical lines and angled horizontal lines.
  • MA (unregistered) in reply to J
    J:
    Maybe in spanish... C-Gato (Gato = Tictactoe)

    Where I live in Spansih it would be C-Michi (Michi = Tictactoe)

  • ZakuSupporter (unregistered)

    There's a lot of misinformation here, but thats understandable as its all due to the internationalisation of .NET

    C-pound is used by the UK C-yen is used by Japan C-franc is used by the Swiss C-lira by the italians Only the US uses C-sharp because C-dollar was taken by the canadians

  • (cs) in reply to James R. Twine
    James R. Twine:
    * In case you cannot see the differences, a hash/pound/octothorpe symbol has angled vertical lines and straight horizontal lines, while a sharp symbol has straight vertical lines and angled horizontal lines.
    Man, I thought the grammar nazis were anal. That gives us some perspective.
  • Jeff (unregistered) in reply to SnapShot

    C octothorp?

    I am now using that in all my C# conversations

  • (cs) in reply to Smeghead
    Smeghead:
    In UK that would be C-Hash ;)

    Why not C-marijuana then?

    Anyway, its C-equals sign-equals sign.

  • Mathieu C (unregistered) in reply to SnapShot
    SnapShot:
    So which is it, C Sharp, C pound, C hash, C number sign or C octothorp?

    It's obviously C tic-tac-toe

  • (cs)

    Back in the 80s I worked for an office of General Motors in New York City. Due to reorganization, some employees' positions were eliminated, but rather than lay them off, GM decided to train them as PL1 programmers. Mind you, none of these people were at all technically savvy.

    I'll never forget one woman, a former clerk and not the sharpest tool in the shed, who was trying to work her way through the training exercises. One exercise came with a test input file with 50 records. The program was simply supposed to read in the file and output some sort of report.

    She coded away for several days, with the scent of overworking brain cells lingering in the stuffy office air.

    Finally she asked, "What do I do if the input file has more than 50 records?"

    We looked at her code. Turned out there were 50 read statements, 50 write statements ... you get the picture.

  • (cs) in reply to Pope
    Pope:
    ...snip... But, we needed people. Our company was growing at a rate that we couldn't sustain and the answer was to put more people in the mix. ...snip...

    I have always wondered about being in a situation like that. Would it be possible, since your productivity is being decimated by all the hand holding, to go in and tell your boss something along the lines of, "Hey, if you fire 2 people that we have recently hired, I will take over all their responsibilities if you pay me 3x my salary." Of course, you would need free time, but it seems like it's feasible from a work load standpoint if they aren't doing anything. Maybe do it for a year, save up a bunch of money and then quit for a job that doesn't take 80 hours a week. Would this work? Has anybody ever tried doing it?

  • (cs) in reply to Josh
    Josh:
    Actually, it's B Flat.

    C Sharp is half an octave higher than C. B is a full octave higher than C. B Flat is half an octave lower than B, which just happens to be equal to C#.

    So, C-Sharp is B Flat.

    You have an octave and a step confused.

    An octave is 12 half-steps: C C# D D# E F F# G G# A A# B C (alternately, if you like your flat accidentals) C Db D Eb E F Gb G Ab A Bb B C

    Half an octave is 6 steps, an interval known for sounding really dissonant to a listener (yay diminished chords).

    C# is a half-step higher than C. B is a half-step lower than C. Bb is half-step lower than B. C# is three half-steps higher than Bb.

    Therefore your post makes no sense.

    (Unless you're not using the full 12-step western music scale, in which case you're still not making any sense because you didn't present the scale you are using.)

  • john (unregistered) in reply to Jim

    "Programming is programming. As long as the person knows how to code, picking up new languages is pretty simple." = bullshit. i rejected someone last week for saying approximately the same thing. if you/he think you/he can become a useful java programmer when all you know is VB programming, you/he are crazed.

  • IvyMike (unregistered)

    I haven't read the other comments, but I presume I will be the first to hilariously suggest that it is "C Tic-Tac-Toe", which is a completely original joke of my own devising.

  • Jon (unregistered) in reply to SnapShot
    SnapShot:
    So which is it, C Sharp, C pound, C hash, C number sign or C octothorp?
    It's C-Tic-Tac-Toe-Board
  • (cs) in reply to themagni
    themagni:
    SnapShot:
    So which is it, C Sharp, C pound, C hash, C number sign or C octothorp?

    I call it D flat.

    You bastard. shakes fist

  • nat42 (unregistered)

    What's in a name? That which we call code by any other name doth still compile; So C-Splatt should, Twere it said sharp, would still remain that bloody MS construction. Without that symbol: C-Splatt, doff thy name; And for that name, which seems so ill conceived, I call WTF!

  • (cs) in reply to AMerrickanGirl
    AMerrickanGirl:
    We looked at her code. Turned out there were 50 read statements, 50 write statements ... you get the picture.
    Here we go loop de loop...
  • Troy McClure (unregistered) in reply to James Bender
    James Bender:
    OK, I'm calling BS on this one.

    This one is actually believable to me. I've worked with people who supposedly had 15+ years of Oracle experience who were asking me (I have MUCH less than 15+ years) very rudimentary questions. Things you would have learned in your first sql class. How they got hired I dont know - but we needed someone to pick up some extra work and magically they appeared.

    Lucikly in our case it didn't take long for them to be discovered and rolled off our account - but more than likely right onto another account who had no clue what a waste of space they were getting.

  • mr.Y (unregistered)

    Wow. An executive with that ammount of human compassion is a rare species. I think I have a pretty good idea why. They just have a tendency for becoming extinct. Together with their whole departments :)

  • morry (unregistered) in reply to SnapShot

    I prefer C tic-tac-toe

  • (cs) in reply to john
    john:
    "Programming is programming. As long as the person knows how to code, picking up new languages is pretty simple." = bullshit. i rejected someone last week for saying approximately the same thing. if you/he think you/he can become a useful java programmer when all you know is VB programming, you/he are crazed.

    Are you saying that an understanding of theory and basic logical constructs are useless against the way different language form those constructs?

    Tell me, how hard is it to go from: If x = 3 Then do something End If to this: if(x==3) { do something; }

    Doesn't seem to hard to me. The theory and logical construct is the exact same and they are used the exact same way for the exact same reasons. The only different is the syntax. To take this further, if you are a poor developer in one language, you will be a poor developer in any language.

  • ChiefCrazyTalk (unregistered) in reply to Haditinspades
    Haditinspades:
    Had a nearly identical experience, except I wasn't asked to sit in on the interview; the new body just suddenly appeared one day. After six months of attempting to explain daily such things as how to navigate the Windows desktop and how to check code in and out of source control, I surrendered and emailed my resignation.

    That's the REAL WTF - you shouldn't have resigned, he should have been fired.

  • CorXy (unregistered)

    C Sphincter

    Also, if you look closely at "#", it kind of looks like a little Abraham Lincoln with his top hat and his arms outstretched.

    Don't judge me.

  • PotataChipz (unregistered) in reply to Josh
    Josh:
    Actually, it's B Flat.

    C Sharp is half an octave higher than C. B is a full octave higher than C. B Flat is half an octave lower than B, which just happens to be equal to C#.

    So, C-Sharp is B Flat.

    How is C sharp an octave higher than C? Isn't that a half-step higher? And since when is a B higher than a C, unless you've gone an octave (i.e., eight steps) higher?

    I mean, I played the violin in middle school. I could very well be wrong. But... what?

  • (cs) in reply to SnapShot

    It's not called any of the above. It is C railroad crossing.

    If it were C sharp, would it be C sharp major or C sharp minor (or even another mode)? Not many works have been written in C sharp major (except a prelude or etude here and there), but C sharp minor is the key of a few (word punt alert) major works: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C-sharp_minor

  • (cs) in reply to john
    john:
    if you/he think you/he can become a useful java programmer when all you know is VB programming, you/he are crazed.

    Yeah, I mean, how crazy are you to think having any sort of fundamentals could possibly help? Don't you know java programmers come out of the womb that way!? Oh, they don't? Well then, I guess you need to just go erase your brain of the VB madness before you ever expect to do anything Java.

    john, you are an idiot.

  • (cs) in reply to McGuffin
    McGuffin:
    But did he say "see-kwal" or "ess-cue-ell"?

    What's wrong with "skwil"?

  • (cs)

    It's C Portcullis: Defending the castle Gates.

  • Franz Kafka (unregistered) in reply to SnapShot
    SnapShot:
    So which is it, C Sharp, C pound, C hash, C number sign or C octothorp?

    D flat :)

  • test (unregistered)

    C♯произносится как «Си-диез»?

  • unum (unregistered) in reply to SnapShot

    It's D flat. Ask any linux guy.

  • Franz Kafka (unregistered) in reply to FredSaw
    FredSaw:
    Someone You Know:
    FredSaw:
    Xaox:
    I've always liked "ess-cue-ell", here's why:

    CFO - "$accountingSystemVendor says we need a 'MS-sequal' server. Why do we need another server if we already have one?"

    How does saying "ess cue ell" change the CFO's understanding of the word "server"?

    It doesn't. The joke is that the CFO heard "SQL" as the word "sequel", and (fairly logically) thought that a "sequel server" was an additional server related to one the company already had, by analogy with a sequel to a novel or a film. If "SQL" had been spelled out instead of pronounced as "sequel", this blunder would not have occurred.

    Why? That was my original question... why would it not have occurred? He heard "sequel server" and thought it meant another computer. My question: why would he not have thought the same thing when he heard "ess cue ell server"? If he doesn't know what "MS Sequel Server" is, then he doesn't know what "MS Ess Cue Ell Server" is, either.

    Addendum (2008-03-06 12:57): Cancel that... I just got it. "Sequel" as in, a followup to the one they already have. Sorry, maybe I need another cuppa.

    The bigger question is this: shouldn't a CFO know what SQL server is?

  • glwtta (unregistered)

    If some tool expected me to write trivial SQL in an interview, I would walk out right there.

    I'm there to be interviewed about my experience, not to do tricks on command.

  • (cs) in reply to glwtta
    glwtta:
    If some tool expected me to write trivial SQL in an interview, I would walk out right there.

    I'm there to be interviewed about my experience, not to do tricks on command.

    So you don't expect to demonstrate your claim of expertise even with a simple task? Sorry if you can't demonstrate it (like this guy couldn't) why should you be hired?

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