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I have to comment on this, even though it's almost completely irrelevant to the blog post. I saw "do_sth" so I wanted to check where the writer was from. German
by jordigh 9y ago
I have to comment on this, even though it's almost completely irrelevant to the blog post. I saw "do_sth" so I wanted to check where the writer was from. Germany. Aha. :-)
I love how reliably abbreviating "something" (e.g. "sth", "smth" or "sthg") indicates that the person isn't from an English-speaking country. I wonder why this abbreviation has never caught on in English-speaking countries. I think the abbreviations got popularised in non-English-speaking countries by English dictionaries.
I think the more common idiomatic "abbreviation" would be "do_stuff" when you don't want to type out or say "something".
- nscalf 9y agoI'm sure it's not valid across the board, but most of the internet shortenings that we use in english are acronyms---lol, stfu, wtf, rofl, hbu, asl, etc. I'm actually having a hard time thinking of some common abbreviations. I guess "func" short for "function" is a common example.
- dyarosla 9y agoProgramming has plenty of common abbreviations: obj, str, char, btn
- Jach 9y agoPlus old programmers had to pay a heavy vowel tax so many, even unnecessary, abbreviations stick with us. I worked with an older guy on a game once, "extern struct CollisionManager g_clisn_mngr" is an example of the sort of things we did...
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- kobeya 9y agoBecause as you point out yourself, there really is no need for that abbreviation. You could say "do_stuff" and it would have approximately the same meaning, but not be an undecipherable, ambiguous abbreviation.
- stingraycharles 9y agoYes, but it's not the only occasion it's being used. "That must be a bug or sth" is another possibility, for example.
- santaclaus 9y agoI'm partial to usw
- tannhaeuser 9y agoSimilarly OT, a pet peeve of mine is how Germans and others consistently pronounce (the eg. SQL datatype) VARCHAR as var-CHAIR or sometimes var-CZAR (war czar, warczaw) when they pronounce CHAR/CHR correctly.
- anonymouz 9y agoOut of interest, what do you consider to be the correct pronunciation of CHAR? There seems to be considerable variation in how people pronounce it (see e.g. [1,2]). Personally I have always used the '/tʃɑr/' one, and similar for VARCHAR. [1] https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/60154/how-to-pronounce-the-programmers-abbreviation-char https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/60154/how-to-pro... [2] http://www.stroustrup.com/bs_faq2.html#char http://www.stroustrup.com/bs_faq2.html#char
- tannhaeuser 9y agoAs in "character" for which CHAR and VARCHAR are abbreviations? Disclaimer: not an English native speaker
- jsolson 9y agoWe're going with VAR-care and care as correct pronunciations of both, right? Asked as a native US English speaker.
- w8rbt 9y agoI've never heard it pronounced that way, although 'care' is how the first syllable in the word 'character' is pronounced. I've always heard it pronounced var char (the parts rhyme). Char is pronounced like when you burn/blacken a steak. "Char-grilled food is cooked over or under direct heat so that its surface becomes slightly black"
- Keyframe 9y agoLogic dictates it should be pronounced as char-acter, but my brain brings out char-coal always.
- japano1se 9y agoFunny you should say that. I'm from an English-speaking country and I use "sth" a lot.
- gjm11 9y agoI'm a native anglophone living in the UK. I abbreviate "something" as "sthg" sometimes. I wouldn't do it in a function/variable/method/class/... name, but then I don't think I'd use "something" as part of such a name in the first place in anything I wasn't very confident would only ever be throwaway code.
- jordigh 9y agoGiven the timestamps of the two English respondents in favour of "sth", I am tempted to amend my hypothesis to say it's a European thing, and more predominant in continental Europe.