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A somewhat related thing I've had on my mind: I remember at my Dutch university we would get intro to programming courses in Java. We would often discuss thing
by Phemist 7y ago
A somewhat related thing I've had on my mind:
I remember at my Dutch university we would get intro to programming courses in Java. We would often discuss things in Dutch, but found it awkward to talk about `null` (the "pointer") and `0` (the integer, which in Dutch is "nul").
In fact, I remember a distinct bug that happened from informal communication of an API. The conversation went (in Dutch):
Student 1 - "What does Function A return if the input is invalid?"
Student 2 - "Nul"
Student 1 - "Null?"
Student 2 - "Yes".
And the program went on to crash on a divide-by-zero exception, because it ended up only checking the return value for Null, rather than 0.
We ended up saying "null" as "naL", with heavy emphasis on the L and kept 0 as "nul", to somewhat mitigate these problems. The awkwardness never really went away.
I wonder if Guido van Rossum when designing Python intentionally bypassed this issue by naming the null pointer "None". This is the only language I know of that uses None, some use "nil" AFAIK, but the language issue (in Dutch) is not avoided in these cases.
I also wonder if other non-native English speakers who wrote English-based programming languages have applied similar considerations to avoid possible confusion between the native language of the speaker and English.
- taejo 7y ago> This is the only language I know of that uses None In the ML family the empty alternative of the `Option` type is called `None`; in Haskell corresponding `Maybe` type has `Nothing`.
- Phemist 7y agoCool! Good to know. I don't think None is totally problem free either, as it is easy to confuse with `NaN`. `Nothing` definitely bypasses all the mentioned issues and seems like a better choice.
- aasasd 7y agoAckchually, the proper pronunciation for English ‘null’ is supposedly /nʌl/: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/null https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/null
- Phemist 7y agoInteresting, that we gravitated towards a similar pronunciation due to a conflict in the beforementioned terms. It's unfortunate that proper English pronunciation does not always cross the North Sea :P. There are actually plenty of words in English that I have only written and read, and have never heard or spoken out loud... and I consider myself a decent speaker of English.
- aasasd 7y agoOh boy. If you want a bag full of surprises, take up listening to audiobooks in English.
- Symbiote 7y ago> There are actually plenty of words in English that I have only written and read, and have never heard or spoken out loud … and I'm a well-educated native speaker. English proudly possesses a prodigious panoply¹ of… um… phrase particles. ¹ I have never heard this word spoken.
- Phemist 7y agoHah, even simple words can be confusing. My English friends seem to end the word `idea` with a, to my ears, clearly audible `r`, but look at me funny when I mention it to them. Whereas my American friends seem to pronounce it in a more straightforward way.. I also love listening to people speak the "pronunciation poem" out loud. It's very interesting to hear how the pronunciation of each second word is changed, just to make it rhyme with the first (mispronounced) word. https://www.learnenglish.de/pronunciation/pronunciationpoem.html https://www.learnenglish.de/pronunciation/pronunciationpoem....