4 ms·

How about "Whereas", "Insofaras", "Notwithstanding", "Thetruthofthematter", or "Despiteallobjections"? Didn't try them, but these were "reserved words" in Go (a

by rob74 5y ago

How about "Whereas", "Insofaras", "Notwithstanding", "Thetruthofthematter", or "Despiteallobjections"? Didn't try them, but these were "reserved words" in Go (actually an easter egg) until 2017 (https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2489803/notwithstanding-keyword https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2489803/notwithstanding-...).

astrange 5y ago
This is the strangest parsing fact I've learned since PHP having a token named T_PAAMAYIM_NEKUDOTAYIM. (Because the parser was developed in Israel.) https://stackoverflow.com/questions/592322/php-expects-t-paamayim-nekudotayim https://stackoverflow.com/questions/592322/php-expects-t-paa...
- nonsince 5y ago
  I don’t speak hebrew but someone online said that this is an unnecessarily literal translation of "double colon" and it’s not what most developers would call it. Take that with a grain of salt though.
  - stavros 5y ago
    Oooh now I wonder if it literally means "dual intestine".
    - Pyrious 5y ago
      Nope, it's literally "twice colon" where colon is specifically the punctuation mark. פעמים נקודותיים
      - stavros 5y ago
        Ahh dreams dashed.
        CSSer 5y ago
        I thought we were talking about colons?
        raverbashing 5y ago
        Dashed? Em-dashed? Hyphenated? Or just subtracted?
        cobbal 5y ago
        U+1F4A8
  - mike_hock 5y ago
    Seems plausible since afaik the other constants were in English, so this seems to be a developer's joke.
    - neycoda 5y ago
      It was a joke, a troll really, that just gave PHP haters something else to deride the language with to people who don't know it that well.
  - pferde 5y ago
    The history of that entire fiasco is quite comprehensivly summarized at https://phil.tech/2013/wtf-is-t-paamayim-nekudotayim/ https://phil.tech/2013/wtf-is-t-paamayim-nekudotayim/ .
    - inimino 5y ago
      What a childish rant that blog post is though...
      - neycoda 5y ago
        That was a nice history lesson actually. I remember being confused at the error message, looking it up, being confused at the explanation... because I hadn't learned static calls yet. I may not have even understood classes at that point, but that was way back in the day. If PHP support has to handle the same stupid question about the meaning of a very unnecessary term that's confusing people and causing more support requests than anything else... then it made sense to change it. I'm glad I read the blog post; it clears up a LOT of thoughts I had about the error... calling it childish seems off. Maybe you had a dog in the fight at some point?
        inimino 4y ago
        > Maybe you had a dog in the fight at some point? No! But read the part where Rasmus Lerdorf "beams into" the conversation and his opinion is dismissed with "let's take a vote". I mean, if you wanted a language that wasn't intentionally designed by Rasmus Lerdorf, you kinda picked the wrong one. This is what I was referring to.
  - krageon 5y ago
    If you look it up, this token can have two names. It is indeed a double colon :)
- omnicognate 5y ago
  Widely known because the token names were surfaced to users in error messages, so some common syntax mistakes would produce deeply unhelpful "Unexpected T_PAAMAYIM_NEKUDOTAYIM" errors. Hopefully they eventually did something about it, but it was like that for years and was one of the many things that put me off PHP for life.
  - JadeNB 5y ago
    > Widely known because the token names were surfaced to users in error messages, so some common syntax mistakes would produce deeply unhelpful "Unexpected T_PAAMAYIM_NEKUDOTAYIM" errors. Hopefully they eventually did something about it, but it was like that for years and was one of the many things that put me off PHP for life. One can like or dislike PHP for a variety of reasons, but surely being put off it for life because a non-English string is exposed to the end user is a bit much.
    - chris_wot 5y ago
      No, it shows a certain sloppiness around the language. This has all been cleaned up and a lot of effort has gone into resolving most issues in PHP.
    - j0057 5y ago
      "One of the many things", so not the only thing, but a thing nonetheless.
    - omnicognate 5y ago
      As another commenter said it was "one of many things". Also, it's not the fact that it was non-English that was off-putting. It's more the fact that the T_ identifier was used, presumably via a macro. People are often defensive about PHP, but at the end of the day we choose our tools. I wrote a significant amount of PHP for a brief period and out of maybe 20 or so languages I've used professionally I found it by a wide margin the least pleasant to work with. Supposedly it has improved a lot, and I'm glad if so. But I have no desire to use it again, and am unlikely to ever have a reason to.
    - 5y ago
bradfitz 5y ago
They weren't reserved words. The lexer just discarded those tokens entirely.
- cormacrelf 5y ago
  Given the gay abandon with which people like to sprinkle them in fancy sounding sentences, perhaps this was for the best.
  - Cthulhu_ 5y ago
    whomst'd've'ly'yaint'nt'ed'ies's'y'e

by rob74 5y ago

astrange 5y ago

This is the strangest parsing fact I've learned since PHP having a token named T_PAAMAYIM_NEKUDOTAYIM. (Because the parser was developed in Israel.) https://stackoverflow.com/questions/592322/php-expects-t-paamayim-nekudotayim https://stackoverflow.com/questions/592322/php-expects-t-paa...

nonsince 5y ago
I don’t speak hebrew but someone online said that this is an unnecessarily literal translation of "double colon" and it’s not what most developers would call it. Take that with a grain of salt though.
- stavros 5y ago
  Oooh now I wonder if it literally means "dual intestine".
  - Pyrious 5y ago
    Nope, it's literally "twice colon" where colon is specifically the punctuation mark. פעמים נקודותיים
    - stavros 5y ago
      Ahh dreams dashed.
      - CSSer 5y ago
        I thought we were talking about colons?
      - raverbashing 5y ago
        Dashed? Em-dashed? Hyphenated? Or just subtracted?
        cobbal 5y ago
        U+1F4A8
- mike_hock 5y ago
  Seems plausible since afaik the other constants were in English, so this seems to be a developer's joke.
  - neycoda 5y ago
    It was a joke, a troll really, that just gave PHP haters something else to deride the language with to people who don't know it that well.
- pferde 5y ago
  The history of that entire fiasco is quite comprehensivly summarized at https://phil.tech/2013/wtf-is-t-paamayim-nekudotayim/ https://phil.tech/2013/wtf-is-t-paamayim-nekudotayim/ .
  - inimino 5y ago
    What a childish rant that blog post is though...
    - neycoda 5y ago
      That was a nice history lesson actually. I remember being confused at the error message, looking it up, being confused at the explanation... because I hadn't learned static calls yet. I may not have even understood classes at that point, but that was way back in the day. If PHP support has to handle the same stupid question about the meaning of a very unnecessary term that's confusing people and causing more support requests than anything else... then it made sense to change it. I'm glad I read the blog post; it clears up a LOT of thoughts I had about the error... calling it childish seems off. Maybe you had a dog in the fight at some point?
      - inimino 4y ago
        > Maybe you had a dog in the fight at some point? No! But read the part where Rasmus Lerdorf "beams into" the conversation and his opinion is dismissed with "let's take a vote". I mean, if you wanted a language that wasn't intentionally designed by Rasmus Lerdorf, you kinda picked the wrong one. This is what I was referring to.
- krageon 5y ago
  If you look it up, this token can have two names. It is indeed a double colon :)
omnicognate 5y ago
Widely known because the token names were surfaced to users in error messages, so some common syntax mistakes would produce deeply unhelpful "Unexpected T_PAAMAYIM_NEKUDOTAYIM" errors. Hopefully they eventually did something about it, but it was like that for years and was one of the many things that put me off PHP for life.
- JadeNB 5y ago
  > Widely known because the token names were surfaced to users in error messages, so some common syntax mistakes would produce deeply unhelpful "Unexpected T_PAAMAYIM_NEKUDOTAYIM" errors. Hopefully they eventually did something about it, but it was like that for years and was one of the many things that put me off PHP for life. One can like or dislike PHP for a variety of reasons, but surely being put off it for life because a non-English string is exposed to the end user is a bit much.
  - chris_wot 5y ago
    No, it shows a certain sloppiness around the language. This has all been cleaned up and a lot of effort has gone into resolving most issues in PHP.
  - j0057 5y ago
    "One of the many things", so not the only thing, but a thing nonetheless.
  - omnicognate 5y ago
    As another commenter said it was "one of many things". Also, it's not the fact that it was non-English that was off-putting. It's more the fact that the T_ identifier was used, presumably via a macro. People are often defensive about PHP, but at the end of the day we choose our tools. I wrote a significant amount of PHP for a brief period and out of maybe 20 or so languages I've used professionally I found it by a wide margin the least pleasant to work with. Supposedly it has improved a lot, and I'm glad if so. But I have no desire to use it again, and am unlikely to ever have a reason to.
  - 5y ago

bradfitz 5y ago

They weren't reserved words. The lexer just discarded those tokens entirely.

cormacrelf 5y ago
Given the gay abandon with which people like to sprinkle them in fancy sounding sentences, perhaps this was for the best.
- Cthulhu_ 5y ago
  whomst'd've'ly'yaint'nt'ed'ies's'y'e