4 ms·

A misplaced punctuation has some plausible deniability. Like the author could say he was distracted and fat fingered nonsense, honest mistake. A utf character

A misplaced punctuation has some plausible deniability. Like the author could say he was distracted and fat fingered nonsense, honest mistake. A utf character from a language that has zero chance of being mapped to your programmer's keyboard in the middle of a code line, that would be obvious intentional tampering or at the very least raise some eyebrows.

yeputons 3y ago
> A utf character from a language that has zero chance of being mapped to your programmer's keyboard in the middle of a code line, that would be obvious intentional tampering or at the very least raise some eyebrows. I accidentally get Cyrillic "с" in my code few times a year. It's on the same key as Latin "c", so if I switch keyboard layout, I don't notice until the compiler warns me. Easy to do if I switch between chats and coding. Now my habit is to always type a few characters in addition to "c" to check what layout I'm _really_ using. Granted, it's easier with a one-letter variable called "c", but with longer names I can easily see myself not typing "c" the first time (e.g. not pressing hard enough), starting build, chatting in some windows, getting back, facepalming, "fixing" the error by adding "c" or "с" depending on my keyboard layout.
- Bulat_Ziganshin 3y ago
  even worse, I have Punto switcher that automatically switches language when I start typing. With default config, it changes latin c to russian one because russian language includes word "c" while it's non-sense in English. and since it's the only Cyrillic character that's placed on the same key as the same-looking english character, I don't even see the problem with my eyes when the autoreplacement fires
skywhopper 3y ago
I mean, I agree that the punctuation mishap is a better cover story, but why would any particular language have “zero chance” of being mapped to the programmer’s keyboard?
- deanishe 3y ago
  > why would any particular language have “zero chance” of being mapped to the programmer’s keyboard? You left out a very important qualifier: in the middle of a code line The chances of someone accidentally fat-fingering a keyboard layout switch, typing one character, then switching back again without noticing while typing a line of code are very slight indeed. Plus the fact that you'd need to speak a language written in that alphabet to have a plausible reason for having the keyboard layout enabled in the first place.

yeputons 3y ago

> A utf character from a language that has zero chance of being mapped to your programmer's keyboard in the middle of a code line, that would be obvious intentional tampering or at the very least raise some eyebrows. I accidentally get Cyrillic "с" in my code few times a year. It's on the same key as Latin "c", so if I switch keyboard layout, I don't notice until the compiler warns me. Easy to do if I switch between chats and coding. Now my habit is to always type a few characters in addition to "c" to check what layout I'm _really_ using. Granted, it's easier with a one-letter variable called "c", but with longer names I can easily see myself not typing "c" the first time (e.g. not pressing hard enough), starting build, chatting in some windows, getting back, facepalming, "fixing" the error by adding "c" or "с" depending on my keyboard layout.

Bulat_Ziganshin 3y ago
even worse, I have Punto switcher that automatically switches language when I start typing. With default config, it changes latin c to russian one because russian language includes word "c" while it's non-sense in English. and since it's the only Cyrillic character that's placed on the same key as the same-looking english character, I don't even see the problem with my eyes when the autoreplacement fires

skywhopper 3y ago

I mean, I agree that the punctuation mishap is a better cover story, but why would any particular language have “zero chance” of being mapped to the programmer’s keyboard?

deanishe 3y ago
> why would any particular language have “zero chance” of being mapped to the programmer’s keyboard? You left out a very important qualifier: in the middle of a code line The chances of someone accidentally fat-fingering a keyboard layout switch, typing one character, then switching back again without noticing while typing a line of code are very slight indeed. Plus the fact that you'd need to speak a language written in that alphabet to have a plausible reason for having the keyboard layout enabled in the first place.