4 ms·

When was your day? Emoticons have been used in terminals since 1982

account42 1y ago
Emoticons are not the same as emojis. For one they allow for more expression or personal style by having different variants, e.g. :-) vs :) or for absolute maniacs: (: They are also not limited to what some consortium and a couple of megacorporations think you should be able to express.
- oneeyedpigeon 1y ago
  They also lack semantics. There are downsides as well as up.
  - account42 1y ago
    Usage rather than specifications determine semantics and due to the points in my previous post those often disagree for Unicode emojis.
    - oneeyedpigeon 1y ago
      I'm glad you recognise the value of usage when it comes to emoticons vs. emoji...
  - arccy 1y ago
    emoji lack clear semantics too, consider the eggplant.
    - oneeyedpigeon 1y ago
      I think there's a difference. The code point will always mean "eggplant", it just happens that the concept can be interpreted in different ways according to context—just like the word itself. But ":-)" can only ever mean "colon minus rparens" before further interpretation.
      - skydhash 1y ago
        What’s it called is syntax, what it’s means is always context dependent. That’s why we invented formal notation, so that we can have context free interpretation (it’s bundled with its semantic so you don’t need to apply some context to it)
      - account42 1y ago
        Actually, according to Unicode, "-" doesn't mean minus - U+002D is hyphen-minus. And as for the eggplant, your semantics-as-specified are useless when 99.9% of the usage has a different intended meaning due to the inherent lack of expressiveness in a corporate-approved emoji language.
  - layer8 1y ago
    Emojis also severely lack semantics. They are specified in terms of what they should visually depict, not what they are supposed to mean.
- thaumasiotes 1y ago
  > or for absolute maniacs: (: To be fair, Unicode allows for that variant too: https://emojipedia.org/upside-down-face https://emojipedia.org/upside-down-face
- jiggawatts 1y ago
  Agreed, but Unicode allows me to express the emotion that I most commonly feel when working in the IT industry: disapproval. ಠ_ಠ
  - account42 1y ago
    Yes and that's still an emoticon made from creative use of pre-existing characters rather than an emoji specified in Unicode.

Emoticons are not the same as emojis. For one they allow for more expression or personal style by having different variants, e.g. :-) vs :) or for absolute maniacs: (: They are also not limited to what some consortium and a couple of megacorporations think you should be able to express.

oneeyedpigeon 1y ago
They also lack semantics. There are downsides as well as up.
- account42 1y ago
  Usage rather than specifications determine semantics and due to the points in my previous post those often disagree for Unicode emojis.
  - oneeyedpigeon 1y ago
    I'm glad you recognise the value of usage when it comes to emoticons vs. emoji...
- arccy 1y ago
  emoji lack clear semantics too, consider the eggplant.
  - oneeyedpigeon 1y ago
    I think there's a difference. The code point will always mean "eggplant", it just happens that the concept can be interpreted in different ways according to context—just like the word itself. But ":-)" can only ever mean "colon minus rparens" before further interpretation.
    - skydhash 1y ago
      What’s it called is syntax, what it’s means is always context dependent. That’s why we invented formal notation, so that we can have context free interpretation (it’s bundled with its semantic so you don’t need to apply some context to it)
    - account42 1y ago
      Actually, according to Unicode, "-" doesn't mean minus - U+002D is hyphen-minus. And as for the eggplant, your semantics-as-specified are useless when 99.9% of the usage has a different intended meaning due to the inherent lack of expressiveness in a corporate-approved emoji language.
- layer8 1y ago
  Emojis also severely lack semantics. They are specified in terms of what they should visually depict, not what they are supposed to mean.
thaumasiotes 1y ago
> or for absolute maniacs: (: To be fair, Unicode allows for that variant too: https://emojipedia.org/upside-down-face https://emojipedia.org/upside-down-face
jiggawatts 1y ago
Agreed, but Unicode allows me to express the emotion that I most commonly feel when working in the IT industry: disapproval. ಠ_ಠ
- account42 1y ago
  Yes and that's still an emoticon made from creative use of pre-existing characters rather than an emoji specified in Unicode.