From DAJ@prime-a.tees-poly.ac.uk Fri Jan 24 10:44:29 1992 Received: from eros.uknet.ac.uk by dkuug.dk via EUnet with SMTP (5.64+/8+bit/IDA-1.2.8) id AA21250; Fri, 24 Jan 92 10:44:29 +0100 Message-Id: <9201240944.AA21250@dkuug.dk> Received: from tees-poly.ac.uk by eros.uknet.ac.uk via JANET with NIFTP (PP) id <3064-0@eros.uknet.ac.uk>; Fri, 24 Jan 1992 09:43:56 +0000 Date: Fri, 24 Jan 92 09:45:17 BST From: DAJ@prime-a.tees-poly.ac.uk To: i18n@dkuug.dk Subject: HERALDS ETC X-Charset: ASCII X-Char-Esc: 29 To: Alain LaBont/e From: David Joslin January 24, 1992 + WG20 + i18n >:(d) const herald = '$'; (ALB's note: $ represents the BEL character) ******************************************** No, it doesn't, at least not in my program. I was using "herald" in the sense of "to herald" is "to announce", one of the tasks of a medieval herald. For example, many compilers have directives starting with '$' (or '@', or whatever) - the '$' "heralds" the start of a compiler directive (as opposed to a piece of ordinary source text). I was using the name to describe the FUNCTION of the character, not to describe the character itself. The purpose of this "const" statement is to assign a value ('$') to this functional name. Seeing the misunderstanding caused, I agree that it might not be a good name to use in a program which would have to be maintained by a non-native English speaker! But then that is the general problem of choosing meaningful identifiers - they are inevitably "meaningful" only in the programmer's native (human) language! >Of course, this is standard programming technique. But Herald to me is not >clearer (the example you chose is good, I know this is the name of an English >newspaper but I had to look in a dictionary to see what it really meant, don't Actually the "Daily Herald" newspaper has been dead a long time (the 50s, I think). It was the only national newspaper to support the British "Labour" (sort of Socialist) party. I believe it was transformed into Rupert Murdoch's "Sun", a much more interesting paper (tabloid, naked ladies on page 3 - hence the expression "Page 3 Girl", etc) - the old "Herald" was dull and dreary. (The "Sun" changed its political support also, and now the "Daily Mirror" has taken on the role of supporting the Labour party.) >laugh (-:), but that's OK because an Englishman will maintain it. It is OK as >long as I am not precluded to use mnemonics that are meaningful in my mother As I hope I've explained now, "herald" was not meant to be a mnemonic for '$' (or BEL), but a description of the function of the character. >tongue. So inside a private program this name is OK but a naming convention >outside of programs must be more universal and needs to be efficient (short - >it's for computers as well as for humans) and natural-language-independent. I totally agree. I just wish there were some shorter, simpler names than those used in the various ISO standards - e.g "e-acute" for "small Latin letter e with acute accent". However I realise that the standards have to sacrifice conciseness, for the sake of precision. Regards, daj