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Funny variable names

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  • L Lost User

    One of my previous companies came very close to releasing a product for installing software updates, whose acronym was COMIC! You can imagine the expressions on the faces of the European/UK teams when we first saw the announcement.

    Just say 'NO' to evaluated arguments for diadic functions! Ash

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    David Crow
    wrote on last edited by
    #12

    Does COMIC mean something different in European/UK areas? :confused:

    "One man's wage rise is another man's price increase." - Harold Wilson

    "Fireproof doesn't mean the fire will never come. It means when the fire comes that you will be able to withstand it." - Michael Simmons

    "Man who follows car will be exhausted." - Confucius

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    • W wizardzz

      It just happened to me now. Following a legacy naming convention my class had an object named pipTable, then I added feedTable, and now poolTable. I know it's not really funny, but when I'm coding and see variable names form something meaningful, it makes me :). I know this has happened to me many times before, occasionally causing me to reconsider the convention when the name becomes R or even X rated. Does anyone else have any examples or funny stories to add?

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      Pete OHanlon
      wrote on last edited by
      #13

      Not exactly funny, but I knew a developer who named a SocketException variable sex.

      I have CDO, it's OCD with the letters in the right order; just as they ruddy well should be

      Forgive your enemies - it messes with their heads

      My blog | My articles | MoXAML PowerToys | Onyx

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      • W wizardzz

        It just happened to me now. Following a legacy naming convention my class had an object named pipTable, then I added feedTable, and now poolTable. I know it's not really funny, but when I'm coding and see variable names form something meaningful, it makes me :). I know this has happened to me many times before, occasionally causing me to reconsider the convention when the name becomes R or even X rated. Does anyone else have any examples or funny stories to add?

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        Lost User
        wrote on last edited by
        #14

        A financial instrument called a spread has many legs. In c++ the std::vector class has a method called push_back spread.legs.push_back(...) always cracks me up

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        • L Lost User

          A financial instrument called a spread has many legs. In c++ the std::vector class has a method called push_back spread.legs.push_back(...) always cracks me up

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          Roger Wright
          wrote on last edited by
          #15

          :laugh: :laugh: Are we talking Bulls and Bears, or are there sheep involved?

          Will Rogers never met me.

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          • D David Crow

            Does COMIC mean something different in European/UK areas? :confused:

            "One man's wage rise is another man's price increase." - Harold Wilson

            "Fireproof doesn't mean the fire will never come. It means when the fire comes that you will be able to withstand it." - Michael Simmons

            "Man who follows car will be exhausted." - Confucius

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            L Offline
            Lost User
            wrote on last edited by
            #16

            COMIC is: a person who tells jokes, aka comedian. a child (or adult)'s magazine containing strip cartoons something that is supposed to be serious but makes people laugh inadvertently so a piece of software called COMIC is asking for trouble.

            Just say 'NO' to evaluated arguments for diadic functions! Ash

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            • R Roger Wright

              :laugh: :laugh: Are we talking Bulls and Bears, or are there sheep involved?

              Will Rogers never met me.

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              Lost User
              wrote on last edited by
              #17

              Roger Wright wrote:

              Are we talking Bulls and Bears

              yep

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              • W wizardzz

                It just happened to me now. Following a legacy naming convention my class had an object named pipTable, then I added feedTable, and now poolTable. I know it's not really funny, but when I'm coding and see variable names form something meaningful, it makes me :). I know this has happened to me many times before, occasionally causing me to reconsider the convention when the name becomes R or even X rated. Does anyone else have any examples or funny stories to add?

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                Tom Delany
                wrote on last edited by
                #18

                I was looking at some code the other day that had a file named "asstub.c" (ASSembler sTUB). We had a source file in an old project that was named "csanal.c". It was supposed to stand for "CSA NAL" (I forget what the abbreviations stood for now.) Of course, the name never got pronounced that way, much to the original developer's chagrin. :laugh:

                WE ARE DYSLEXIC OF BORG. Refutance is systile. Your a$$ will be laminated. There are 10 kinds of people in the world: People who know binary and people who don't.

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                • W wizardzz

                  It just happened to me now. Following a legacy naming convention my class had an object named pipTable, then I added feedTable, and now poolTable. I know it's not really funny, but when I'm coding and see variable names form something meaningful, it makes me :). I know this has happened to me many times before, occasionally causing me to reconsider the convention when the name becomes R or even X rated. Does anyone else have any examples or funny stories to add?

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                  Mycroft Holmes
                  wrote on last edited by
                  #19

                  I remember one in VB6 spit where an enum element was called date, we spent some time chasing down why all our dates were now 2. To this day I prefix an enum label eDate.

                  Never underestimate the power of human stupidity RAH

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                  • M Mycroft Holmes

                    I remember one in VB6 spit where an enum element was called date, we spent some time chasing down why all our dates were now 2. To this day I prefix an enum label eDate.

                    Never underestimate the power of human stupidity RAH

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                    PIEBALDconsult
                    wrote on last edited by
                    #20

                    Fully-qualified names should take care of that. :-D

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                    • W wizardzz

                      It just happened to me now. Following a legacy naming convention my class had an object named pipTable, then I added feedTable, and now poolTable. I know it's not really funny, but when I'm coding and see variable names form something meaningful, it makes me :). I know this has happened to me many times before, occasionally causing me to reconsider the convention when the name becomes R or even X rated. Does anyone else have any examples or funny stories to add?

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                      L Offline
                      Lost User
                      wrote on last edited by
                      #21

                      My very first programming training was in COBOL and we had to write a program that used GOTOs amongst other stuff. I named all of my paragraphs (tags for a GOTO destination for all you non-COBBOLlers) things like Mayfair ParkLane Jail DirectlyToJail CommunityChest Chance just so I could have GO TO JAIL GO DIRECTLYTOJAIL I just wish COBOL had exceptions, so I could have one called DICE :)

                      ___________________________________________ .\\axxx (That's an 'M')

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                      • W wizardzz

                        It just happened to me now. Following a legacy naming convention my class had an object named pipTable, then I added feedTable, and now poolTable. I know it's not really funny, but when I'm coding and see variable names form something meaningful, it makes me :). I know this has happened to me many times before, occasionally causing me to reconsider the convention when the name becomes R or even X rated. Does anyone else have any examples or funny stories to add?

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                        PIEBALDconsult
                        wrote on last edited by
                        #22

                        Oh, you mean like on my last job; Gopher, Julie, Doc, Isaac, Merrill, Vicky, Judy... :cool:

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                        • P PIEBALDconsult

                          Fully-qualified names should take care of that. :-D

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                          Mycroft Holmes
                          wrote on last edited by
                          #23

                          PIEBALDconsult wrote:

                          Fully-qualified names

                          In VB6, I have to admit I can't remember if they were supported, they certainly weren't used.

                          Never underestimate the power of human stupidity RAH

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                          • L Lost User

                            One of my previous companies came very close to releasing a product for installing software updates, whose acronym was COMIC! You can imagine the expressions on the faces of the European/UK teams when we first saw the announcement.

                            Just say 'NO' to evaluated arguments for diadic functions! Ash

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                            S Offline
                            Steve Mayfield
                            wrote on last edited by
                            #24

                            The company I work for has a product called I.C.M.S. (which sounds a lot like I see a mess) :doh:

                            Steve _________________ I C(++) therefore I am

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                            • T Tom Delany

                              I was looking at some code the other day that had a file named "asstub.c" (ASSembler sTUB). We had a source file in an old project that was named "csanal.c". It was supposed to stand for "CSA NAL" (I forget what the abbreviations stood for now.) Of course, the name never got pronounced that way, much to the original developer's chagrin. :laugh:

                              WE ARE DYSLEXIC OF BORG. Refutance is systile. Your a$$ will be laminated. There are 10 kinds of people in the world: People who know binary and people who don't.

                              J Offline
                              J Offline
                              Jason Christian
                              wrote on last edited by
                              #25

                              Worked on a system that had 2 character prefixes (depending on the file) followed by 4 char field names (same across files), so there were fun items like xxPORN (Purchase Order Number) all over the place.

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                              • W wizardzz

                                It just happened to me now. Following a legacy naming convention my class had an object named pipTable, then I added feedTable, and now poolTable. I know it's not really funny, but when I'm coding and see variable names form something meaningful, it makes me :). I know this has happened to me many times before, occasionally causing me to reconsider the convention when the name becomes R or even X rated. Does anyone else have any examples or funny stories to add?

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                                peterchen
                                wrote on last edited by
                                #26

                                I have a variable calL (calibration of L), commented as "Superman!"

                                Agh! Reality! My Archnemesis![^]
                                | FoldWithUs! | sighist | WhoIncludes - Analyzing C++ include file hierarchy

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                                • W wizardzz

                                  It just happened to me now. Following a legacy naming convention my class had an object named pipTable, then I added feedTable, and now poolTable. I know it's not really funny, but when I'm coding and see variable names form something meaningful, it makes me :). I know this has happened to me many times before, occasionally causing me to reconsider the convention when the name becomes R or even X rated. Does anyone else have any examples or funny stories to add?

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                                  jimgale
                                  wrote on last edited by
                                  #27

                                  I had a coworker who named variables after Egyptian Gods - based on the code intention's personality (matching the gods). Ra, Hathor, Isis, Anubis. [Personally I think of Stargate with these names]. But she knew their histories well. It's harder to get any more abstract and removed from the real semantic meaning of the variable than that.

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                                  • W wizardzz

                                    It just happened to me now. Following a legacy naming convention my class had an object named pipTable, then I added feedTable, and now poolTable. I know it's not really funny, but when I'm coding and see variable names form something meaningful, it makes me :). I know this has happened to me many times before, occasionally causing me to reconsider the convention when the name becomes R or even X rated. Does anyone else have any examples or funny stories to add?

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                                    Andrew Leeder
                                    wrote on last edited by
                                    #28

                                    I once worked on an Activity Planning System for a new company who had yet to decide on a name. The programming team called it the Newco Application Planning System - NAPS for short. About the time it was finished, the new company decided to call themselves Keir Rogers, so overnight NAPS became ... ~A

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                                    • W wizardzz

                                      It just happened to me now. Following a legacy naming convention my class had an object named pipTable, then I added feedTable, and now poolTable. I know it's not really funny, but when I'm coding and see variable names form something meaningful, it makes me :). I know this has happened to me many times before, occasionally causing me to reconsider the convention when the name becomes R or even X rated. Does anyone else have any examples or funny stories to add?

                                      S Offline
                                      S Offline
                                      Stefan_Lang
                                      wrote on last edited by
                                      #29

                                      The necessity of adapting our huge code base slowly to an object oriented standard sometimes forces me to some obscure tricks to prevent having to change hundreds of references to functions or former simple data structures which now turned class. For instance when I created a class for a simple plane in 3D instead of the various types of existing structures already being used with a conglomerate of functions that worked on either of the types or just took the defining point coefficient arrays as arguments, I created a long list of constructors to accomodate each of the existing calling 'conventions'. For one particular constructor I had to be very creative though, as it was supposed to take two arguments, one of which would _always_ be a NULL value instead of the double* pointer usually passed for this argument. That 0 value would indicate a specific type of plane. (the case for non-NULL pointers was already covered by a constructor taking arguments of type CPoint and or CVector, both of which were defined to be implicitely created from a pointer to double - unfortunately that case would also create an ambiguity for the compiler if I just created another constructer with an argument type of double*). My solution was to not use double* as the argument type for that NULL pointer, but a pointer to an internal struct type named only_null_allowed_here. As the struct was privately declared, no one outside the class could ever create a variable of type only_null_allowed_here*, nor would a pointer variable of any type be accepted for this constructor. But writing '0' as an argument was perfectly acceptable. The point of this struct's name was the compiler error it would create for anyone trying to use an improperly typed pointer here: it would say something like: 'cannot access private member ... only_null_allowed here'

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                                      • W wizardzz

                                        It just happened to me now. Following a legacy naming convention my class had an object named pipTable, then I added feedTable, and now poolTable. I know it's not really funny, but when I'm coding and see variable names form something meaningful, it makes me :). I know this has happened to me many times before, occasionally causing me to reconsider the convention when the name becomes R or even X rated. Does anyone else have any examples or funny stories to add?

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                                        Mr Crisp
                                        wrote on last edited by
                                        #30

                                        Programming in the games industry a couple of amusing names came up. Well functions. Working on a flying game the cockpit recieved bullet damage with the function CockHoles()! Also you could change your flying helmet colour, decals etc the interface was called GUIhelmet. Chorkle!

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                                        • P Pete OHanlon

                                          Not exactly funny, but I knew a developer who named a SocketException variable sex.

                                          I have CDO, it's OCD with the letters in the right order; just as they ruddy well should be

                                          Forgive your enemies - it messes with their heads

                                          My blog | My articles | MoXAML PowerToys | Onyx

                                          S Offline
                                          S Offline
                                          ScottM1
                                          wrote on last edited by
                                          #31

                                          But then what would he call his SQLExceptions?

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