I Propose We Rename \ and /
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A coworker was recently confused about which slash was the backslash and which was the forward slash. I propose we rename them, perhaps to one of these:
\
/
Slide Slash
Hill Slash
Five Slash
One Slash
Negative Slash
Positive Slash
Fall Slash
Rise Slash
Other ideas?
I was about to suggest something along the lines of downslope|upslope, but after reading some of the comments about right to left reading I wondered if for these people that would work, since reading right to left implies a downward slope on '/' rather than upward... Referring to a clock's digits also doesn't seem right when there are so many ways to display time. It may work, but maybe it won't be easily grasped in some locales - I have no idea. The only thing I can think of that's universal, is mathematics: a mathematical 2D coordinate system typically uses a horizontal x-axis pointing to the right, and a vertical y axis pointing up. Graphs in a 2D coordinate systems are implicitely read left to right, in that a line coming from the upper left quadrant passing into the lower right is considered 'falling', or having a negative gradient, whereas a line running from the lower left to the upper right is considered to have a positive gradient. So we could call '\' downgrade and '/' upgrade. :cool: Ok, neg-gradient|pos-gradient would be more concise, but then not everyone's into math-speak. ;) Or maybe we just shorten this to down|up: we would loose the reference to math, but the only people potentially not getting it would be right-to-left readers, and I'm pretty sure they're more aware of that kind of interpretory problem than anyone else.
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A coworker was recently confused about which slash was the backslash and which was the forward slash. I propose we rename them, perhaps to one of these:
\
/
Slide Slash
Hill Slash
Five Slash
One Slash
Negative Slash
Positive Slash
Fall Slash
Rise Slash
Other ideas?
We could take a note from heraldry and go with: \ = "bend" / = "bend sinister", or just "sinister" ...
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I'm not sure everyone can use those terms without a compass ;P (and then some may not even be able to if they have one...)
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A coworker was recently confused about which slash was the backslash and which was the forward slash. I propose we rename them, perhaps to one of these:
\
/
Slide Slash
Hill Slash
Five Slash
One Slash
Negative Slash
Positive Slash
Fall Slash
Rise Slash
Other ideas?
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A coworker was recently confused about which slash was the backslash and which was the forward slash. I propose we rename them, perhaps to one of these:
\
/
Slide Slash
Hill Slash
Five Slash
One Slash
Negative Slash
Positive Slash
Fall Slash
Rise Slash
Other ideas?
Uphill slash downhill slash
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A coworker was recently confused about which slash was the backslash and which was the forward slash. I propose we rename them, perhaps to one of these:
\
/
Slide Slash
Hill Slash
Five Slash
One Slash
Negative Slash
Positive Slash
Fall Slash
Rise Slash
Other ideas?
It's simple. In English, we read from left to right, therefore, going right is going forward. That makes / the forward (leaning) slash, and \ the backslash. Renaming them will only spread the confusion.
If you think 'goto' is evil, try writing an Assembly program without JMP.
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A coworker was recently confused about which slash was the backslash and which was the forward slash. I propose we rename them, perhaps to one of these:
\
/
Slide Slash
Hill Slash
Five Slash
One Slash
Negative Slash
Positive Slash
Fall Slash
Rise Slash
Other ideas?
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A coworker was recently confused about which slash was the backslash and which was the forward slash. I propose we rename them, perhaps to one of these:
\
/
Slide Slash
Hill Slash
Five Slash
One Slash
Negative Slash
Positive Slash
Fall Slash
Rise Slash
Other ideas?
I read all the replies and also thought on RTL languages. Direction of writing could be different but not the direction itself. So, for everybody, right is right and left is left, top is top and bottom is bottom. Therefore, my suggestions are based on absolute directions: \ = TL (Top-Left) or LT (Left-Top) Slash / = BR (Bottom-Right) or RB (Right-Bottom) Slash However, more appropriate I think would be: / = NE (North-East) or EN (East-North) Slash \ = SW (North-West) or WN (West-North) Slash Or take the "North" common: / = E-Slash (NE Slash) \ = W-Slash (NW Slash) Also look at the keyboard; W and E keys are adjacent and W is at West side and E is at East side of each other!
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It's simple. In English, we read from left to right, therefore, going right is going forward. That makes / the forward (leaning) slash, and \ the backslash. Renaming them will only spread the confusion.
If you think 'goto' is evil, try writing an Assembly program without JMP.
Yeah, that's how I like to think of it, though it does take the assumption that it's leaning and not swinging.
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Yeah, that's how I like to think of it, though it does take the assumption that it's leaning and not swinging.
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I remember it this way, bottom to top lean-forward, / - forward slash bottom to top lean-backward, \ - backslash
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A coworker was recently confused about which slash was the backslash and which was the forward slash. I propose we rename them, perhaps to one of these:
\
/
Slide Slash
Hill Slash
Five Slash
One Slash
Negative Slash
Positive Slash
Fall Slash
Rise Slash
Other ideas?
An old work colleague used to say / - slash \ - slosh
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A coworker was recently confused about which slash was the backslash and which was the forward slash. I propose we rename them, perhaps to one of these:
\
/
Slide Slash
Hill Slash
Five Slash
One Slash
Negative Slash
Positive Slash
Fall Slash
Rise Slash
Other ideas?
I'm invoking gravity and english syntax. The falling forwards slash and the falling backwards slash.
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How I teach: BACK slash is near the BACKspace. Done.
On my keyboard '/' is just to the left of the right shift key and '\' is on the right of the right shift key
< > ? |N M , . / SHIFT \
Steve _________________ I C(++) therefore I am
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I read all the replies and also thought on RTL languages. Direction of writing could be different but not the direction itself. So, for everybody, right is right and left is left, top is top and bottom is bottom. Therefore, my suggestions are based on absolute directions: \ = TL (Top-Left) or LT (Left-Top) Slash / = BR (Bottom-Right) or RB (Right-Bottom) Slash However, more appropriate I think would be: / = NE (North-East) or EN (East-North) Slash \ = SW (North-West) or WN (West-North) Slash Or take the "North" common: / = E-Slash (NE Slash) \ = W-Slash (NW Slash) Also look at the keyboard; W and E keys are adjacent and W is at West side and E is at East side of each other!
my keyboard orientation: W is on the south side and E is on the North side :sigh:
Steve _________________ I C(++) therefore I am
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AspDotNetDev wrote:
Other ideas?
\ Wax on / Wax off -- RP
You wax off leaning forward rather than leaning back? Tiny monitor? Low volume? :omg:
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Some of your names are heavily biased toward left to right reading direction. If you are proposing new names, make them bidi agnostic. Remember that < is "greater than" for right to left readers. a < b "b is greater than a". How about / web slash, internet slash \ Windows slash If only keyboard makers would standardize and put them on the same key! Then we could have / - slash \ - shift+slash My nomenclature is / - slash (divide slash if other party is a programmer) \ - back slash Deep thought: Do right to left readers use left to right URLs?
englebart wrote:
Some of your names are heavily biased toward left to right reading direction
Are there variants of English that use right to left reading? Presumably different languages would have different names for the same character.
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I remember it this way, bottom to top lean-forward, / - forward slash bottom to top lean-backward, \ - backslash
All of the directional suggestions assume that things go from left to right. For people in cultures (such as Arabic) it is the reverse!
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This should probably spawn a thread of its own, but...
PIEBALDconsult wrote:
I am also reminded that some texts cross Os rather than 0s. :(
Surely way back when, coding was done in 1's and 0's (OK, and octal and hex). Nothing was crossed. Then when some pillock decided to expand things beyond binary and introduce Is and Os (amongst others) they had to be differentiated. I can't believe the entire binary/octal/hex coding community suddenly went from NOT crossing their zeroes to crossing them; surely for backwards compatibility the newcomers (Is and Os) would need the lines? Back in the 70s I started my full-time professional career writing COBOL onto coding sheets for the punch-girls to type up, and I'm sure we crossed either the 0s or the Os but I'm blowed if I can remember which!! (Though that's definitely when I started crossing my 7s to differentiate them from 1s, a habit I've kept to this day)... the Is had a straight serif top and bottom the 1s a single, sloping top serif, which if exaggerated did look like a 7)
Burroughs (who morphed into UNISYS) standard was initially to cross the alpha O. Until swamped by the rest of the world. And Unix used the forward slash / for directory paths etc, and the back slash as an escape character from memory. Still inclined to write paths with forward slash when on MS systems if distracted.
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Hmm, on *my* keyboard it's next to the left shift key... ('/' is [shift]-7 on my keyboard, before you ask, or alternately on the numeric keypad (but don't think to make use of that, as some Laptops don't sport a numpad!) )
Clearly you aren't the target audience for those who are confused over which slash is which. I would venture to guess that most people who would be confused by slashiness have a fairly standard keyboard configuration where that pattern works, at least in the USA. OT (sorta): I can't stand it when I hear teevee or radio ads where they say "dubble-yoo dubble-yoo dubble-yoo dot stupid widget you don't want dot com BACKSLASH free thing" AGH! It just grates on my soul.