Variable names Was: Re: Is this math test too easy?
From: Herman Rubin (hrubin_at_odds.stat.purdue.edu)
Date: 11/30/04
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Date: 30 Nov 2004 10:54:08 -0500
In article <Xns95B11F6865CEwebmastertbrauchcom@216.148.227.77>,
Tim Brauch <RnEeMwOs.pVoEst@tbrauch.cNOoSPAMm> wrote:
>"Richard Henry" <rphenry@home.com> wrote in
>news:byzqd.105008$SW3.69924@fed1read01:
.....................
>In Spanish, you would think, "Necesito escribir una instruccin que haga
>algo MIENTRAS QUE una cierta condicin est satisfecha." Notice that the
>word "while" does not appear in the Spanish thought. The programmer would
>then need to know the English term for "mientras que."
The idea does appear; it is not a single word. It was
probably a mistake to use words for computer directions;
one reason for it, and for "symbol grabbing" (the use
of standard mathematical symbols in ways mathematicians
would never use them) was the reliance on overly limited
character sets. I know of a few languages which did try
to use physical subscripts and superscripts. At least
the producers of FORTRAN apologized for the necessity
of using "**" for exponentiation.
As it appears here, I believe your Spanish spelling has
some errors.
The word for integer part in many computer languages is
"entier".
>And then there is the whole giving variables meaningful names deal. When
>they piece together code available online, you get a nice jumble of English
>and Spanish.
Who cares about giving variables meaningful names? This
may or may not help in a particular application, and the
more characters typed, the greater chance for error. It
is difficult to read the program if a variable entitled
"partial_vapor_pressure_of_methane" is used instead of
one or two letters.
Before computers, variable names were almost always one
character, or one character with subscripts, which also
were restricted. One cannot understand variables unless
one can recognize that here, at least, Shakespeare was
correct.
>At least with math symbols, they are pretty much the same in every
>language. Without knowing Russian, I was able to follow a Russian linear
>algebra text for a proof, simply because the math notation was the same.
>The words between symbols, they were not as important because I could
>figure out how to get from step to the next.
Would it be any harder if Russian letters were used for
the variables? In fact, when I first looked at a Russian
article, I was surprised that they used the same Latin
and Greek letters for variables, and the same Latin
abbreviations for the trigonometric functions; Spanish
does not.
-- This address is for information only. I do not claim that these views are those of the Statistics Department or of Purdue University. Herman Rubin, Department of Statistics, Purdue University hrubin@stat.purdue.edu Phone: (765)494-6054 FAX: (765)494-0558
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