Subject: HERALDS ETC

From: [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 24 Jan 92 09:45:17 BST

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