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C Pound, C Sharp, or C tic tac toe????

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18 replies

by larryd4

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Ok so I was talking to my boss the other day and I said something about the C pound runtime libraries and he corrected me by saying, you mean C Sharp.
I laughed and ignored it, since it was coming from someone who doesn't program and from someone with no musical background.

I have heard lots of people call it different things, so I ask the community, what do you call it?

18 replies

by oz_media

It's a hash mark. LOL :D

Well for UK correspondence it is a hashmark, out here I generally use pound as it is recognized that way due to telecom.

When I say pound to Brits many of them ask if I mean a dollar or a hashmark.

by oz_media

Again I think it's just a regional thing, some say potato, others say potatoe. okay it doesn't work unless verbal but you know what I mean. :)

by oz_media

It's just another analogy based on what MS deemed C# (sharp) programming language.

The key/symol is called something different regionally though, Microsoft didn't invent keyboards and neither did MSN magazine.

by nicknielsen

The # on your keyboard is either number or pound or hashmark or even octothorp, depending on where you grew up and how pretentious you are. The sharp symbol used in music is different: it has two vertical lines and diagonal slashes instead of the two horizontal lines and diagonal slashes of the # symbol.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharp_%28music%29

In typical Microsoft fashion, they chose a name, then used the wrong symbol.

by oz_media

It was a symbol used in telecom many moons before Bill Gates was even a twinkle in his daddy's drunken eyes. Many moons before that it was a musical notation (yes for sharp but that doesn't translate to computing nor give Microsoft ownership for calling a programming language C-Sharp).

Outside of music, it's main use was with telecom keypads, where the POUND sign took on it's modern day name.
So why would some software engineer, who updates a program and uses an ancient symol in it's name, get to rename that symbol itself?

That's like renaming the @ (AT) symbol the email symbol just because it's used to send email. Ignoring the fact that it has been around for many years before computing was even a science fiction dream.

by nicknielsen

[i]Outside of music, it's main use was with telecom keypads, where the POUND sign took on it's modern day name.[/i]

I remember schlepping home cuts of meat from the butcher block at the corner grocery. Every one of those was marked 1# or 1/2# or 3/4#, with # being the symbol for pounds (in weight). That the same word identifies the proper way to use early keypads is no doubt only fortuitous circumstance. ;\

etu

by oz_media

We both agree that it isn't because of C# programming language being called C sharp.

I think there was actually life for some time before computers.

by jackofalltech

Let me think... It's not really C..... it's not a real compiled language....any one can learn it.... Yep, it's crap.

by tig2

Old joke

C:windows
C:wndows/run
C:pc crawl

If Microsoft can make up languages, I say we can make up things to call them.

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