0727: "Trade Expert"

[doublebackslash]

This thread is of interest to me.
My nick isn't because of UNC paths, but because of my ignorance way back in the day. Now I don't get them mixed up

Good comic

~\\

[phlip]

I can accept a handwritten backslash... especially if it was written by a leftie. ...

Erm. I'm left-handed and I write /. I don't see why handedness would affect it.

Me, too. And I feel the same.

As I said before - right-handed handwriting, while it varies wildly from person to person, tends to slope at least a little to the right - the direction of italic text, and the forward slash. Which makes it easier to handwrite a forward slash than a backslash, and easier to write italic text than reverse italic text.

I just assumed the reverse would be true for left-handed handwriting, but from searching Google Images, it seems that's not actually the case... for one, the contortions a left-handed writer has to do to make it so they can actually see what they're writing without their hand being in the way means that it's not just a mirror image of how a right-handed person writes.

[exoren22]

how do you write a division in mathematics? Do you star the horizontal bar at the right or the left? I've never seen anyone start it at the right.

I start it at the right, because it's easier.

Are you a leftie? Because I do all those things and am a leftie; I was also told I was wrong for doing it backwards when I was younger.

[exoren22]

When you really think about it, some character names really do sound pretty violent!

#!/bin/bash
HASH BANG SLASH bin SLASH BASH!!

Well, okay 'hash' doesn't quite work but it still sort of sounds violent.

CRUNCH BANG SLASH bin SLASH BASH!

Better?

[exoren22]

Outside of radio, I can't imagine why anyone would ever try to say a web address. Just write it out and avoid this whole mess.

Heh, John Hein on the Wrap Up Show made just this mistake on Monday. It did get me a little hot, I must say.

[BioTube]

It may interest you to know that in Old Norse (which became English), apple meant all fruit. Later the word apple was marginalised for trendier words. As late as 17c. any of the various spellings of apple could be a generic term for all fruit other than berries but including nuts.

No, Old Norse became the Nordic/Scandinavian languages(Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, etc). English is an Anglo-Frisian language(a subset of West Germanic languages), meaning it only shares the fact that it's a Germanic language. Old English also had several words that could mean fruit('æppel' among them(which could also refer to the tree, it seems), but 'ofett' was always general).

[Eebster the Great]

The punctuation mark was not introduced until 1960, for the express purpose of computer programming ...

Citation needed. I've been casually and cursorily researching the history of the backslash since soon after this thread started. I have found no hard evidence for or against its existence prior to the advent computing. I found one poorly-sourced mention that it existed on a teletype c. 1940. If correct, that would imply it was around before programming, but again, it's so poorly sourced I'm not putting much stock in it.

Actually, I made a comma error. I put a comma after "1960" when I didn't mean to, changing the meaning of that sentence. I meant to say that "The punctuation mark was not introduced until 1960 for the express purpose of computer programming." Prior to that point, it may have existed, but not for that express purpose. There IS certainly evidence for that, in the very URL you cited and others besides. More importantly, it certainly wasn't in common usage!

Note that backslash is NOT an ASCII character ...

Um, that's just plain wrong. ASCII code 92 (decimal) is the backslash. According to unofficial sources I find with Google, the original (1963) ASCII spec put backslash at that same position.

My bad, obviously it is an ASCII character. I mean, I use ASCII all the time, so I knew that it was, but I said that anyways. I should read over my posts more carefully.

[prophetjohn]

i do pc repair for a living. virus removal, software and hardware repair. general pc tech support. the worst job

i have found that without fail, everyone who is not a computer nerd calls a forward slash a backslash! why? you'd think at least 50% of people would guess right, but no! it drives me flipping crazy!

[prophetjohn]

The punctuation mark was not introduced until 1960, for the express purpose of computer programming ...

Citation needed. I've been casually and cursorily researching the history of the backslash since soon after this thread started. I have found no hard evidence for or against its existence prior to the advent computing. I found one poorly-sourced mention that it existed on a teletype c. 1940. If correct, that would imply it was around before programming, but again, it's so poorly sourced I'm not putting much stock in it.

Actually, I made a comma error. I put a comma after "1960" when I didn't mean to, changing the meaning of that sentence. I meant to say that "The punctuation mark was not introduced until 1960 for the express purpose of computer programming." Prior to that point, it may have existed, but not for that express purpose. There IS certainly evidence for that, in the very URL you cited and others besides. More importantly, it certainly wasn't in common usage!

Note that backslash is NOT an ASCII character ...

Um, that's just plain wrong. ASCII code 92 (decimal) is the backslash. According to unofficial sources I find with Google, the original (1963) ASCII spec put backslash at that same position.

My bad, obviously it is an ASCII character. I mean, I use ASCII all the time, so I knew that it was, but I said that anyways. I should read over my posts more carefully.

i actually rarely use ASCII. too trendy for my tastes

yeahhhhhh

[phlip]

i have found that without fail, everyone who is not a computer nerd calls a forward slash a backslash! why? you'd think at least 50% of people would guess right, but no! it drives me flipping crazy!

Because a "backslash" is a slash, but computery. They're the exact same thing in every respect, but one of those words is mundane and one is computery. And how else will people know you're on top of this whole technology thing, if you can't speak the lingo? You need to be able to talk about your "computer" (the bit that's just a television, but smaller), which you connect to your "hard drive" (the box that sits next to the computer)... the computer doesn't seem to work unless you turn the hard drive on too - which makes sense, otherwise you wouldn't be able to log in to your photos so you can download them into an email on Facebook (one of the sites in the Internet Explorer) to show them with your friends...

[tastelikecoke]

`
Backslash's friend backpostrophe. Sounds like the perfect escape character. I never knew it even existed until using AutoHotkey.

[c10]

What's a "URI"?

[prophetjohn]

i have found that without fail, everyone who is not a computer nerd calls a forward slash a backslash! why? you'd think at least 50% of people would guess right, but no! it drives me flipping crazy!

Because a "backslash" is a slash, but computery. They're the exact same thing in every respect, but one of those words is mundane and one is computery. And how else will people know you're on top of this whole technology thing, if you can't speak the lingo? You need to be able to talk about your "computer" (the bit that's just a television, but smaller), which you connect to your "hard drive" (the box that sits next to the computer)... the computer doesn't seem to work unless you turn the hard drive on too - which makes sense, otherwise you wouldn't be able to log in to your photos so you can download them into an email on Facebook (one of the sites in the Internet Explorer) to show them with your friends...

i see you are no stranger to technical support

don't forget that you have to open up your search engine (internet explorer) to get to your facebook email

[prophetjohn]

What's a "URI"?

i didn't want to look dumb. my guess is it's supposed to say "URL"

wikipedia doesn't know what a URI is. only people named Uri

[phlip]

What's a "URI"?

i didn't want to look dumb. my guess is it's supposed to say "URL"

wikipedia doesn't know what a URI is. only people named Uri

Yes, Wikipedia does know what a URI is...

And the difference between URIs and URLs has been explained a good 2-3 times in this thread already...

[JayAr]

I was having the debate on what was a slash and a backslash in a conversation, I was convinced by the other person was right (that / is a backslash) and have been messing up code recently, this explains quite a bit.

THANK YOU COMRADE MONROE!

[prophetjohn]

What's a "URI"?

i didn't want to look dumb. my guess is it's supposed to say "URL"

wikipedia doesn't know what a URI is. only people named Uri

Yes, Wikipedia does know what a URI is...

And the difference between URIs and URLs has been explained a good 2-3 times in this thread already...

i suppose i overlooked it/didn't read the whole thread

i think the comic is talking about the united religions initiative, anyway

[Eebster the Great]

Here, in Germany, people like to say "minus" for hyphens in web addresses. They're just too lazy to say "Bindestrich"

Well, the official name for the character is "hyphen-minus," because it is essentially a stroke of intermediate length between the two and used for both purposes, so really, calling it "minus" is no less correct than calling it "hyphen."

However, calling it a "dash" would be incorrect, because dashes are distinct glyphs (e.g. ‒ (figure dash), – (en dash), — (em dash), ― (horizontal bar), and ˜ (swung dash, not a tilde, which is ~)).

[tastelikecoke]

in calculatorspeak, short - means negative and long ̶ means minus.

[Rilian]

What's a "URI"?

i didn't want to look dumb. my guess is it's supposed to say "URL"

wikipedia doesn't know what a URI is. only people named Uri

I looked it up and didn't find a concise explanation, so I quit caring.

I love the name Uri! It means fire?

[Platypodes]

I wonder if people who say "backslash" in web addresses (yes, I've heard it many times) haven't noticed that there are two kinds of slashes, and think that "backslash" is the proper, computer-jargony way of saying "slash."

Since the most commonly used, default kind of slash is drawn in a particular direction, I always assumed that the backslash was so named because it was backwards from the default. Whether that's true or not, it's much easier on my brain to think of it that way (the regular slash and the backwards one) than to worry about whether one or the other of them is inherently more back-ish.

Arguing over which way (top-to-bottom vs bottom-to-top) is the "correct" way to draw a slash is quite possibly the lamest thing since arguing over which end of the egg to break first.

But it says in the scriptures that all true believers shall draw their slashes in the convenient direction... *

#!/bin/bash
HASH BANG SLASH bin SLASH BASH!!
Well, okay 'hash' doesn't quite work but it still sort of sounds violent.

"Pound" is a common name for the '#' character. So: "pound bang slash bin slash bash". Suitably violent.

Holy keystrokes, Batman!

\ is a throne. You sit on these or kick them.

So a backslash is where you put your backside?

I once heard a man who would read, for instance, "forums.xkcd.com/posting.php" as "forums dot xkcd dot com sub posting dot php". He always calls slashes, back or otherwise, "sub". It's weird, but it's certainly effective in making you remember to put a slash in the uri instead of a period.

http colon sub sub dub dub dub

Three men in a tub?

(Wait, no, wrong kind of slash.)

My suggestion is to use northeast/southwest and northwest/southeast, as being incredibly unambiguous, i.e. "neslash" and "seslash" -- they're even pronunceable!

I adore this idea! So much simpler than "going from left to right if you're drawing from bottom to top..."

Except... As someone who thinks in cardinal directions by default, I've become very aware of how many people don't think that way.

Me: So, take the Third Street exit and go west till you come to the--
Friend: Whoa, whoa--'west'?
Me: West is toward the ocean.
Friend: Uh, okay.

(I have yet to find a decent substitute for cardinal directions when dealing with freeway offramps. I almost never remember the exact details of how each offramp works, and even if I do, the instructions would then be, "Take the Third Street exit, get in the lane that's second from the right, bear right but don't turn sharp right, proceed through a sort of loop thing, merge left onto an odd bob-end of road that's not actually Third Street but will put you onto Third Street in fifty feet...")

Well, the official name for the character is "hyphen-minus," because it is essentially a stroke of intermediate length between the two and used for both purposes, so really, calling it "minus" is no less correct than calling it "hyphen."

And if you say it out loud and pronounce the punctuation, it's the "hyphen hyphen-minus minus." And if you say that out loud...

[xnick]

Try to spell adresses like:

http://www.anything.com/typeback/here

http://www.backslash.com/slash/backslash/back/slash

http://www.anything.com/dot/donttypedot ... /slash/dot

...and so on (try spelling them out loud, in regular mode or in newscaster mode)

EDIT: I've noticed that the adresses may appear collapsed. Put the cursor over them and read from the status bar.

[dave.haku]

...


I don't start a single hand written character from the bottom; they are all from the top. I believe that was the point. Slash and backslash used to confuse me for this reason. Then I stopped calling it a slash and started calling it a solidus and I stopped being confused; unfortunately that has left everyone else confused (except English majors, but they rarely use computers).

Nice!
Although... apparently solidus, in Unicode, is a different character from slash, and (at least on my computer) has a very narrow kerning leading to weird looking texts; like this ill formed url: http:⁄⁄en.wikipedia.org⁄wiki⁄Solidus_(punctuation). Try getting anywhere with it.

In the text in Wikipedia it even has extra spaces around it to properly show it.

[Briareos]

`
Backslash's friend backpostrophe. Sounds like the perfect escape character. I never knew it even existed until using AutoHotkey.

"Backtick."

[tastelikecoke]

surprise `

The only problem I had with slashes is that backslashes are really unintuitive to type. And slashes are always superior than backslash for me. Like how beauty queens wear their sashes.

[littlelj]

`
Backslash's friend backpostrophe. Sounds like the perfect escape character. I never knew it even existed until using AutoHotkey.

Pet hate. It utterly messes up posts by The Stupids.

So my mom was like `Have you done your homework'.

No she wasn't.

I am quite amazed that people write from the top or from the bottom. I start and end in the middle of the line, obviously, so that I'm never far from anything and don't accidentally bump into punctuation. I am told my handwriting is very neat.

Oh yeah, and I liked the comic very much. It reminded me of http://xkcd.com/608/

[Technical Ben]

It would seem there is a "correction" facility for those who cannot understand the difference. Courtesy of Fatboy Slim. Oh my... I just realised, the youtube link may not be safe...

[JD_Denver]

Try to spell adresses like:

http://www.anything.com/typeback/here

http://www.backslash.com/slash/backslash/back/slash

http://www.anything.com/dot/donttypedot ... /slash/dot

...and so on (try spelling them out loud, in regular mode or in newscaster mode)

EDIT: I've noticed that the adresses may appear collapsed. Put the cursor over them and read from the status bar.

Years ago I had this e-mail address: dot.dot-dash-dot.dot@juno.com

[Jorpho]

`
Backslash's friend backpostrophe. Sounds like the perfect escape character. I never knew it even existed until using AutoHotkey.

Pet hate. It utterly messes up posts by The Stupids.

I can't stand those either. What's worse is that a double-backtick sometimes seems to crop up in legitimate news articles, apparently as some kind of auto-formatter's attempt to replicate "smart quotes".

(And why the heck do we need "smart quotes" anyway? And what's wrong with a single vertical line for an apostrophe? Why does everything have to get needlessly complicated?)

[DVC]

...


I don't start a single hand written character from the bottom; they are all from the top. I believe that was the point. Slash and backslash used to confuse me for this reason. Then I stopped calling it a slash and started calling it a solidus and I stopped being confused; unfortunately that has left everyone else confused (except English majors, but they rarely use computers).

Nice!
Although... apparently solidus, in Unicode, is a different character from slash, and (at least on my computer) has a very narrow kerning leading to weird looking texts; like this ill formed url: http:⁄⁄en.wikipedia.org⁄wiki⁄Solidus_(punctuation). Try getting anywhere with it.

In the text in Wikipedia it even has extra spaces around it to properly show it.

That's a good point, perhaps I should call it a virgule instead? :thoughtful

[DragonHawk]

And why the heck do we need "smart quotes" anyway?

While I'm generally satisfied with a single non-directional quote character, one nice thing about directional matching pairs is that they nest nicely, and you can easily tell which is start and which is end. Normally this isn't much of a problem, but occasionally it's confusing or irritating. Quoting a quoted quotation for human language, or shell nested commands on computers, for example. But since standard keyboards lack keys for directional quotes, using them proves to be just as cumbersome for most situations.

I do have my preferred text editors configured such that <ALT>+<[> and <ALT>+<]> insert “ and ”, respectively, though. But I'm weird.

And what's wrong with a single vertical line for an apostrophe?

That does seem like it should work just fine.

[Eebster the Great]

That's a good point, perhaps I should call it a virgule instead? :thoughtful

That could still be potentially confusing, as "virgule" is French for "comma" (and also because nobody will know what you're talking about). Maybe "slant" is a better way to go.

But really, why can't you just call it a "slash?" You will almost never need to even use the word "backslash," so confusion shouldn't really be a problem.

[tastelikecoke]

But really, why can't you just call it a "slash?" You will almost never need to even use the word "backslash," so confusion shouldn't really be a problem.

I'm constantly mixing up slash and backslash. If I had a nickel for every time I've written a new line as "/n" I'd be rich.

he primary downfall of backslash is representing fractions incorrectly. 1\2 looks wrong.

[Boland]

I have heard backslash misused so many times i find myself using it has part as a web address... AND I HARDLY USE WINDOWS!

[Randomness]

And you know, you really don't have to say "www" anymore. And "http colon" is just uncalled for.

I completely disagree. Years ago that was true because few places were anything but "http:/www." , so at that time I skipped that bit and said the rest of the address. Now there is "https:", and if you look at the address of this page you will notice that there is no "www" in it, so the full address is more important now, tho self- correcting browsers and hyperlinks make going wrong less likely.

I watch with horror the.... bravery of those less techy than me who click a link without checking to see where it will direct them first, yes i mean in unsolicited email. Why hello virus come on in!!!

Years ago I had this e-mail address: dot.dot-dash-dot.dot@juno.com

Love that denver.
Tho I bet that got annoying after telling it to a few people. My spam email is random letters that repeat, and instead of typing exactly what I say those that have asked for my email always think I'm correcting them so they delete what they already typed and start over

[tloz0ot]

From the Harvard Square ABP...

[Kartoffelkopf]

I start new letters/characters at the top the vast majority of the time, so I'm also joing this came for how to right a slash.

*slow clap*

[The1exile]

Ah, the chances Guy Goma missed...

[kryton]

I still prefer "Hack" for \ and "Slash" for / because "REBOOT" was an awesome show.

[scgtrp]

I used to ride city buses, before I got a car. There would occasionally be graffiti on the back of the seats. One time I came across a seat which had an email address written on the back in permanent marker... with "www." in front of it. That was one of the two times I've almost puked while riding the bus. (I'm glad nobody else has mentioned anything like this, it implies that it's not very common and therefore there may still be hope for humanity.*)

Also, I always make sure to do a phyiscal, overly conspicuous facepalm when someone mixes up slash and backslash.

* Not really.