Posted by
Andrews on Wednesday, November 25, 2009 3:12:43 PM
I have often griped about the computer industry, the way they coin pointless and ugly neologisms such as "architected" for example, but I think I have found the most pointless innovation yet. After seeing I18N and L10N many, many times I decided I should really look up what they actually meant. I knew they dealt with internationalization and localization, and they looked like a strange format to be section numbers for any standards document, but I just assumed they referred to some standard, and left it at that.
Imagine my surprise when I found out I18N means I-18 omitted letters -N, or "internationalization". How idiotic can one get? It makes TX for "transmit" look like brilliance. It even makes L8R look bright. And yet formal documents include this abomination "I18N"! That would be akin to using abbreviations in a formal dissertation in the body of the text.
Then again, as the computer industry is largely run by rather immature, trend driven sorts, I can see that they would find this sort of thing clever*. But you would think at least the academic wing of the computer world would put a check on this habit, coming as many did out of the slightly more mature disciplines of engineering and mathematics. But no, such absurd shortcuts are seen as perfectly acceptable. It is only slightly less offensive than the equally annoying tendency to use either "!" or "~" to negate a word in a text. In notes, fine, but I have seen it in relatively formal settings, and while computer geeks might find it clever, it is easy to overlook and that makes absolute nonsense of whatever message the author was trying to convey.
All of which leads me to say: IF T2S S4D T3D T6Es, !1 W2L BE A2E R2D A6G. (Translation: If this stupid trend continues no one will be able to read anything.)
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* I am far from the only one who sees the way that the computer industry mirrors the fashion industry in chasing trends. One of my favorite sites critical of OOP and other computer trends wrote a rather interesting essay on the same topic. You can read it
here. And for those who don't usually follow links, please follow this one, as I intend to use it soon to argue that many of our politicla processes follow path every bit as faddish as technology or fashion. Just look at the love of young staffers, "bold new ideas", "innovative solutions" and all the clap trap of "novelty" wrapped around debunked old ideas. Much of activist politics is a fashion or fad, just as much of the technology sector is. (Did Java really revolutionize the industry? I have been waiting a decade now. How about "Web 2.0"? Hear much about that any longer? Recall all the ideas that would change the world in 1999? How many are left a decade later? Tech hype, fashion hype and political hype are all very similar, except only the last one has the potential to destroy quite so many lives.)
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POSTSCRIPT
For those unfamiliar with my grammar and spelling nazi posts, they can be found by following the links in "
Quick Spelling Nazi Gripe" or "
One Last Gripe", my most recent post on the subject.
POSTSCRIPT II
As I plugged
my favorite anti-OOP site, I should plug my other favorite tech site, "
How to Write Unmaintainable Code". Now, if you look at the rest of his site, two caveats. First, I disagree with his politics pretty
strongly. (I wrote that before I discovered he has
become a Truther since last I checked his politics page. Wow, what a shock, a liberal, pro-Palestinian, anti-Zionist who is also a Truther! What are the odds?) Second, he is a java advocate, though, if you check out his "
Java Gotchas" page you have to wonder why. I mean, I know the shortcomings of C, but think they are unavoidable because of degree of access C needs, as well as to allow flexibility in data handling data or manipulating pointers, addresses, arrays and function addresses, but he basically says "Java is bizarre in its implementation for no good reason", yet advocates it. I don't get it at all. Still, despite disagreeing with his programming language choices, and finding his politics not just wrong, but actually abhorrent (both truther claims and claims Israel targets civilians) I will be fair and say that the portion I linked is still worthwhile and so the link will remain, despite my disagreement with the author over many other topics.