My buddy Dave sent me a link this morning to a blog post about the bizarre vernacular of programmers (and how it differs by region and “culture”). Truly, if the average Joe on the street walked into an intense programming discussion, he would be completely lost. Allow me an example.*

Code Geek #1: When I put the gooid in the earl I get a 500.

Code Geek #2: Are you stripping the curlies from the gooid?

Code Geek #1: Of course. Maybe there’s a hash, bang or carrot in my query string.

Code Geek #2: Shouldn’t matter, but a whack or tilde might break it if the yuri goes to an apache box.

Code Geek #1: Hey! How’d this back tick get in my string?

Code Geek #2: Oh, I pasted that copy from word into your code. There’s probably a smart quote in there too.

Code Geek #1: You touched my code? I must kill you now.

* Some pronunciation spelled out for clarity.

As you can see, we have some very strange vocabulary in the programming world. But with just a little explanation, it will all make sense. Just mouse over the underlined words and you’ll see to what the coders are referring.

If you read the post and its comments, you will see much more of the weird language of code geeks. I was most fascinated by the poem posted in the comments. Here, I’ve revised this poem using my own vocabulary. It is followed by its “English” translation.

\\!*''/
^@`$$-
*!'$_
%*#>4
&)../
{~|**SYSTEM HALTED

back-whack bang star tick tick slash
carat at back-tick dollar dollar dash
star bang tick dollar underscore
percent splat pound angle bracket four
amp right-paren dot dot slash
curly bracket tilde pipe star star crash

The original poem uses some language that I’ve not heard before. < and > are called “waka” (the sound Pac-Man makes). I refer to them as left and right angle brackets, but waka is sure a lot more fun.

Are any of my readers geek enough to contribute their own code-speak? Comments are welcome.