Re: How do you pronounce variable names?

FWIW, based on what I picked up in the computer lab in the late 1980s, I used to always read $somescalar as "string somescalar". Now, after some effort to re-learn it, I read it as "scalar somescalar" most of the time. After looking up some old punctuation poetry it appears that "dollar" was the common idiom back then, so I guess I have no idea where "string" came from in my lexicon.

Update:Apparently I learned it from BASIC, though that would have been much earlier than the late 80s, but it stuck.

Comment on Re: How do you pronounce variable names?

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Re^2: How do you pronounce variable names? by Aim9b (Monk) on Feb 18, 2008 at 18:43 UTC
Probably from BASIC. Early versions required String field names to start with a $ (ie $a, $bc, etc.) If it didn't, it was assumed numeric and you usualy ended up with a letter that resulted in a zero. This is from MBASIC, circa 1975. Also, field names were limited to only two characters back then, and if they started with i thru r they were considered integer, otherwise floating. How did we ever survive? ;-)	[reply]
Re^3: How do you pronounce variable names? by DrHyde (Prior) on Feb 20, 2008 at 10:44 UTC
In every BASIC I'm familiar with, the $ came at the end of the variable. And this thread reminds me of a thread I started many years ago in comp.lang.perl.misc about pronunciation. Much of the advice there is good, the obvious error being to pronounce the # sign as "pound".	[reply]
Re^2: How do you pronounce variable names? by kyle (Abbot) on Feb 18, 2008 at 18:36 UTC
I used to call "`$`" "string" because that's what it was called in BASIC. A string variable `FOO$` was read, "foo string".	[reply] [d/l] [select]