Has anyone defined a standard for reading code out loud, for any language? I imagine this is important to software like screen readers for the vision-impaired. This sort of thing also comes up when you are discussing code with someone, reviewing it in a group, or teaching a class.
In the C family of languages, there are a lot of words with "obvious" pronunciations. Some are simply English words: for, break, case, default, etc. Some abbreviations, like int, are unambiguous. And then there's char.
I always tend to say it (and hear it in my head) like the first syllable of "charcoal". It was jarring to me the first time I was talking about code with someone who pronounced it like "car", which actually makes more sense because char is really an abbreviation of the word "character", so clearly it should be pronounced the same. But even knowing that, char-as-in-coal feels more right to me.
And then there are statements like foo = bar ? *(++baz) : zardoz.
Has anyone anyone produced a document dictating the correct way (in their opinion) how to read code aloud? Either for a specific language or maybe code in general?
Best Answer
Quick coverall: read this great article at Coding Horror
Whenever I'm discussing code over the phone, I never read it literally. You have to "compile" it to human, and if there is still confusion on the other end of the line, you can move towards a more literal reading. For example, I'd read your example as
I've been a full time telecommuter since the mid-90's, so practically all of my interactions with my colleagues has been over the phone or other indirect means. Very often we're sharing either a screen (terminal) or VNC (X) session. Besides the regular camaraderie, we spend all day talking about code, design, planning, etc.
When we talk about code, we use jargon that is deeply tied to the type of project being worked. One of the (many) reasons it takes so long for a new group member to become fully functional is because they're essentially learning a new language each time they join a new department/company.
As I said above, and as others have said, we try to talk at as high a level as is appropriate for any discussion. But sometimes, you really have to just say to someone: "Type this"
How do you say it? Well, we could just give an enumeration like...
This are just how "we" say these characters. To get an idea of the entire range of saying "#" take a look at the wiki page for #
So there's too much variability. It has to be specific to the language that you're coding in (just as I'm typing this in English for our human communication).
Without the context of language you'd constantly have to revert to character by character spelling. So most folks I know of fall back to whatever the language standard calls things.
Each of those would be implied by just saying "Set X to ..." within the proper context. Don't even get me started on what code is read as "is string X equal to string Y".
If you say "hash bang bin bash" or "shebang bash", just about everyone will know that means "#!/bin/bash". If they don't they'll say, "Huh?", and you step it down a notch "At the top of the file: Pound sign, exclamation mark, slash, bin, slash, bash, newline". If they still don't get it, you step it down yet again: "See that keyboard in front of you? See the "3" key? That mark on the top when you press shift is a pound sign, that."
Bottom line: