Post #4150079

2026-07-27 22:59 UTC

You know, my coworker/boss is very good about my epilepsy. My word recall is affected and they're very patient and good about how sometimes I'll write out function names or variables that look like a Japanese light novel name because I am able to eventually describe what a function is doing... but I might not remember the precise term that goes along with it. So during review they'll suggest, you know, the "normal" English word for that. And even going back through some review comments, I can see where the logic I wrote in code is correct, but my comment is misleading. That's normal, I know, and it's definitely not the sole problem of people with epilepsy... but the truth is, if I had to code and was restricted to only using English, even if the code extruder was perfect, I would struggle. Whereas I can write code or make a diagram that might have terrible variable names but expresses the concept perfectly. fuuuuu

Replies (1)

@aud@fire.asta.lgbt 2026-07-27 23:03

I know the (3) famous problems in computer science joke has "naming" as one of them, so perhaps it's not exactly a new thought, but English really can be a terrible fucking language to be precise in sometimes. Maybe all human language can, and that's beautiful in some contexts and worthless ass tripe in this one. I'm now also thinking of the (fake, not real, bullshit) connection that bigots draw between "correctness of language" and "intelligence" vs. "prompt engineering" and "you just have to write your prompts correctly" and how fucking ableist and bigoted that actually is. Sorry, you're taking away people's access to a precise, deterministic language for programming computers that can be used by anyone, regardless of what language they speak, and replacing it with something where "you have to speak correctly"?? man fuck you

Open ##4150078