[Xitami] CGI

[miplanet]

I didn't even know what a backslash was until I got my first computer in
198x something or other. We know things change thoughout the years and here
is what my friends who work for Microsoft say.

"\" is a backslash
"/" is a whack

So something like this http:// would be http:whackwhack and this c:\ would
be c:backslash

Compute on
Ron


-----Original Message-----
From: xitami-admin@lists.xitami.org
[mailto:xitami-admin@lists.xitami.org]On Behalf Of Brian {Hamilton
Kelly}
Sent: Tuesday, March 25, 2003 2:23 PM
To: xitami@lists.xitami.org
Subject: Re: [Xitami] CGI


In message <001701c2f27d$e1a64800$6401a80a@comcast.net>
   Charles Schmidling writes:
> Oh what the heck...
>
> At the risk of exposing my age ...
>
> "/" - this is a backslash.

It most decidedly NOT a "backslash".  Back in the 1960s, when I too used
to use IBJOB control cards and the like, the character was generally just
called "slash".  Purists might call it "oblique" or "solidus".  NO ONE
EVER called it a "backslash" in that era.

>                            It deals with the motion one makes with a pen
or
> pencil as opposed to direction of incline.  For those who remember cards,
> "backslash,backslash" defined a command card in IBM Job Control Language
> (JCL).

A  novel etymology: would you like to air such ludicrous views in a place
densely populated with very erudite "old farts"; I mean, of course, the
newsgroup <news:alt.folklore.computers>.

Moreover, the punched card code had no means of generating what is
correctly called a backslash.  The character is simply a "slash".

> "\" - this is the forward slash.  Again, describing a physical motion.

That character was never seen until the second (or was it the third?)
revision of ANSI X3.64 (aka ASCII) in the mid-to-late-1960s.  As soon as
it appeared, some people started calling it a "backslash", because it was
the mirror image of the familiar "slash" character aforementioned.  Other
names are "reverse slash" or "reverse solidus".

> be gentle,

Why?  If you spout arrant nonsense, you must expect to be ridiculed and
royally flamed.   There are already far too many "intellectually
challenged" Windoze lusers around who don't understand the correct
nomenclature, and like you, have it arse-backwards.  Don't add to their
paucity of knowledge by reinforcing a contradiction.

>
> Isn't the term "software program" dedundant?

I would agree with this viewpoint: however, I fail to see where the term
might have been used in the post which you quoted.

--
Brian {Hamilton Kelly}
bhk@dsl.co.uk
    "We can no longer stand apart from Europe if we would.  Yet we are
    untrained to mix with our neighbours, or even talk to them".
                                              George Macaulay Trevelyan,
1919

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