Pronounciation guide?

General Usage
1

Hi, I love Julia but I have a hard type guessing how some of the functions/operators are called/pronounced. For instance, how do people pronounce:

  1. →
  2. =>

…? Single-arrow, double-arrow? It would be great if the documentation included a pronounciation guide…

Thanks!

1 Like
2
  1. “to” from latex “\to” → (see Julia unicode)
  2. “Pair x, y” (see ?Pair)
1 Like
3

Stab it, pair it.

9 Likes
4

I’d call them by usage:

1.- -> is for definition of anonymous functions, eg. (x) -> x + 1.

2.- => is for pairs, eg. A => 1. Complementing @Mattriks answer, you can just type ?=> to get help

5

Thanks everyone! So I guess I’ll pronounce them:

  1. (x) → x + 1 : x stab x + 1
  2. A => 1 : A pair 1
6

When I talk about code I would form sentences instead of reading the code out symbol for symbol, e.g.

  1. (x) -> x + 1: define the function that maps x to its successor
  2. A => 1: form the pair of A and 1
1 Like
7

Another (less violent :smile:) way of saying it, which is more oriented towards semantics than how the operators look, similar to @martenlienen’s answer:

  1. (x) -> x + 1: “map x to x + 1”
  2. A => 1: “A points to 1”, or even just “A to 1”
5 Likes
8

“x maps to y” and “x paired with y”

PS: Reminds me when I had to practice reading formulas in plain english with my paranymphs for the dutch ceremonial defence (they have to read the doctoral propositions to the public):

Let x be the two-dimensional solution of the differential equation with time derivative equal to one over capital t minus 2 t times the two-by-two matrix with minus one on the diagonal and one otherwise, times x of t plus Wiener noise starting in x of 0 equalling the vector u comma v for t in the interval from 0 to capital t half…

13 Likes
9

Yes, ever since the well-known We Want to Listen to Thesis Abstracts Revolt of 1642 in Utrecht, before which they didn’t.

But the public just kept demanding it, so it was wiser to give in to popular demand before they burned down something :wink:

5 Likes
10

Thesis Abstracts Revolt of 1642 in Utrecht

You are wrong in a detail. Before 1642 a thesis consisted only of proposition to be disputed in doctoral defence. It was Gisbertus Voetius at Utrecht University, who in a quarrel with Descartes set of by a condemning statement in 1642 (Descartes had to flee to Den Hague in the course) that Gisbertus forced his students to write entire monographs (apparently believing that propositions alone where not sufficient to refute cartesian philosophy.)

Screenshot 2020-11-07 at 13.49.25
Screenshot 2020-11-07 at 13.49.251056×628 186 KB

( Gisbertus Voetius (1589 - 1676): sein Theologieverständnis und seine Gotteslehre . Beck, Andreas J., 1965-. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2007.)

6 Likes
11

I have no idea how we ended up here. But this is incredibly interesting.

1 Like
12

Descartes must have said that “(all) Voetius must be counted”…

13

Now I remember another terminological option: arrow and fat arrow.
That matches the look of the symbols quite well, I think.

2 Likes