The hardest problem in programming
Oct. 17th, 2022 04:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elglin...is, of course, naming the variables.
Case in point, King Charles III, but in Russian. In English, of course, Charles, Prince of Wales, became Charles III, King of, well, United Kingdom and lots of other places which I don't have to remember as I'm not his subject.
In Russian, however, Prince Charles became King "Karl". A bunch of dimwits ran with that as "he changed his name, he was Charles and now he's Karl". A bunch of other dimwits ran with the story "Oh those idiot Russians who rename people when they become kings and queens" - I leave it up to the reader to decide, which of those bunches is more asinine.
In fact, it's purely a naming convention. Of course while the French had quite a few kings Louis and several kings Henry, they most certainly don't name them "Ludovicques" or, perish the thought, "Guinriche". William the Conqueror, too, was likely never called "Wilgelm".
Still, not really sure when that convention arose in Russian historical literature, but it became an established convention that kings and queens were named "based" on the Latin spelling of their names, even in cases when it sounded nowhere near the real enunciation. That extended beyond the strictly royal line to people like Charles Valois, brother of Philippe IV. So, while Charles Windsor was still the Prince of Wales, he wasn't the subject of that convention, but now, as a king, he pretty much is. End of story.
Of course, one could say that this convention is pretty dumb, and it quite probably is. However, as many practical programmers (the kind who write code instead of waging flame wars) know, following a bad naming convention already established in a codebase is preferable to having two naming conventions within it. An even better option, of course, would be to refactor the code to a good convention; however, it's quite often impractical even in the case of a codebase.
Therefore, until some kind of naming authority (Now where's the Russian Academy of Sciences when it's needed) decides to alter the convention, "es bleibt immer so wie es ist". Of course, this doesn't preclude me from continuing to call him Charles in private. Certainly not a case of lese majeste.
On a side note, there was quite some speculation in the mid-2010s on which royal name Charles would eventually take, and people were more of the thought that he'd become George VII, as both previous Kings Charles left a pretty questionable legacy. So he actually did have an option of renaming himself - he just chose not to.
Case in point, King Charles III, but in Russian. In English, of course, Charles, Prince of Wales, became Charles III, King of, well, United Kingdom and lots of other places which I don't have to remember as I'm not his subject.
In Russian, however, Prince Charles became King "Karl". A bunch of dimwits ran with that as "he changed his name, he was Charles and now he's Karl". A bunch of other dimwits ran with the story "Oh those idiot Russians who rename people when they become kings and queens" - I leave it up to the reader to decide, which of those bunches is more asinine.
In fact, it's purely a naming convention. Of course while the French had quite a few kings Louis and several kings Henry, they most certainly don't name them "Ludovicques" or, perish the thought, "Guinriche". William the Conqueror, too, was likely never called "Wilgelm".
Still, not really sure when that convention arose in Russian historical literature, but it became an established convention that kings and queens were named "based" on the Latin spelling of their names, even in cases when it sounded nowhere near the real enunciation. That extended beyond the strictly royal line to people like Charles Valois, brother of Philippe IV. So, while Charles Windsor was still the Prince of Wales, he wasn't the subject of that convention, but now, as a king, he pretty much is. End of story.
Of course, one could say that this convention is pretty dumb, and it quite probably is. However, as many practical programmers (the kind who write code instead of waging flame wars) know, following a bad naming convention already established in a codebase is preferable to having two naming conventions within it. An even better option, of course, would be to refactor the code to a good convention; however, it's quite often impractical even in the case of a codebase.
Therefore, until some kind of naming authority (Now where's the Russian Academy of Sciences when it's needed) decides to alter the convention, "es bleibt immer so wie es ist". Of course, this doesn't preclude me from continuing to call him Charles in private. Certainly not a case of lese majeste.
On a side note, there was quite some speculation in the mid-2010s on which royal name Charles would eventually take, and people were more of the thought that he'd become George VII, as both previous Kings Charles left a pretty questionable legacy. So he actually did have an option of renaming himself - he just chose not to.
(no subject)
Date: 2022-10-17 07:04 pm (UTC)