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Craig Hockenberry, on the pronunciation of the “@” character:

What we’ve seen happen with the @ symbol is the opposite. Many different cultures have seen our “COMMERCIAL AT” symbol and given it a name based on its appearance.

So even though John and I are right about the pronunciation, this is certainly a case where English pales when compared with other languages. I envy my colleagues that get to play with snails and monkeys while coding in Objective-C!

I’ve been working on a project which requires me to use Sina Weibo, and it’s interesting how those of us with English as our first language completely miss that most major programming languages are Anglocentric. We often miss how these languages are interpreted and used by those who do not speak or write English as their first language.

There are, however, some non-English-based programming languages of varying popularity. Dolittle is particularly charming.