Comment by Ben Buchanan (200ok) on "Using emojis inside the code to improve readability"

CommentUsing emojis inside the code to improve readability

Ben Buchanan (200ok)

I make some bits of the web.

Nov 14, 2018

Code needs precision and emoji are not precise - they display wildly differently across devices and there's no universal agreement on what they mean anyway.

We've got 👊 over in the sidebar which I presume means 'fist bump' but I've also seen it used for 'punch'.

Someone commented on some code of mine once with a grinning cat emoji and it looked like an angry cat to me. They were confused when I asked what was wrong with the code. So yeah it adds emotion to text, but not uniformly-understood emotion.

Jason Knight

The less code you use, the less there is to break

Nov 15, 2018

Also an excellent point, different emoji's could be perceived as having different meanings. It's bad enough when two people from the same village speaking the same language have a 50% chance of misunderstanding each-other, (that's an old pen and paper RPG joke) without introducing more ambiguity to it.

Said ambiguity being part of the trap of "False Simplicity".

baymard.com/blog/false-simplicity

By using symbols not everyone might digest in the same manner, you're making something that looks simple but in fact makes the task itself harder.

Ben Buchanan (200ok)

I make some bits of the web.

Nov 15, 2018

"Doesn't everyone speak common?" group awkwardly rustles through character sheets "...does ANYONE speak common? How is this group talking to each other?"

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