From: Philippe Verdy (verdy_p@wanadoo.fr)
Date: Tue Mar 23 2004 - 08:42:58 EST
> The file extension is '.cs', since including punctuation marks would
> cause problems on many systems.
> The correct spelling is with a sharp sign, not a number sign, as
> documented by Microsoft themselves in various places:
>
> http://msdn.microsoft.com/vcsharp/productinfo/faq/default.aspx
quote:
Q. What is the symbol in the name "C#"?
A. It's not the "hash" (or pound) symbol as most people believe. It's actually
supposed to be the musical sharp symbol. However, because the sharp symbol is
not present on the standard keyboard, it's easier to type the hash ("#") symbol.
The name of the language is, of course, pronounced "see sharp".
Yes the FAQ you reference is still ambiguous, and it does not specify ".cs" as
the extension to use, and it explictly says that for practical reasons, the hash
symbol will be used instead of the musical sharp, even if this causes technical
similar problems as what is explained in the FAQ with the keyboard support.
So the name (or trademark?) is meant to be pronounced "sharp" (in English),
visualized logographically with a sharp symbol, and entered as a hash (#) symbol
which don't work within file extensions in so many tools.
This leaves its users with problems when they want to choose their development
tool or platform, as they will use other file extensions than the obvious ".c#".
I can see this caveat as a way to create a unique identity directly related to
Microsoft desires to make it adopted the way Microsoft wants it. Having to use
'.cs' creates fileextensions that are not obviously referencing the 'C#'
language (remember that this name is pronounced very differently across various
languages, and NOBODY says "C sharp' in French, where we simply read it as "C
dièse" using the most common name to refer to the keyboard symbol, which is a
English number sign or hash, but where the term "hash" is not obvious for French
has it is homonym with the phonetic /hach/ to designate the letter 'H' in
French. (Sharp is also a wellknown trademark for computers and calculators, and
this adds to the confusion, so nobody would use it to spell "C#"; using "Dièse"
is a much more neutral approach, and from it a ".cd" extension could be used by
French users rather than ".cs" which "speaks" nothing)
Having to rename source files found an various places which use many variants
for the problematic ".c#' extension is an issue that will be solved later
(remember the similar issue that arose with C++ file extensions '.C', '.cc',
before '.cpp' was finally more universally accepted as the standard extension to
use; same thing for the C++ new header names which remove any extension: some
C++ development tools will map them to filenames without extensions that cause
integration problems, some will remap these names with a default extension such
as '.h' or '.hpp'). It's a shame that no standard and usable file extension was
defined, whatever the name and logo used by this language.
May be one day, if this language gets approved for a future interoperable
standard, it will have a different name. For now I see "C#" as a Microsoft
trademark, and a marketing tactic, similar to the "/2" logographic mark used and
protected by IBM several years ago to promote OS/2 and other technologies
developed at that time, and nearly abandonned today.
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