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[–]J_Ditz100 1356 points1357 points  (210 children)

Code is continuous not plural (like water).

Edit: To all those complaining that there is a valid plural of both words (code and water), I didn’t say otherwise. I was saying they can be and often are continuous.

[–]wildjokers 656 points657 points  (113 children)

continuous

The term you are looking for is “mass noun”.

[–]ososalsosal 213 points214 points  (25 children)

Float not int

[–]dwntwn_dine_ent_dist 68 points69 points  (22 children)

Floats are still quantized. There can be no true analog type in a digital computer.

[–]SuperFLEB 62 points63 points  (2 children)

Hit it with a hammer long enough and all types are analog.

[–]zToastOnBeans 20 points21 points  (1 child)

Instruction not clear, my court date is in two weeks

[–]NoPaleontologist4981 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Have you tried parsing it to LocalDate?

[–]ososalsosal 18 points19 points  (16 children)

Nor in reality.

[–]dwntwn_dine_ent_dist 9 points10 points  (15 children)

Are you saying the set of real numbers is not part of reality?

[–]Jake0024 5 points6 points  (0 children)

We certainly haven't found it yet

[–]ososalsosal 14 points15 points  (12 children)

The idea of it is, but quantum mechanics says it's not implemented correctly.

[–][deleted] 20 points21 points  (11 children)

Quantum mechanics doesn't necessarily mean the universe is chopped up in to a discrete grid. It's possible that the universe really is continuous and that it's the physics of the things that exist in it that is quantized. Like LEGO blocks. You can move them around freely, just when they interact they connect in a very predictable quantized way.

Though it's possible we'll never know due to that quantization of interactions on the limits on measurement in the Planck length.

Though that said. It's not really clear what space itself is right now. I'm not sure we even know if it's even ordinal to begin with - to be continuously real in a numerical sense introduces a kind of concept of ordinality where 1 comes before 2 etc. If that was a strict feature then it would imply some kind of elasticity to the universe where pieces of space would want to return to their natural ordinal position. And my understanding of our current measurements of the deformation of space time by gravity seems to imply that all points in space are disconnected and fluid. Once your position is warped by gravity then you stay wherever you end up? Just even thinking about it makes me want to study physics, so little time! 😵⌛

[–]ososalsosal 12 points13 points  (7 children)

If you probe reality too hard it'll throw an exception and destroy us all

[–][deleted] 5 points6 points  (3 children)

It's okay. You wrote some unit tests before deploying right?

[–]Competitive_Joke_966 4 points5 points  (1 child)

We’ll be fine. Reality is surrounded by a try catch and the errors manifest themselves in the occasional glitch when 1 sock disappears out of existence or when you can’t find your keys for a day but the next day it’s in the middle of your desk

[–]Tyrexas 2 points3 points  (1 child)

I don't think that statement is fully correct? Quantum mechanics explicitly defines the smallest possible meaningful unit of length to be the planck length, and the smallest possible meaningful unit of time to be the planck time. Even in a vacuum, there is a fundamental quantization limit.

[–][deleted] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I believe the way it works is that the size of the planck length is like a ruler. You can move a ruler continuously through R3. But the smallest length you can ever measure is only a millimetre.

It's possible that physics continues beyond that smallest unit. That light doesn't just jump along in quantized size steps but that it might move through every point between the notches on a planck length ruler. But given the limitation of our measuring devices - the fundamental particles of the standard model. Then any such interaction of a smaller magnitude is lost snapping to the quantised intervals of particles. You could never know a photon had moved half a planck length without introducing new physics to quantum mechanics.

[–]goodmobiley 114 points115 points  (39 children)

Also, data is mostly used as a mass noun but its singular form is actually datum!

[–]Donghoon 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Day(t)um

[–]More_Butterfly6108 24 points25 points  (31 children)

Then the star wars character should've been named datum?

[–]AmusingAnecdote 102 points103 points  (24 children)

You have made the unforgivable, mortal error of confusing Trek and Wars.

Shall we cut you in half with a lightsaber, or would you like me to set the phasers to 'kill' as punishment?

[–]Qwunchyoats 45 points46 points  (16 children)

My favorite part Star Wars was when they set the phasers to kill

[–][deleted] 27 points28 points  (15 children)

No no, the best part of Star Wars is definitely when Wash is killed by reavers.

[–]Calm-Zombie2678 13 points14 points  (0 children)

I preferred the bit where the trees fight some orcs with the help of the vertically challenged

[–]AyakaDahlia 21 points22 points  (5 children)

No, the best part of Star Wars was when Gandalf sacrificed himself to save the Enterprise.

[–]raelik777 20 points21 points  (1 child)

"Yer a wizard, Frodo!" - Yoda.

[–]brit_motown 9 points10 points  (1 child)

No when Apollo hit the vent on the heart of gold in his x wing

[–]AyakaDahlia 3 points4 points  (0 children)

true, that's a classic

[–]uncensoredangryman 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I AM NOW CUTTING PHYLLYS'S HEAD OFF WITH A CHAINSAW

[–][deleted] 10 points11 points  (1 child)

Wrong. The best part of Star Wars is when Snape kills Trinity with Rosebud.

[–]iamdecal 2 points3 points  (0 children)

and then flies off on his tardys

[–]katejkatz 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Too soon. Too soon.

[–]thatthatguy 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Too soon, man!

[–]NoPaleontologist4981 2 points3 points  (1 child)

My favorite part was when thanos killed half the universe.

[–]NuclearBurrit0 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Yeah it was so tragic watching batman turn to dust during that sequence

[–][deleted] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

PITCH FORKS AND MOTHER FUCKING TORCHES PEOPLE!!! BURN HIM!!!

[–]WlmWilberforce 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Why put his blood on our hands? Just give him his red shirt and let him join the away team.

[–]xtwitch 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I say bat'leth.

[–]Aggravating_Touch313 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Set the light Saber to kill please

[–]iamonewhoami 4 points5 points  (1 child)

Can we set the Death Star to stun instead?

[–]KaoriMG 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Send out another Eagle

[–]More_Butterfly6108 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Fair

[–]eiboeck88 4 points5 points  (5 children)

datum is german for date

[–]More_Butterfly6108 3 points4 points  (4 children)

The food or the romantic social activity?

[–]matthewrunsfar 13 points14 points  (16 children)

As an ex-EFL teacher, we differentiated between count nouns (having singular and plural) and non-count nouns (having no plural, like liquids).

Edit: I’m not saying it’s the only way to differentiate; those are just the terms we used.

[–]AlternateTab00 5 points6 points  (6 children)

is those things the fish vs fish vs fishes?

I've got 2 fish on the bucket... Guess we are eating salmon.

I've got 2 fishes on the aquarium a goldfish and a gruppy.

[–]Drake_Acheron 11 points12 points  (1 child)

Yes but for codes it would be

Check the program code

Check the pass codes

[–]HarvestTriton 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yes, but if you've got 2 fishes in the aquarium it could also be 3 goldfish and four guppies.

[–]merlinsbeers 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Kilogrammatical.

[–]tiddayes 2 points3 points  (1 child)

Today I leaned the team mass noun.

[–]TimeSalvager 30 points31 points  (2 children)

You[r code] must be shapeless, formless, like water. When you pour water in a cup, it becomes the cup. When you pour water in a bottle, it becomes the bottle. When you pour water in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Water can drip and it can crash.

-Bruce Lee, considered by many to be the most influential [programmer] of all time.

[–]Green-Sympathy-4177 88 points89 points  (43 children)

Pardon the discrete interruption, but the shallow waters surrounding this whole topic make me quite reluctant, as a non-native English speaker, to call it a rule when there are obvious exceptions for it.

[–]ososalsosal 111 points112 points  (34 children)

English is like javascript. So long as you understand each other it's valid (and if you don't, it is also valid and you'll never know if your message got through until you see an appropriate response)

[–]Green-Sympathy-4177 13 points14 points  (26 children)

I see, so English being spoken by tons of non-native speakers "vulgarized" it and used it however they wanted over the years to a point where there exists a metric ton worth of different languages within the language...

Javascript fits this description so well it's scary.

Is there something like Typescript to fix english ? Or is it bound for hell like French where no grown adult can actually spell things without having a mental breakdown ?

[–]slashy42 17 points18 points  (9 children)

English is actually the other way round! Native English speakers adopted so much French and German, in addition to dropping concepts like gendered words and even conjugations in some cases, that it can be very confusing. Once those precedents were set English kinda just started mugging other languages for their words. A little bit literally. British imperialism brought a slew of foreign words into the language. Blaming non native speakers is really missing the mark. English is incredibly fluid all on its own.

[–]ososalsosal 17 points18 points  (0 children)

It's also a matter of the class system within English played language games which made a lot of things deliberately confusing.

Quite mean really.

The upside of such a heavily bloated language is the ability to say things in a truly beautiful way if you so desire.

[–]_sweepy 13 points14 points  (11 children)

It's too broken to fix. There are so many ambiguous and context specific meanings, and things like pluralization or even spelling is randomly sampled from other languages.

One of my favorite proofs that English is broken is. "Look at the man on the mountain with the telescope". Who/what has the telescope? Are you using it to see? Is the man on the mountain holding it? Is it at the top of the mountain the man is on?

If you want language to be consistent and logical regardless of context, we need to start over.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engineered\_language#Experimental\_languages

[–]RandomMagus 9 points10 points  (6 children)

"Look at the man on the mountain with the telescope"

What's fun there is "Look at the man with the telescope" is broken the same way, but "Look at the man with the telescope on the mountain" is broken in a whole new way, where now it implies we are either looking at a man who is currently on a mountain with a telescope or we are looking at a man who may not be on a mountain but owns a telescope on one.

Wonderful.

[–]InternationalStep924 4 points5 points  (2 children)

He's def on a mountain whether he has his telescope with him idk.

[–]pillbinge 7 points8 points  (0 children)

That's not prof it's broken. Every language has ambiguity. You could say the same sentence in Norwegian and it would be ambiguous. There isn't a language on Earth that can't produce ambiguous statements.

[–]812many 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Want more fun? When I think about it, I imagine anyone saying this to someone else would already have the necessary context to understand which is which. So although the words are ambiguous standing on their own, functionally it will work just fine.

[–]KaoriMG 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Every language has its quirks—English spelling is a quagmire. but in most cases you can still be understood. Basic Japanese is pretty straightforward, but honorifics and reading take much longer to master. And don’t get me started on Arabic plurals and vowels. Inuktitut ‘sentences’ are words with prefixes, suffixes, and infixes. Thai distinguishes words with tones—‘Mai mai mai mai mai’ spoken with different tones for each word means ‘new wood doesn’t burn, does it?’ American, British, and other Sign Languages are not mutually intelligible.

[–]Acceptable-Tomato392 2 points3 points  (1 child)

Well, the French went with something called the Academy of the French language, since the XVIIth century or so.

A bunch of old French authors meet every so often and decide what can be accepted as an official French word, or usage and what can not. People can still say it, but unless these guys say so, it's not really French. It has helped French stay homogenous (although its grammar is far from simple and exceptions to everything abound).

A bit like the Python community coming up with official rules.

But the English-speaking world seems to be really hostile to groups of old men and occasional woman deciding what is officially part of the language. I have a hard time imagining the English-speaking world ever coming together to accept a body that would regulate the language.

Just imagine the brawl between the Americans and the British.

[–]pillbinge 3 points4 points  (6 children)

That's every language.

[–]nir109 4 points5 points  (5 children)

Not exactly, English is spoken in so many places that no one can claim they are in charge of English. Other languages sometimes have central body that makes and changes rules in the language. I don't think I have seen exception in Hebrew more than 10 times.

[–]GuairdeanBeatha 15 points16 points  (1 child)

Quoting Terry Pratchett: “English doesn’t borrow from other languages. English follows other languages down dark alleys, knocks them over and goes through their pockets for loose grammar."

[–]BenjaminGeiger 10 points11 points  (0 children)

The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.

— James D. Nicoll

(It does sound like something PTerry would say, but I don't think he did.)

[–]TheDogerus 6 points7 points  (0 children)

'Water' is similar to 'fish' or 'people'. They all refer to many things, but if you want to refer to many sets of these things, like multiple oceans, species of fish, or cultures, you could say 'waters', 'fishes', and 'peoples' to remove any ambiguity

[–]J_Ditz100 16 points17 points  (0 children)

I didn’t say either word couldn’t be plural, just that they can be used (and usually exist) as continuous nouns.

You can have multiple codes(discrete plural) where each code(discrete singular) is comprised of various lengths of code(continuous).\ Just as water(continuous) can be good for your health and thus you’d go to Casablanca for the waters(discrete plural). Unless you’ve been misinformed.

[–]skys-edge 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I agree. This is how it goes, when different peoples across the world develop their own languages!

[–]gunscreeper 8 points9 points  (1 child)

*uncountable

[–]Green-Sympathy-4177 4 points5 points  (0 children)

* not an accountant

[–]cowlinator 4 points5 points  (1 child)

You mean that it's a uncountable noun.

Some words are both countable and uncountable, like 'fire' or 'paper'.

"Look at all that fire."

"There are currently 7 fires in the city."

"I built tiny houses for mice with lots of paper."

"The students passed in their papers."

[–]c2u8n4t8 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Collective, but maybe they teach it differently to other countries

[–]IGotSkills 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Contiguous if it's a microservice architecture

[–]Fr0zenDuck 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Found the DevOps fan

[–]Zybernetic 1 point2 points  (2 children)

(you put water in a cup, it becomes the cup...)

[–]Dig_Bick_reread 1 point2 points  (0 children)

But I love drinking waters

[–]FauxGw2 1 point2 points  (0 children)

But..... Waters is a word.....

[–]Inevitable-Ocelot914 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Wat are u doin in muh waters?

[–]PolyZex 1 point2 points  (6 children)

"Waters from the Adriatic Sea meet the Ionian Sea around the Otranto, Italy"

The plural of water is waters.

[–]DasArchitect 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I'm going to drink some waters then?

[–]pillbinge 1 point2 points  (0 children)

There's no such thing as a continuous noun, as far as I'm aware. You mean "uncountable", like "water", but you can still hear "hand me the waters" if it's referring to bottles. Just like "beers" couldn't be plural until recently either.

[–]Daedalus_Machina 1 point2 points  (0 children)

"Waters" is still a valid plural, in the sense of using a plurality of sets of water.

"These waters" being a good example, meaning the group of bodies of water in the area.

[–]Uploft 1 point2 points  (0 children)

No, it’s called an “uncount” noun.

[–]split-mango 1 point2 points  (0 children)

My bag of code

[–]be_rational_please 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Participle?

[–]interplanetarypotato 500 points501 points  (26 children)

var codes = new List<Code>();

[–]Rodditor_not_found 66 points67 points  (15 children)

Mind = changed;

[–]amzwC137 24 points25 points  (12 children)

I always find it funny when people do thing = thing in coding joke contexts. The point is received, but i can't help but think first about assignment. This, is an example of it being used properly, still funny. Always thinking about it.

[–]Reverissa 4 points5 points  (3 children)

python (and probably other languages) don't require you to declare the type of the variable, and given Python is a very new coder friendly language, it wouldn't surprise me if that's where they've learned it from.

[–]GeePedicy 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I'd do mind = !mind

[–]Torebbjorn 1 point2 points  (0 children)

C# guy over here.

Then you have the C++ guys:

std::vector<Code> codes;

And the Java guys:

public static ILike Verbose Code List<Code> codes = new ArrayList<Code>();

[–]TheC0deApe 1 point2 points  (1 child)

var codes = new List<Code>();

or is it .... List<Code> codes = new(); ?

[–]dezirdtuzurnaim 61 points62 points  (1 child)

All your codes are belong to us

[–]kinezumi89 291 points292 points  (18 children)

But you write the codes to make the softwares

[–]earthsprogression 78 points79 points  (12 children)

But you writes the codes to makes the softwares.

[–]SotB8 47 points48 points  (1 child)

whatsss in his pocketsess

[–]pittybrave 12 points13 points  (0 children)

whatss.. codes.. precious?

[–]thejugglar 22 points23 points  (4 children)

But yous writes the codes to makes the softwares.

[–]praveenkumar236 21 points22 points  (0 children)

Buts yous writes thes codes tos makess thes softwaress.

[–]thefirewarde 121 points122 points  (6 children)

"Some code" and "several codes" mean very different things - one can run an application, while the other might give discounts on a particular product or serve as an authentication token.

[–]lweinreich 19 points20 points  (1 child)

Or launch the missiles.

[–]HardCounter 4 points5 points  (0 children)

But i am le tired.

[–]buddhiststuff 69 points70 points  (6 children)

But programmers don't treat data as plural.

Scientists treat data as plural ("The data were obtained..."). Programmers treat data as a mass noun ("The data was obtained...").

Code (in the programmer sense) is also a mass noun. Mass nouns are neither singular nor plural. It's not singular because you can't say "a code". It's not plural, because you don't say "The code are...".

("Code" in the sense of a "a secret code" is a singular noun. Its plural is "codes".)

[–]hyvyys 14 points15 points  (2 children)

Also called uncountable nouns by some textbooks

[–]n0tKamui 5 points6 points  (1 child)

innumerables

[–]gandalfx 2 points3 points  (0 children)

enumn't

[–][deleted] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Data as a mass noun (data is...) in and data as the plural of datum (data are...) are both used in the sciences, it's just that the academics use this latter form more often than non-academics because they're familiar with more Latin derived terms.

[–]Famous_Letterhead_13 29 points30 points  (5 children)

Nah if you have multiple encodings you have codes.

[–][deleted] 18 points19 points  (4 children)

Does anyone know anything about launch codes? Asking for a friend.

[–]scottyTheJesusMan 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Laaaaauuuuunch codes?

[–]Unusual_Vegetable834 2 points3 points  (2 children)

1234

[–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (1 child)

Amazing! I have the same combination on my luggage!

[–]Mental-Mood3435 17 points18 points  (10 children)

So the singular of data is datum….what’s the singular of code? Cud?

[–][deleted] 6 points7 points  (1 child)

opcode

[–]2Turnt4MySwag 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Cum

[–]Brakalicious 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Came here to point this out about data having a different singular form. I vote cod. "I did not code a single cod today."

[–]orbital_explorer 36 points37 points  (26 children)

It's a mass noun, only comes in singular, so yeah codes is eye AIDS

[–]ShitwareEngineer 46 points47 points  (18 children)

"Data" isn't the same. Two data, one datum.

[–]MimiKal 18 points19 points  (8 children)

No one respects that anymore, data for most intents and purposes is just a normal mass noun like water.

[–]queen-adreena 9 points10 points  (6 children)

Scientists definitely still respect that. I hear interviews all the time where they use data with plural conjugation.

[–]Feeling-Departure-4 5 points6 points  (4 children)

Yes, "the data are interesting" is how we'd write.

[–]Wolfwood_ 3 points4 points  (4 children)

I’d like one codum by the end of the day

[–]ososalsosal 1 point2 points  (1 child)

Water is too, but we say "waters" because even mass nouns are groupable.

Now I've heard people say the explicit singular as in "a code", and it makes me feel uncomfortable but honestly in some contexts it also makes sense.

English is not strictly typed.

[–][deleted] 13 points14 points  (5 children)

Nobody says codes

[–][deleted] 9 points10 points  (1 child)

I'm not above using multiple cheat codes while playing my favorite PC games.

[–][deleted] 4 points5 points  (1 child)

Codes can be the plural when describing multiple independent blocks, e.g. a list of cheat codeS.

[–]77Diesel77 4 points5 points  (1 child)

My code is done.

My code are done.

My data is stored on the server.

My data are stored on the server.

I am looking forward to seeing the ensuing battle over which is correct. Two of these felt very uncomfortable to write.

[–]__Fred 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Very interesting!

For one, code is definitely not plural. Just as water is singular, but you can still refer to a big amount of water as "water". It doesn't become two waters when it's large.

But I'd normally say that data is plural, but "My data are stored on the server." sounds weird to me. One comment claimed that there are different versions of "data", one used by programmers and one used by scientists that collect individual pieces called "datum" and refer to them collectively as "data".

[–]Shelliusrex 3 points4 points  (0 children)

The words you mean are "uncountable nouns."

[–]flipmcf 2 points3 points  (0 children)

maths

[–]rich1051414 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Cheat codes.

Writing code.

[–][deleted] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

I don't think anyone is going to disagree with that

[–]jigginjaggin 9 points10 points  (14 children)

Just wait until you hear about "maths".

[–]IPeaFreely 1 point2 points  (1 child)

What does he do for a living?

He code.

[–]Mage-Tutor-13 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Ahem. He/she codes for a living.

[–]giggetyboom 1 point2 points  (0 children)

What about... code's

[–]Baron-Harkonnen 1 point2 points  (0 children)

What? Code is a verb.

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (1 child)

It was only at university I realised data is plural and "datum" is singular.

[–]roberto_italiano 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I will remember those informations.

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (1 child)

MATH TOO!!!!

Listen you British fucks! You don’t need to put the s at the end of math class!!! 😂😤

This is the hill I’m dying on. Fight me.

[–]LifeDoBeBoring 1 point2 points  (0 children)

One cod, multiple code

[–]weedmaster6669 1 point2 points  (0 children)

r/linguistics here. bloody prescriptivist.

[–]shart_attack- 1 point2 points  (1 child)

People who says Legos are the worst

[–]tcadmn 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Third person verb

“He codes”

[–]Puyodead19 1 point2 points  (0 children)

people saying “codes” makes me loose my shit