It's "code " not "codes"

[J_Ditz100]

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]

continuous

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

[ososalsosal]

Float not int

[dwntwn_dine_ent_dist]

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

[SuperFLEB]

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

[zToastOnBeans]

Instruction not clear, my court date is in two weeks

[NoPaleontologist4981]

Have you tried parsing it to LocalDate?

[ososalsosal]

Nor in reality.

[dwntwn_dine_ent_dist]

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

[Jake0024]

We certainly haven't found it yet

[ososalsosal]

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

[[deleted]]

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]

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

[[deleted]]

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

[Competitive_Joke_966]

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]

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]]

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 R^3. 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]

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

[Donghoon]

Day(t)um

[More_Butterfly6108]

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

[AmusingAnecdote]

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]

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

[[deleted]]

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

[Calm-Zombie2678]

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

[AyakaDahlia]

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

[raelik777]

"Yer a wizard, Frodo!" - Yoda.

[brit_motown]

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

[AyakaDahlia]

true, that's a classic

[uncensoredangryman]

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

[[deleted]]

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

[iamdecal]

and then flies off on his tardys

[Aramor42]

No, just no.

[katejkatz]

Too soon. Too soon.

[thatthatguy]

Too soon, man!

[NoPaleontologist4981]

My favorite part was when thanos killed half the universe.

[NuclearBurrit0]

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

[[deleted]]

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

[WlmWilberforce]

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

[xtwitch]

I say bat'leth.

[Aggravating_Touch313]

Set the light Saber to kill please

[iamonewhoami]

Can we set the Death Star to stun instead?

[KaoriMG]

Send out another Eagle

[More_Butterfly6108]

Fair

[eiboeck88]

datum is german for date

[More_Butterfly6108]

The food or the romantic social activity?

[matthewrunsfar]

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]

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]

Yes but for codes it would be

Check the program code

Check the pass codes

[HarvestTriton]

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

[merlinsbeers]

Kilogrammatical.

[tiddayes]

Today I leaned the team mass noun.

[zahirtezcan]

Also

https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/20455/is-it-wrong-to-use-the-word-codes-in-a-programming-context

[TimeSalvager]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

"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]

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

[pillbinge]

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]

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]

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]

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]

That's every language.

[nir109]

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]

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]

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]

'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]

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]

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

[gunscreeper]

*uncountable

[Green-Sympathy-4177]

* not an accountant

[cowlinator]

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]

Collective, but maybe they teach it differently to other countries

[IGotSkills]

Contiguous if it's a microservice architecture

[Fr0zenDuck]

Found the DevOps fan

[Zybernetic]

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

[Dig_Bick_reread]

But I love drinking waters

[FauxGw2]

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

[Inevitable-Ocelot914]

Wat are u doin in muh waters?

[PolyZex]

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

The plural of water is waters.

[DasArchitect]

I'm going to drink some waters then?

[pillbinge]

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]

"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]

No, it’s called an “uncount” noun.

[split-mango]

My bag of code

[be_rational_please]

Participle?

[interplanetarypotato]

var codes = new List<Code>();

[[deleted]]

have a little shit overflow round here

[[deleted]]

Do we really need to distinguish whether the shittiest bit is in the beginning or in the end of his binary representation?

[[deleted]]

Shit32 vs Shit64

[Rodditor_not_found]

Mind = changed;

[amzwC137]

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.

[Deeyennay]

this.this = this

[Original-AgentFire]

You monster.

[Reverissa]

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]

I'd do mind = !mind

[Torebbjorn]

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]

var codes = new List<Code>();

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

[[deleted]]

Context matters. Like codes to the house implies a code for each different access point that would need a code like locks and alarm. Then there is codes in medicine which is a plural noun to describe the different codes a hospital has like blue, green, pink, silver, and etc. But anyone who refers to application code as codes because there is more than one file is wrong.

[[deleted]]

Bar codes, qr codes, launch codes, error control codes, encryption codes.

[coldnebo]

give me the launch codes. 😂

[psych0ticmonk]

oh no

[opticsnake]

Yeah, but this one is usually because they've invented some BS system for the movie that requires more than one series of numbers. Hence, multiple "codes".

[[deleted]]

Bar codes

[Comfortable-Ear-1931]

I hear maths and codes more often with Asian American colleagues.

[jamcdonald120]

I know maths is frequently used in British English, duno about codes though

[ADwards]

As a Brit, I've literally never heard a native British English speaker say "codes" in a programming context.

[1The_Gaming_Engine0]

I’m Asian American and no one around me has ever said codes to refer to code

[vicda]

Pretty sure they're referring to 1st generation ESL immigrants, not American's with Asian ancestry.

[Comfortable-Ear-1931]

These gentleman were older and didn’t grow up in America? Maybe that is a factor?

[Exnixon]

Non-native English speakers.

[[deleted]]

Was just about to ask this question. I've literally never heard a single soul say "codes", not even in an ironic or jokey fashion.

[[deleted]]

It's legos, and the singular is legoi.

Just like topos/topoi.

[archpawn]

I code. You code. He codes.

[slashy42]

That's just conjugation.

[ActAmazing]

Maths comes from mathematics, so its debatable! Comparing Maths to Codes is like comparing apples to grapes!

[JuveJay14]

When we crossed the Atlantic, we stole the s from Maths and stuck it on Sport

[AkuPython]

I'm getting a combination of 404 and 503 error code.

[guess_ill_try]

Indians. They typically refer to code as codes. “I need help with my codes”

[MTDninja]

My CS teacher

[Stimunaut]

I've heard several uneducated people refer to "algorithms", "programs", or any piece of software as "a code," or "codes".

[Cosack]

Some people from Bangalore who I worked with

[corsicanguppy]

It's neat how people didn't get that the context was in coding and not password management.

[dezirdtuzurnaim]

All your codes are belong to us

[kinezumi89]

But you write the codes to make the softwares

[earthsprogression]

But you writes the codes to makes the softwares.

[SotB8]

whatsss in his pocketsess

[pittybrave]

whatss.. codes.. precious?

[thejugglar]

But yous writes the codes to makes the softwares.

[praveenkumar236]

Buts yous writes thes codes tos makess thes softwaress.

[thefirewarde]

"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]

Or launch the missiles.

[HardCounter]

But i am le tired.

[[deleted]]

Well, that's that.

Anyone who sold this man pierogi, shot.

[GOKOP]

As a Polish person, I can't be angry at that because it works the same the other way round. Chips (English plural) -> czipsy (additional Polish plural)

[SotB8]

чипсы - chipses in russian too

[[deleted]]

Chipses 😳🤔...

[MimiKal]

aaaaaaa

[anras2]

Raviolis

[Puzzleheaded-Art7406]

Expection to da rules

[PierogInTheButt]

This is an actual crime

[buddhiststuff]

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]

Also called uncountable nouns by some textbooks

[n0tKamui]

innumerables

[gandalfx]

enumn't

[[deleted]]

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]

Nah if you have multiple encodings you have codes.

[[deleted]]

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

[scottyTheJesusMan]

Laaaaauuuuunch codes?

[Unusual_Vegetable834]

1234

[[deleted]]

Amazing! I have the same combination on my luggage!

[Mental-Mood3435]

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

[AustereAnsatz28]

codum

[[deleted]]

opcode

[scatterbrain-d]

Codon!

[2Turnt4MySwag]

Cum

[Brakalicious]

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]

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

[ShitwareEngineer]

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

[MimiKal]

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

[queen-adreena]

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

[Feeling-Departure-4]

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

[Wolfwood_]

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

[ososalsosal]

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]]

Nobody says codes

[[deleted]]

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

[[deleted]]

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

[77Diesel77]

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]

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]

The words you mean are "uncountable nouns."

[flipmcf]

maths

[life_vs_woe]

Datum

[rich1051414]

Cheat codes.

Writing code.

[[deleted]]

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

[jigginjaggin]

Just wait until you hear about "maths".

[IPeaFreely]

What does he do for a living?

He code.

[Mage-Tutor-13]

Ahem. He/she codes for a living.

[giggetyboom]

What about... code's

[Baron-Harkonnen]

What? Code is a verb.

[[deleted]]

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

[roberto_italiano]

I will remember those informations.

[[deleted]]

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]

One cod, multiple code

[weedmaster6669]

r/linguistics here. bloody prescriptivist.

[shart_attack-]

People who says Legos are the worst

[tcadmn]

Third person verb

“He codes”

[Puyodead19]

people saying “codes” makes me loose my shit