A very common grammatical mistake that programmers make

Re:A very common grammatical mistake that programmers make by makmanalp on Friday February 06, 2015 @11:45AM (#9009823)

Too late!

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/setup?s=t

  set up
  verb (adverb, mainly transitive) 
   ....
   3. to build or construct: to set up a shed
  Collins, 2012

I've slowly moved from prescriptivist to descriptivist, and if you want to keep your sanity, I suggest you do too, because linguistic history has shown that people use words the way they want and will keep doing so regardless of any interventions.

edit: To clarify - the author says:

  I ask you to set something up for me. I don't ask you to setup something for me.

I think the genesis of this expression was "to set up <sthg>" -> "set up <sthg>" -> "setup_sthg". The "to set <sthg> up" form /is/ probably more correct in the prescriptivist sense, but my take is that this isn't really a mistake, it's intentional. "setTestClassUp" sucks because it spreads the logical units of the identifier all over the place. I want the verb in the beginning and the noun after.

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Re:A very common grammatical mistake that programmers make by Epenthesis on Friday February 06, 2015 @12:26PM (#9010131)

I don't think you're disagreeing with the post. The author isn't arguing that "set up" isn't a verb, but that it's a phrasal verb, which should be written as two words.

This isn't a prescriptivist argument about language itself, it's an argument about a spelling convention (One which is arguably more accurately descriptive of the usage of the words.). Your dictionary link, by spelling "set up" as separate words when used as a verb, agrees with the author.

It's possible that language changes will result in "set up" becoming a fixed, atomic phrase, at which point writing it as one word would make sense. But since both"I'm going to set up the computer" and "I'm going to set the computer up" still sound perfectly natural to my ears as a native speaker, I don't think we've yet reached that point.

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Re:A very common grammatical mistake that programmers make by dikaiosune on Friday February 06, 2015 @12:30PM (#9010164)

In camel case, "two words" becomes setUp. I'm not sure that capitalizing 'U' does any good for future readability.

I suppose that in snake case it might be a little clearer, but in many cases it would still be good either way that someone named their method/function/variable fairly descriptively.

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Re:A very common grammatical mistake that programmers make by jcbrand on Saturday February 07, 2015 @03:19AM (#9013452)

I'm actually ok with it being written "setup" in that case. It's then just a noun and not a verb.

However something like "cleanupInstance" is much better written cleanInstance or cleanUpInstance

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Re:A very common grammatical mistake that programmers make by peterjmag on Friday February 06, 2015 @12:23PM (#9010102)

Doesn't that link contradict your point? Only the verb version contains a space.

  setup
  noun
  ...

  set up
  verb (adverb, mainly transitive) 
  ...

That said, I agree with you regarding prescriptivism vs. descriptivism.

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Re:A very common grammatical mistake that programmers make by ksk on Friday February 06, 2015 @12:05PM (#9009964)

lolz bt dnt u thnk tht ths shit is ugly?

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Re:A very common grammatical mistake that programmers make by chunkstuntman on Friday February 06, 2015 @12:19PM (#9010064)

In my experience, the only people who send text messages this way are the parents of children who have a cell phone. Text abbreviations were used at a time when typing on a phone was difficult, but now that we can use our thumbs to type (or swipe) fully expanded words on a virtual qwerty keyboard, most people have abandoned the kind of spelling you're displaying.

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Re:A very common grammatical mistake that programmers make by yaddayadda on Friday February 06, 2015 @02:22PM (#9010976)

My co-workers' (ranging in age from 18 to upper-50s) txt's beg to differ.

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Re:A very common grammatical mistake that programmers make by nate_meurer on Friday February 06, 2015 @12:10PM (#9009999)

Ugly to us maybe, but that won't stop your kids from being fluent in it.

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