Do you know what a Paamayim Nekudotayim is? Are you a web developer or software engineer? Well come on, spit it out then (saying these words made me accidentally spit on my girlfriend’s arm, she wasn’t too impressed). If you’ve used PHP (Hypertext Preprocessor) to create your websites, you’ve come across these strange words. But why are they there? I mean, programming languages are weird and different compared to the languages of normal human beings, but this is just too weird.
As you may know, PHP 3.0 was created by the Zend team and was powered by Zend Engine 0.5. Okay, now we’re getting somewhere. Where do people get names like ‘Zend’? Doesn’t sound quite like ‘Flash’, ‘Dreamweaver’ or ‘Jaguar’ (the former was put out for car maniacs). Zend is simply a combination of the first two engine manufacturers’ names (PHP, not Jaguar): Andi Gutmans and Zeev Suraski. Now, you could say these guys don’t have much of an imagination, but I don’t think you’re right.
A brand: that’s what these guys were leaving behind when they created that name. They left a small footprint in the history of humanity; they created something and left their initials on it so others could know that it was individual human effort that created the technology. That brings us back to those weird words: Paamayim Nekudotayim. Hmmm, did you know that these guys came from Israel?
Within PHP there is what is known as a ‘Scope Resolution Operator’ or (::). This double colon is a “token that allows access to static, constant, and overridden members or methods of a class.” (See: http://www.php.net/manual/en/language.oop5.paamayim-nekudotayim.php) It is also called Paamayim Nekudotayim or colon in Hebrew. As you can see, the boys were also having a bit of fun, and even though the words are strange and complex…they stuck.
Tell me, what does this tell you about the world of computers and technology? In fact, it shows a very important and significant fact. Technology does not create itself. It is a force that is constantly being created and actualized by individual members of humanity. Technology, including its most incredible form today, computing, is simply an extension of humanity’s collective will. Individuals leave their mark so that they can be recognized or remembered by future generations, or simply by friends, for altruistic, selfish, or fun reasons. However, the true epiphany lies in recognizing that we are technology, and we better not forget it.
Is technology like PHP great, or are the people who created it and use it for the betterment of the world?