Verbalizing Coding Parlance

A lot of symbols used in software developing coding languages have some inconsistencies in how they are described. This page shows my standardization on the terminology to reduce confusion when speaking aloud about code.

OVERVIEW

Most of the correspondence between software developers and coders takes place these days online, with a lot of copy/paste and/or screenshare/shots. This often means the developer does not need to verbalize many of the symbols in their code.

Over time, as an increasing number of coders have become less and less literate in coding, and indeed speaking, I have seen an increasing problem with inconsistencies of standards in communication, which are increasingly causing more bugs in projects.

This page is a quick cheat sheet for the terminology I use. I know some of my terms are now "archaic" to the inexperienced developers (aka "coders") out there, but they reduce confusion, and are the standards I expect my staff and employees to follow. These standards, once followed, have been proven to reduce confusion and errors.

This is a useful resource: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_mathematical_symbols

SYMBOLS AND PREFERRED TERMINOLOGY

Symbol	Preferred Term	Okay but Less preferred	Others DO NOT USE	Notes
( )	Parentheses
(	Opening Parenthesis
)	Closing Parenthesis
{ }	Braces	Curlicue, Curly Brace	Brackets, Curly Brackets
{	Opening Brace
}	Closing Brace
[ ]	Brackets	Array, Square Brackets	Bracket, Brace, Square Brace
[	Opening Bracket
]	Closing Bracket

<	Less-than	Opening angle bracket	Bracket
>	Greater-than	Closing angle bracket	Bracket
\|	Pipe
\|\|	OR	Logical OR, Boolean OR	Double Pipe
&	Ampersand		And
&&	AND	Logical AND, Boolean AND	Double And
^	Caret

Braces (preferred) aka Curlicues, Curlicue Braces , or Curly Braces: { } (others also call them brackets or curly brackets, please don't )

Opening Brace: {

Closing Brace: }