Paamayim Nekudotayim, or, why the double colon?
Posted: January 11, 2013 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Administration, double colon, history, Origins of the Name, Paamayim Nekudotayim, PHP, Scope resolution operator, פעמיים נקודתיים Leave a comment »A couple of people have asked about the double colon. It’s mostly a small joke. In PHP, the double colon is a scope resolution operator. Here’s an example from the PHP manual:
<?php
class MyClass {
const CONST_VALUE = 'A constant value';
}
echo MyClass::CONST_VALUE;
?>
The result would be A constant value.
So in this case, global outlook::digital humanities means “whatever the value of ‘digital humanities’ is in the scope of a ‘global outlook’.” The fact that the operator has a non-english name, even in English programming contexts, seemed pretty neat too (As the wikipedia explains: “The name “Paamayim Nekudotayim” was introduced in the Israeli-developed Zend Engine 0.5 used in PHP 3.” In Hebrew, it means “double dot twice” and is spelled פעמיים נקודתיים).
