Advances and Retreats in Computing

Marc Abrahams

C++ for Ebonics?

Should everyone, even programmers, be allowed to have their own dialect? Recently, the Oakland, California, school board declared that one particular dialect of English spoken by African Americans and called Ebonics had become so common that it is now a distinct language and can be taught as an alternative to Standard English. But the basic question -- whether a dialect should be officially allowed to replace the gold-standard version of our mother tongue -- is n ot new. During the past decade, a dialect called C++ rose to prominence among the hacker-American community. Educators (or teachers, as they are known in some circles) and parents have debated whether to use it, honor it, or kill it.

For many years now, school boards across the country have been asked to introduce C++ into their curricula. Supporters say that this is a good thing, that many students now come from households where C++ is a primary means of communication, that literacy is literacy no matter what the language.

Critics say that the prevalence of C++ in homes is really and simply a symbol of widespread family dysfunction. To these critics, C++ fluency is not something to be proud of. The dialect is so much a corruption of basic English, they insist, that those who use it flaunt their rebelliousness even in such trivial ways as spelling the name C++ with plus signs rather than alphabetic characters. The critics compare this alpha-symbolic moniker, often sneeringly, with what they term the "offensive show-off-iness" of the singer who changed his name from Prince to symbols that are practically unprintable.

So should C++ be accepted in schools as an alternative to Standard English? If you have an opinion , please e-mail us. Please send your messages in Standard English, without uuencoding.

New Hand-Held Optical Scanner

The hand-held optical scanner is a device whose time has come, and gone, and come again. The cable/connector assembly is of advanced generic design. The eyeball mechanism and plastic optic-mounting complex is patent permanently pending, and the eyeball itself is in a state of perpetually suspended animation. The version shown here is the single-glove, or Jackson/Simpson, model. A double-glove model features a very large, fiber-optically hairy eyeball that wanders. The eyeballs are of uncertain origin. The alpha and beta versions of the scanner use all-synthetic optical materials. The production models will feature biologic and bioreengineered components. The design is not approved by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

The benefits of the hand-held optical scanner are not immediately obvious, which is why the advan ced marketing modules are so valuable. The glove (or, in the double-glove version, gloves) is (or are) removable.

We are interested in receiving image files that you have produced with the hand-held optical scanner. If you have an image that would be of interest to our readers, please send it to marca@improb.com.

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A Scanner in the Hand

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Marc Abrahams is the editor of The Annals of Improbable Research. You can reach him at marca@improb.com .