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I don't think there'll be any agreement soon on what to call those odd,
seldom-used characters like ^ (CARET, dammit! :), # (pound!), etc. The
names we use are largely from experience (Writer 1: "What the heck is that?"
Writer 2: "Why, that's a caret!") but when our customer base has a generally
preferred term, we use it (since we sell to lots of phone companies, # is
pound).
I got an email from someone (since he didn't send to the list, I won't say
who!) saying that naming a character after an operation it signifies in
a particular syntax can be dangerous, as in naming | "pipe". I thought
about that for a bit... and decided that our users will either (a) be UNIX
folk who are already familiar with the term or (b) novice users who just
need some name, any name, to call the thing. Were I writing for, say,
mathematicians (I am one by education, by the way), I'd choose another
name, because the character has special meaning in their discipline (actually,
several meanings depending upon what kind of math, but that's math for ye).
Finally, regarding the dreaded "insertion point" or "I-beam" -- I prefer
I-beam, because it's compact and unambiguous. But I figured out a way to
capture the (way too many) shapes of the screen pointer on my system, and
use the shape in text instead of a name. "The cursor changes to (shape).
Type text."
jim grey
jwg -at- acd4 -dot- acd -dot- com
Terre Haute, IN - The Silicon Cornfield
