Email Geek Speak
How to understand emails from geeky individuals
You may have experienced some frustration with email communications between geeky web individuals and yourself. Not to fear, we have the guide to understand all their quirky symbols and unexpected formatting. Most geeks are or where programmers and the old ones can actually type with all 10 fingers on the keyboard at one time! These characteristic lead to messages that can be frustrating and confusing to the inexperienced.
However, before we start keep in mind this is what they are used to writing day in and day out:
if(! $this->_doLogging){
return;
} else {
$fd = fopen($filename, "a");
$str = "[" . date("Y/m/d h:i:s", mktime()) . "] " . $msg;
fwrite($fd, $str . "\n");
fclose($fd);
}
..This probably explains a lot right there.
So here are some tips on how to read that next email from your geeky web developer.
<g> this mean "grin" as in smile.
There are several reasons for this behavior - 1) smiles did NOT have the current image replacements in email readers of long ago, and 2) more importantly the characters for a smiley are not as close together as a <G> characters or as fast to type. Old habits die hard.
<G> this means "big grin". Geeks are fairly simple minded individuals.
<sigh> this means "sigh". Don't ask me why they feel compelled to put their breath patterns in their emails but they do. This is harmless really and you should not read too much into it.
CAPITAL LETTERS geeks like to use capital letters in words that are important that they don't want you to miss. They are NOT angry or frustrated. It is just that geeks hate repeating themselves so they want you to get it the first time.
It is generally faster to hit the caps lock with the pinky finger than: "shift quote" type "shift quote". Also, back in the prehistoric days, there was no "bold" or text colors or different fonts.. It was 'fixed width Courier' period. Most of us ancients, actually remember using a typewriter. Again, old habits die hard.
Curt Replies: Just look at the code at the beginning of this article, Geeks are used to being very spartan and brief. Though they are also known to be very verbose if you get them started. Problem is that verboseness is usually very technical and hard to understand. If you want a 5 page answer, just ask they why "such and such" takes so long.
Going "On and on...:" Sometimes you will discover that they just won't let it go. Mostly it is because you are, in their mind, "just not getting the point". You probably never will, but the frustration leads to long winded and very technical explainations. Be patient and try ask questions, it you seem to try to understand it will minimize the process and you both can move on..
TFLA - Three and Four Letter Acronyms - most geeks can type pretty fast, but also hate typing and are very impatient (and a little lazy). They are use to IDE's (Integrated Development Environments) doing a lot of the typing for them. So... back in the late 80's and early 90's the internet was birthing and came forth with the BBS (Bulletin Board Service) and forums (Compuserve was a biggy) for sharing geeky technical information. It was slow, it was primitive, it was dial-up. And did I say they HATED typing that much. Acronyms became very big and now have come back with texting and Twitter. Ah, life is always a cycle.. Kind of funny that a 60+ year old geek can understand the 13 year olds text message.
A good source of what these all mean is here:
http://www.acronymgeek.com/popular
In summary, keep in mind you hired your web geek to build and maintain a successful business website, not to become your best friend. They are good at what they do and they try their best to communicate the complicated ins and outs of the web world so that you can best understand what is going on. Try and be patient, ask questions, and it will work out in the end.