Identifier significance CHALLENGE - (nf)

Wed Dec 14 22:04:46 AEST 1983

#R:sdcsvax:-6000:fortune:16200011:000:804
fortune!rpw3    Dec 14 04:01:00 1983

I don't know which PDP-10 compiler was meant, but there was an abbreviation
standard for squeezing 6-character program names into three characters,
as need for file extensions and per-job tempfiles. As I recall, it was
derived from some work done at Bell Labs on place-name abbreviations,
and went like this:

	Take the first letter, the next consonant, and the last
	consonant, duplicating as necessary,

	EXCEPT, if the word is already 3 chars, leave it alone
	(so PIP => PIP, not PPP)

Examples:	LOGIN => LGN
		ALGOL => ALL
		FORTRAN => FRN
		BASIC => BSC
		FREE => FRR

There was something about "Y" as a consonant, but I forget.

Rob Warnock

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