Hacker News Reader

I really think you shouldn't take the article, its conclusions and recommendations too serious.

You mean ... seriously?

I always assumed it originated with Perl, where $ is for scalars and @ for arrays.

I'm sure this use of $ character is much older than Perl.

One counter-example I know first hand: Sinclair ROM BASIC uses $ for denoting strings, in both variable and function names.

The one I have in a Spectrum is copyrighted 1982, around 5 years before first Perl was released.

I'm sure there are older examples like this.

You're right, seems like this usage goes back to at least 1964 in BASIC.

A bit like people who get annoyed by the word soccer, an English word originally to distinguish Association Football (soccer) from Rugby Football (rugger) and other codes.

Worth noting that this word also has class connotations, in that only toffs at Oxford called it soccer. Working class people never did.

My new favorite piss take of this debate:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGVKVTcfy2E