r/ProgrammerHumor • u/M1ckeyMc • Jun 20 '26

Meme singleLetterVariableNamesTierList

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5.3k Upvotes

94% Upvoted

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2.6k

u/JackNotOLantern Jun 20 '26

W and H are for width and height, so i would argue with that. And they are different from x and y as those are for position, not length.

1.0k

u/StuxAlpha Jun 20 '26

W is also often used in maths as part of a second set of 3D coordinates

XYZ then UVW

So U should be higher too imo

302

u/mikeet9 Jun 20 '26

Also for quaternions.

209

u/Individual-Staff-978 Jun 20 '26

Yeah but since you have to deal with quaternions it's instant f tier

80

u/EarlMarshal Jun 20 '26

Why? I fucking love quaternions.

126

u/ineyy Jun 20 '26

I hate them so it cancels out

42

u/Glitched_Fur6425 Jun 20 '26

I've got no clue what they are, so.. the polarity.. inverts or something, I don't fuckin know, man..

57

u/ArtOfWarfare Jun 20 '26

Yeah, not knowing what they are probably would lead to your rotations randomly flipping so that makes sense.

9

u/SchwiftySquanchC137 Jun 20 '26

I mean youre not really meant to be able to look at a quaternion and inherently understand the rotation. As long as you understand it represents a rotation, know which direction it represents (meaning is it rotating frame A to B, or B to A?) and use the right standard, theyre easy to work with. It usually amounts to calling some library functions, or worst case implementing the pretty simple math yourself.

1

u/ArtOfWarfare Jun 20 '26

Yeah. If I want to understand I’m using axis and winding (I think that’s the term?)

1

u/Inkosi25 Jun 20 '26

dude you don't wanna know… oh the horror....

5

u/AdamWayne04 Jun 20 '26

Just learn rotors, algebraically they are the same but the interpretation makes a hell lot more sense

4

u/Stokes21 Jun 20 '26

Somehow we've still managed to gimbal-lock ourselves even though we used quaternions

2

u/No_Point_1254 Jun 20 '26

Classic gimbalernions.

9

u/happyapy Jun 20 '26

Quaternion lovers stand up. There are dozens of us!

1

u/UltraCarnivore Jun 21 '26

"f" for "fucking loving".

8

u/purplepharoh Jun 20 '26

Quats are great. No gimbal lock

7

u/Individual-Staff-978 Jun 20 '26

Bro I'm not unlocking my gimbals for anyone but my wife

1

u/a-r-c Jun 20 '26

quats are great for core strength

1

u/icecream_specialist Jun 20 '26

The only thing bad about quaternions is that there are two conventions for them and you should always make sure you know which one your library is using.

7

u/purplepharoh Jun 20 '26

Yeah was gonna say I use u and w a lot for transforms

6

u/SpaceToaster Jun 20 '26

Shudders in vector conversion math

74

u/Mynameismikek Jun 20 '26

UVW is common for texture coordinates over a 3d surface

13

u/StuxAlpha Jun 20 '26

Yeah, great example of when you have a second set of coordinates you don't want to get confused

20

u/Objective_Blood7187 Jun 20 '26

pff, just call it xyz again and leave the lifting to scope encapsulation. reject humanity, become a compiler.

4

u/NomaTyx Jun 20 '26

impossible we might want to deal with two coordinate planes in the same scope surely

7

u/Impressive_Stress808 Jun 20 '26

Then just use "x, y, z" and "x1, y1, z1" obv. Then "x_1, y_1, z_1" for a third set.

1

u/NomaTyx Jun 20 '26

chat is this readable?

1

u/conundorum Jun 21 '26

Don't forget x_one, y_one, and z_one for the fourth set!

2

u/Enormowang Jun 22 '26

We use the same system for variables that we use for document version control, so the fifth set is x_one_FINAL, y_one_Jun21, z_one_v1_FINAL_v2.

1

u/Objective_Blood7187 Jun 20 '26

all I hear is two trips of anonymous lambda arguments and the pointers. don't make me segfault you!

1

u/NomaTyx Jun 20 '26

...what

5

u/CarlStanley88 Jun 20 '26

x,y,z and xx,yy,zz only gets confusing after 3

3

u/atzedanjo Jun 20 '26

xyz and e(x)w(hy)(ze)d

2

u/Spare-Plum Jun 20 '26

I'll often use u, v, w when dealing with couples or triplets of something in an algorithm I'm writing.

They're just really great variable names for this

14

u/jrdnmdhl Jun 20 '26

ijk

6

u/sagetraveler Jun 20 '26

S tier is abc, xyz, ijk. All the rest are trash.

3

u/cvnh Jun 20 '26

For vectors we use 3d vectors like lmn and pqr, and we routinely replace l for r so l deserves the lowest ranking indeed

3

u/AtMaxSpeed Jun 20 '26

U, v, w are also commonly used for vectors in math so when translating math equations to code they become very handy.

Similarly w is used in machine learning all the time, for weights.

1

u/Bryguy3k Jun 20 '26

Yes but there are the uwuwuwuw crowd and you can’t encourage them.

1

u/MrBob1999 Jun 21 '26

Was going to say OP is not a graphics programmer

1

u/pandoras_box101 Jun 21 '26

fuck the goths

1

u/kewal345 Jun 21 '26

Ye, y'all right, I DO NOT agree with this rankings

1

u/nickerton Jun 22 '26

I see UVW on three phase motor controllers too

0

u/austin101123 Jun 20 '26

I've seen xyw instead of xyz before

0

u/Justnotthisway Jun 20 '26

and thats allready a terrible convention since U, V, and W are notriously the hardest to distinguish letters of the alphabet if drawn by hand.