A fun fact about PNG, the correct pronunciation is defined in the specification
> PNG is pronounced “ping”
See the end of Section 1 [0]
replies(6):
> PNG is pronounced “ping”
See the end of Section 1 [0]
Not sure I'll bother to reprogram myself from “png”, “pung”, or “pee-enn-gee”.
Hard-g is wrong, and those who use it are showing they have zero respect for others when they don't have to.
It's the tech equivalent to the shopping cart problem. What do you do when there is no incentive one way or the other? Do you do the right thing, or do you disrespect others?
Wrt/ communication, aside from personal preference, one can either respect the creator, or the audience. If I stand in front of 10 colleagues, 10 out of them would not understand jif, or would only get it because this issue has some history now. gif on the other hand has no friction.
Ghengis Khan for example sounds very different from its original Mongolian pronunciation. And there is a myriad others as well.
The debate itself is old. "Since the 90s" Wikipedia says, and keep in mind the format was is from 1987 - so I would say the debate is on from the get-go. Appropriate, too, if you think back, arguing about this kind of stuff was pretty common. Emacs vs vim, browser wars, different kinds of computers, tribalism everywhere.
Thinking about it, I think I understand why hard G makes sense for people. With GPU, we pronounce the the individual letters, as it's clearly an abbreviation - as no sane English word starts with "gp". With GIF though, even though it's an abbreviation, it looks a lot like a normal word, "gift", and English also has "give", another one with a hard G, so it feels familiar to say. Moreover, the US, where GIF comes from, has Jif already established as a peanut butter brand, so it makes sense to not pronounce a newly invented, differently written word the same as an already established thing. Well, at least to some it makes sense!