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Comment by kccqzy | Hacker News Reader

I don't like emojis in this context. I like them when humans use them to communicate over text when facial expressions and such aren't available. I feel weirded out when a computer program sprouts emojis at me. A computer program needs to treat human users with respect, and emojis convey the wrong tone. Like languages with T-V distinction, emojis strictly belong to the T form and are unsuitable for communication from a computer program to a human.

This made me recall that I have `export HOMEBREW_NO_EMOJI=1` in my shell startup. I wish all programs provide me with an opt out like this for this misfeature.

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> I like them when humans use them to communicate over text when facial expressions and such aren't available.

I believe emoji is shorthand for a tableau of common iconography. This is useful, because it is not limited to an OS specified set, allowing for user expansion and culture to determine the core set.

The folder icon, itself, is an emoji in this context.

These are technically emoji, but in my perception it would be accurate to call them icons.

I encourage you to try to move past it, you’re missing out! Of all the arbitrary cultural norms, “computers should only use icons, not emojis” is the most arbitrary. No offense ofc, and I believe you that the psychological effect is real — I’m just saying it’s probably an arbitrary one that would go away pretty quickly.

Personally, “output a concise, hierarchical markdown document with heavy usage of emojis” is a must-have LLM pre-prompt. Helps with scanning the results quickly, and I have a hunch it helps it keep its reasoning straight for complex tasks.

Hard pass. I want my terminal to present me with text, and only text. That way, as I cry bitter tears of defeat, the textual output will remain, stolidly presenting its harsh reality to me. Emoji would falsely present an aura of hope and congeniality where there is only pain; the cruel reminder that I have once again failed to live up to its inflexible and demanding expectations.

…seriously though, I have absolutely no desire for emoji in the terminal.

Emoji are text though?

When (Western) people say text, they generally mean ASCII. If your language requires glyphs, that is of course reasonable to also be called text.

I’ll grant emoticons (e.g. :-D) as being textual, because they are composed of the building blocks of ASCII. An emoji, though consisting of Unicode code point[s], cannot say the same, unless you’re arguing that they’re all bits, which is reductionist.

Emoticons was a western word for emoji I think, which originated in Japan. Emo(emotion) Ji (glyph/character).

The distinction between one being text and one being pictures isn't a widely used one I don't think, please someone correct me if I am wrong. I think it's perhaps a retroactive distinction in certain social circles/settings but not particularly consistent.

picture (e) character (moji) actually

Though the similarity to emoticon is amusing.

Oh yeah, you are right. I had recalled it was a contraction of emotion and character.

I wonder if the specific kanji for (e) was picked for it's reading, and thus double entendre in English, intentionally.

> Emoticons was a western word for emoji I think, which originated in Japan.

Emoticons predate emoji are were always purely ascii text based.

In an alternative universe where someone other than Americans invented the popular character set, would emoticons have existed at all if computers had the capability to display Unicode glyphs from the start? It feels like still insisting on using Morse code after keyboards were invented.

> would emoticons have existed at all if computers had the capability to display Unicode glyphs from the start?

Probably not.

> It feels like still insisting on using Morse code after keyboards were invented.

For some of us older people it's a habit. Easier to type instead of going looking for an emoji, especially if not on a phone.

I prefer the aesthetic of it.

But also there are specific tones for me and long term friends, that are not perfectly captured in the myriad different pictures.

For example, ;_; and :P from english IRC days, do not map perfectly to the tongue out picture emojis in almost any set I have seen.

Yes, though there were intermediaries like CP437 [0] which contained crude emoji. That said, though I was exposed to them growing up in the 90s, emoticons by far dominated every message board and chat service I ever used. Emoji didn’t really take off (at least, in America) until smartphones hit.

[0]: https://www.aivosto.com/articles/charsets-codepages-dos.html

Eh, you'd get plenty of Westerners who'd argue that text goes beyond ASCII. Most of Europe, for example, requires Latin-1 at the very least.

Not to even mention Greek and the like.

Fair point. I still think there’s a vast difference between letters / glyphs and emoji, though. One is the default for communication, the other is optional at best.

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