Java Type System

[George Neuner]

^^ s/of/with/

...please. Like the UK nastiness, "the england team", I find the
Americanism of using 'of' instead of 'with' very irritating.

Such misconstructions are not really "Americanisms" in the sense that
they are unique to the American dialect of English. They are, rather,
something I like to call "stupidisms" (trademark pending) and, IMO,
are more indicative of poor language education rather than of locale
(though certainly locale and education may have correspondence).

YMMV.

My pet peeve is using "since" for "because". I don't care what the
new dictionaries say ... those two words are not synonyms but merely
have partially coincident meaning.

YM I don't care to hear (unless you agree 8).

Arrrr, I feel better with that off my chest.

Ditto.

 

[Arne Vajhøj]

Such misconstructions are not really "Americanisms" in the sense that
they are unique to the American dialect of English. They are, rather,
something I like to call "stupidisms" (trademark pending) and, IMO,
are more indicative of poor language education rather than of locale
(though certainly locale and education may have correspondence).

YMMV.

Can you pronounce "Rødgrød med fløde" correctly?

Arne

 

[Stefan Ram]

something I like to call "stupidisms" (trademark pending) and, IMO,

Am I the only one to whom this subject sounds stupid:

»First class developer: who ?«

? (I am not a native speaker of English, so I am not sure.)
Let me quote:

»Besides a mathematical inclination, an exceptionally
good mastery of one's native tongue is the most vital
asset of a competent programmer.«

attributed to Djikstra, but I can not confirm the source

»If your writing is semi-literate, ungrammatical, and
riddled with misspellings, many hackers (including myself)
will tend to ignore you. While sloppy writing does not
invariably mean sloppy thinking, we've generally found the
correlation to be strong -- and we have no use for sloppy
thinkers. If you can't yet write competently, learn to.«

Eric Raymond

http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html#skills4

»I've found that some of the best developers of all are
English majors. They'll often graduate with no programming
experience at all, and certainly without a clue about the
difference between DRAM and EPROM.

But they can write. That's the art of conveying
information concisely and clearly. Software development
and writing are both the art of knowing what you're going
to do, and then lucidly expressing your ideas.«

http://praisecurseandrecurse.blogspot.com/2007/03/english-majors-as-programmers.html

 

[Tom Anderson]

Am I the only one to whom this subject sounds stupid:

?First class developer: who ??

? (I am not a native speaker of English, so I am not sure.)
Let me quote:

?Besides a mathematical inclination, an exceptionally
good mastery of one's native tongue is the most vital
asset of a competent programmer.?

attributed to Djikstra, but I can not confirm the source

?If your writing is semi-literate, ungrammatical, and
riddled with misspellings, many hackers (including myself)
will tend to ignore you. While sloppy writing does not
invariably mean sloppy thinking, we've generally found the
correlation to be strong -- and we have no use for sloppy
thinkers. If you can't yet write competently, learn to.?

Eric Raymond

http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html#skills4

?I've found that some of the best developers of all are
English majors. They'll often graduate with no programming
experience at all, and certainly without a clue about the
difference between DRAM and EPROM.

But they can write. That's the art of conveying
information concisely and clearly. Software development
and writing are both the art of knowing what you're going
to do, and then lucidly expressing your ideas.?

http://praisecurseandrecurse.blogspot.com/2007/03/english-majors-as-programmers.html

Nice quotes, Stefan! A sentiment i rather agree with - i think the skills
of writing good natural language and good code are more similar than
people think. Perhaps we should be setting George Orwell's essays and
Jacques Prevert's poetry as reading in programming courses?

tom

 

[Tom Anderson]

If the road *to* Hell is paved with good intentions (not "intent"), and
one is traversing that road in the opposite direction, i.e., *away from*
Hell, is it not still paved with good intentions?

Might not be. If it's a dual carriageway, or there's a one-way system, so
the route back is not the same as the route there, then the paving could
be different in either direction. And based on my experience of places on
Earth similar to hell, i strongly suspect the one-way system.

Hmm. Are there any cases where roads have different pavings on lanes
running in different directions? You could imagine a that a steeply
sloping road in a wet or snowy country might - it could have a grippier
surface on the lane running uphill.

tom

 

[RedGrittyBrick]

Might not be. If it's a dual carriageway, or there's a one-way system,
so the route back is not the same as the route there, then the paving
could be different in either direction. And based on my experience of
places on Earth similar to hell, i strongly suspect the one-way system.

Hmm. Are there any cases where roads have different pavings on lanes
running in different directions? You could imagine a that a steeply
sloping road in a wet or snowy country might - it could have a grippier
surface on the lane running uphill.

It must therefore be Hell's demons that apply the Shellgripâ„¢ on the
approaches (i.e. one side of the road) to the Hangar Lane gyratory†?

 

[Mike Schilling]

Hmm. Are there any cases where roads have different pavings on lanes
running in different directions? You could imagine a that a steeply
sloping road in a wet or snowy country might - it could have a
grippier surface on the lane running uphill.

When I was young, I used to walk five miles to school, uphill in both
directions.