C
Chase Preuninger
I am board and want to do something with Java I/O (networking
included). Any Ideas???
included). Any Ideas???
J
Jeff Higgins
Chase said:
Sure.
Work harder on your English spelling and grammar.
Roedy Green's Canadian Mind Products site has many
suggestions for Java projects,
<http://mindprod.com/projects/projects.html>
unfortunatly getting a 404 error at the moment.
R
Roedy Green
C
Chase Preuninger
Spelling and grammar have never been my strong point.
R
Roedy Green
R
Roedy Green
Programmers tend to be proud of poor spelling and grammar. They think
of those skills as feminine or frivolous. However, they are necessary
skills for programmers because:
1. computer languages require perfect, or at least consistent
spelling.
2. on a team, you will drive people nuts if you don't use properly
spelled variable names because they won't be able to type them
correctly.
3. computer languages require perfect grammar.
4. Computer programs tend to do subtle things. You need to be able to
explain to other programmers what they are in the comments.. You can't
get away with shorthand that only you can understand.
5. If you are asking for help, and you make a large number of errors
in your grammar or spelling, it may be taken as disrespectful.
Further, you will may be perceived as too stupid to bother with.
I get emails from soldiers with hundreds of spelling and grammatical
errors. I can't help but feel contempt for these people even before
they start attempting to justify why they kill children.
see http://mindprod.com/jgloss/feedback/peace.html
6. One way of looking at it is not that your spelling and grammar
skills are non-existent, but that you speak a private dialect that
nobody else understands. You are quite likely perfectly accurate in
applying its unwritten rules of spelling and grammar. I recall my 3
younger sisters devised a private language they used prior to entering
school. I was worried no one would understand them at all when they
reached school age. Even I understood only a part of it. However, it
took only a month or two once they entered school to learn standard
English.
R
Roedy Green
Any decent newsreader will have a spell checker. see
http://mindprod.com/jgloss/newsreader.html
You then have no excuse for a post containing non-existent words.
Granted, it is still possible to write "your" for "you're", or "that"
for "than".
When you don't use the spell checker you are broadcasting the hidden
message "My time is infinitely valuable. Yours is worthless." This is
hardly the best attitude to use for begging free help.
see http://mindprod.com/jgloss/newsgroup.html
R
Roedy Green
D
David Segall
Agreed but refactoring solves this problem.Roedy Green said:
They do, and they tell you immediately if it is incorrect.
True, but his posts were easily understood.
This is because spelling, grammar and your speaking voice are all used
to reinforce a social class structure. It is assumed that someone with
an Irish or North American accent is inferior to someone with an
Oxford accent. Poor grammar or spelling is another sign that a person
was brought up in an inferior social class.
Your web site indicates that you are a compassionate person. By all
means judge your emails on their content but try to resist judging
them by their social class and that means ignoring grammatical and
spelling errors.
M
Martin Gregorie
I've seen comments in several places and at several times that a *good*
programmer also tends to be particular about spelling and grammar as well
as meticulous in their use of language. I've read enough well-crafted code
and accurate, well written system specifications to believe this to be
true.
A
Arne Vajhøj
Martin said:
Could you demonstrate your spelling and grammar skills by
writing the above in correct danish ?
Arne
M
Martin Gregorie
Not a chance! I can't even order a beer in Danish despite spending a week
in Hilleroed with visits to Ringsted and Copenhavn. That was a VERY
long time ago but good memories linger on.
A
Arne Vajhøj
Martin said:
"En øl, tak"
should do that.
(now you just need to figure out how to pronounce that ...)
My point was that English is not the native language for everyone
and you should not expect perfect spelling and grammar from everyone.
Arne
J
Jeff Higgins
Jeff said:
Please keep the discussion on comp.lang.java.programmer.
--- Chase Preuninger said:
Flowers are just a bonus.
Work harder on your English spelling and grammar.
R
Roedy Green
Ideally you have egoless programmers who are happy when somebody
corrects spelling errors. However, in the real world I think the
other type are more common, the ones who hit the roof when you modify
"their" code and "their" spelling. After all, when you change the
spelling it makes it hard for THEM to remember variable names.
I had a boss who tried hard to drive in the notion of egoless
progamming by demanding it be impossible to tell who wrote the code.
By that he really meant that all code should look identical to his,
including the finest details of style.
R
Roedy Green
Granted mindprod.com is an eclectic site which covers buying computer
equipment, gay rights, the environment, human rights, animal rights,
politics , ethics and religion. However, the Java glossary section of
it is one of the largest sources of lore on Java programming you will
find outside the Sun docs. I don't try to tell you everything, just
the basics and the surprises. I aim to get a newbie up to speed as
fast as possible, where they can read the JavaDocs without feeling
overwhelmed.
Every day I change the image of the day on the home page. It is
usually some plant, animal or landscape celebrating the diversity and
beauty of life on earth. If you click it, it will take you to art.com
where you can buy it as a photographic print, optionally framed.
You can see the images I have used in past at
http://mindprod.com/jgloss/artcom.html
and
http://mindprod.com/jgloss/artcomextras.html
Today's image of canola celebrates the legal victory of Percy
Schmeiser, an Alberta canola farmer who was harassed outrageously by
Monsanto. Monsanto sued _him_ when pollen from their genetically
modified fields contaminated his organic fields destroying his strains
developed over decades.
Monsanto is a global bully. I hope something terrible happens to
them. They stole the entire plant genome of Iraq and now force
penniless farmers there to buy their terminator gene seeds.
equipment, gay rights, the environment, human rights, animal rights,
politics , ethics and religion. However, the Java glossary section of
it is one of the largest sources of lore on Java programming you will
find outside the Sun docs. I don't try to tell you everything, just
the basics and the surprises. I aim to get a newbie up to speed as
fast as possible, where they can read the JavaDocs without feeling
overwhelmed.
Every day I change the image of the day on the home page. It is
usually some plant, animal or landscape celebrating the diversity and
beauty of life on earth. If you click it, it will take you to art.com
where you can buy it as a photographic print, optionally framed.
You can see the images I have used in past at
http://mindprod.com/jgloss/artcom.html
and
http://mindprod.com/jgloss/artcomextras.html
Today's image of canola celebrates the legal victory of Percy
Schmeiser, an Alberta canola farmer who was harassed outrageously by
Monsanto. Monsanto sued _him_ when pollen from their genetically
modified fields contaminated his organic fields destroying his strains
developed over decades.
Monsanto is a global bully. I hope something terrible happens to
them. They stole the entire plant genome of Iraq and now force
penniless farmers there to buy their terminator gene seeds.
M
Martin Gregorie
My experience is that Danish is hard to learn on a visit because you Danes"En øl, tak"
should do that.
(now you just need to figure out how to pronounce that ...)
insist on speaking such good English to native English speakers.
The context, as I saw it anyway, was one of sloppy spelling/ grammar/
language usage by a native speaker of any language.
I don't believe I mentioned any language in particular. Anyway, my guess
is that what I wrote would apply equally to any professional programmer
working in his native language.
R
Roedy Green
When I visited the Netherlands I found only one person who did not
speak English, but he was able to speak enough English to clearly
explain that. It seemed so odd a person who could pronounce English
so well did not speak it.
M
Martin Gregorie
I've had that explained to me as "nobody else speaks Dutch, so we have to
speak other languages".
Most Dutch speak good English, so much so that often seen the following: a
set of British lads are standing chatting when some Dutch friends come
over and join in. The conversation stays in English as people come and go.
Eventually the last Briton leaves the group. Almost anywhere else this
would signal an instant switch to their native tongue but not in Holland:
there they're equally likely to go on speaking English.
M
Mike Schilling
Martin Gregorie said:
Have I told this story here? I was walking in Amstedam once, unable to find
the Rembrandt museum, and stopped a passerby for help. "Excuse me, do you
speak English?" I began politely, only to be met with an irate "Of course I
do! I went to school!"