On Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 01:02:22PM -0500, Dallman Ross wrote:
From: "David W. Tamkin" <dattier(_at_)ripco(_dot_)com>
When Dallman wrote,
But what I do know enough about to judge is the poster's
English. He doesn't know a dangling modifier when one bites
*his* ass. So I'm inclined to be skeptical of his ability
to parse code.
Marco asked him,
| You lost me on this one: are you *really* saying that one needs
| to be a native English speaker to be a good programmer?
I read Dallman's statement to say that the ranter's poor job of
expressing himself in his own native language indicates that he is
grossly untalented in dealing with the written word, in comprehending
(much less applying) the rules of any language, and in judging what
makes good writing; that therefore he has no business criticizing
another's writing style when his own writing skills are so weak. If
he can't tell good writing from bad in his native language, how can he
claim to tell them apart in another?
Dallman never said that one needed to be skilled in English to be
skilled in C, nor vice versa. Goodness knows that fluency in either
is neither necessary nor sufficient -- nor even helpful -- for fluency
in the other.
Well then he is not very good at expressing himself in his own language
either. Since there is no other way of reading what he said than to see
the implication that since the person cannot write grammatical english,
he therefore cannot understand "C" enough to criticise it.
I have known dozens of brilliant "C" programmers who could hardly mumble
coherently let alone write coherently. Likewise I have known dozens of
very poor programmers who were extremely coherent (which is probably how
they managed to keep their jobs).
--
Regards
Cliff
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