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> there is a link between them in the sense that for almost any activity that you could call programming you need to be able to read and write. I couldn't agre
by Xichekolas 17y ago
> there is a link between them in the sense that for almost any activity that you could call programming you need to be able to read and write.
I couldn't agree more. With that in mind, his last paragraph really bothered me:
"Thirty years from now, will the United States be more competitive with a population that can read English at a tenth-grade level or with a population excellent at making the complex machines of that era do their bidding? The two options may be mutually exclusive..."
All the best programmers I know are also excellent writers. I don't know if I'd reach for causation there, but the correlation is impressive.
- Fixnum 17y agoYeah -- if a native English-speaking adult hasn't acquired a grade ten level of literacy (understanding rules of punctuation, grammar, spelling, composition, semantics, cogent argument), what chance do they have at reading/writing code? Such a situation would basically be (is?) an admission that the educational/social system has failed to help the individual develop mentally [!] to the level which is probably possible for most people. Which is something that I find sad.
- jacquesm 17y agoI think you could easily make the case that in order to be able to program you have to be able to verbalize your thoughts to the point that they are unambiguous and that takes much more effort if you are not able to present a coherent argument in the first place. Writing prepares you like nothing else for that because it 'freezes' your thoughts to the point where you can analyze them.