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So I'm really really biased here. But as a programer with (mild) dyslexia, I have to say I think it's one of the best professional fields for this. We have li

So I'm really really biased here. But as a programer with (mild) dyslexia, I have to say I think it's one of the best professional fields for this. We have linters, syntax highlighting editors, pretty printers, compilers and a whole suite of tools to make sure typos never go live. No other other field has these tools, and high paying professional work does in fact require "typo free work" to make it anywhere, in almost any field.° Sure in plenty of fields you can try to paper over this with process - but this just means as a dyslexic your promotions are limited by the caliber of your secretary, PA, MA, editor or whatever person fixes your work in your field. You get a good one you flourish and bad one your career dies. As I've moved to management I've had to delegate every piece of writing which is a frustrating experience, and that writing I end up doing usually ends up passing before multiple peoples eyes before being sent -- even for a simple email. This is not easier than coding - it's way harder. ° Spelling and grammar checkers help, but really are no where near as good as linters and all the other tooling.

ballenf 9y ago
Wow, I never thought about it that way. You have single-handedly changed the advice I'd give to my family on the issue. (Except for the resume advice above, which I think still holds.)
- unabst 9y ago
  > but I do care if you don't bother to run it past someone else who can for editing. Even Chrome has a spell checker. Not sure the distinction here between code typos and English typos is a valid one. The OP is saying not bothering to check is the issue, not the specific errors. And this is, by definition, careless. This is a lack of caring for correctness and a lack of awareness of mistakes. It could even be considered a lack of respect, which would be a lack of professionalism, but the OP did not go there. If you have dyslexia, then a perfect resume that includes your challenges as a dyslexic would be most impressive. Employers are looking to be impressed. Don't be an unimpressive bag of excuses.
  - ballenf 9y ago
    Screening is all about finding good proxies for the skills you need for the position. Typos on resumes might be a good proxy for something, but not necessarily attention to detail (since you don't know the process the resume went through to get into its error-free state). At the extremes, the proofing could have been forced on them unwillingly by an overbearing parent or partner -or- the applicant could have painstakingly run the resume through every checker out there and begged for lots of feedback from others. It's more accurately a proxy for the applicant understanding the context of various processes and the relative importance of a task. That may or may not be a skill you need in the job. Finally, if the resume error rate is higher or lower than what you observe in the candidate's live, observed writing/coding then you should take note assuming such errors are a proxy for what you're looking for.
    - unabst 9y ago
      Typos could be anything, period. As could anything else. Bring a resume with typos and your rebuttal and see what happens. The trouble you go through to defend typos will be far more work than fixing your typos. It's mostly automatic. Reasoning doesn't excuse you from making mistakes, because excused don't make up for those mistakes. In any professional work environment, your mistakes are someone else's paid job to fix. OP is talking about attitude and mindset. The "I can reason away typos" mindset is not appealing. The "I will do anything to not make mistakes" mindset is. I mean, that is still what we are talking about here right? Being attractive to employers.
gugagore 9y ago
You're biased, of course, but exactly in the right way in my opinion. Personally this is a beautiful example of why representation matters. People without dyslexia (myself included) simply cannot know what people with dyslexia can and cannot do. Many thanks for sharing such an important point that I hadn't thought about before.
ggg9990 9y ago
This is an extremely well written post, did you delegate it?
sillysaurus3 9y ago
Nothing to say, just wanted to chime in: Awesome comment, thanks for sharing.
kls 9y ago
Not to mention people with dyslexia objectify words differently. This is why the exact token representation of words are less relevant in our brains than those without it. Given that in programming words are just symbols for values or conditions, we view the words of code very differently than the words that convey linguistically meaning. The structure of words in a sentence is very different than the structure of words and symbols in code. It has never presented a problem for me when coding.

ballenf 9y ago

Wow, I never thought about it that way. You have single-handedly changed the advice I'd give to my family on the issue. (Except for the resume advice above, which I think still holds.)

unabst 9y ago
> but I do care if you don't bother to run it past someone else who can for editing. Even Chrome has a spell checker. Not sure the distinction here between code typos and English typos is a valid one. The OP is saying not bothering to check is the issue, not the specific errors. And this is, by definition, careless. This is a lack of caring for correctness and a lack of awareness of mistakes. It could even be considered a lack of respect, which would be a lack of professionalism, but the OP did not go there. If you have dyslexia, then a perfect resume that includes your challenges as a dyslexic would be most impressive. Employers are looking to be impressed. Don't be an unimpressive bag of excuses.
- ballenf 9y ago
  Screening is all about finding good proxies for the skills you need for the position. Typos on resumes might be a good proxy for something, but not necessarily attention to detail (since you don't know the process the resume went through to get into its error-free state). At the extremes, the proofing could have been forced on them unwillingly by an overbearing parent or partner -or- the applicant could have painstakingly run the resume through every checker out there and begged for lots of feedback from others. It's more accurately a proxy for the applicant understanding the context of various processes and the relative importance of a task. That may or may not be a skill you need in the job. Finally, if the resume error rate is higher or lower than what you observe in the candidate's live, observed writing/coding then you should take note assuming such errors are a proxy for what you're looking for.
  - unabst 9y ago
    Typos could be anything, period. As could anything else. Bring a resume with typos and your rebuttal and see what happens. The trouble you go through to defend typos will be far more work than fixing your typos. It's mostly automatic. Reasoning doesn't excuse you from making mistakes, because excused don't make up for those mistakes. In any professional work environment, your mistakes are someone else's paid job to fix. OP is talking about attitude and mindset. The "I can reason away typos" mindset is not appealing. The "I will do anything to not make mistakes" mindset is. I mean, that is still what we are talking about here right? Being attractive to employers.

gugagore 9y ago

You're biased, of course, but exactly in the right way in my opinion. Personally this is a beautiful example of why representation matters. People without dyslexia (myself included) simply cannot know what people with dyslexia can and cannot do. Many thanks for sharing such an important point that I hadn't thought about before.

ggg9990 9y ago

This is an extremely well written post, did you delegate it?

sillysaurus3 9y ago

Nothing to say, just wanted to chime in: Awesome comment, thanks for sharing.

kls 9y ago

Not to mention people with dyslexia objectify words differently. This is why the exact token representation of words are less relevant in our brains than those without it. Given that in programming words are just symbols for values or conditions, we view the words of code very differently than the words that convey linguistically meaning. The structure of words in a sentence is very different than the structure of words and symbols in code. It has never presented a problem for me when coding.