6 ms·

Anecdotally I found there is a high correlation between one’s ability to write correct English and one’s ability to write correct code. If I’m in the hiring sid

Anecdotally I found there is a high correlation between one’s ability to write correct English and one’s ability to write correct code. If I’m in the hiring side and I see a “its” vs “it’s” mistake it counts against you. A higher correlation is with consistency in spacing. The worst coders I met are the one who keep changing the rules about how many spaces they leave after commas and brackets... within the same file.

WilliamEdward 7y ago
Glad to know the difference between me having money to survive and being jobless will be a typo.
- Dylan16807 7y ago
  Only if you were right on the border line to begin with.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- commandlinefan 7y ago
  Put a different way - isn't it nice to know that the only thing you have to do to avoid being jobless is to spend five minutes proofreading your submissions?
- nkrisc 7y ago
  What, your keystrokes were streamed to the hiring manager as you typed? Writing is not real-time communication, take the time to review it before you send it. I corrected a few typos while writing this comment.
  - WilliamEdward 7y ago
    Mistakes can happen even after proofreading.
    - nkrisc 7y ago
      And if a hiring manager wants to evaluate your proofreading ability and attention to detail, more power to them.
    - nwallin 7y ago
      rm -rf / can accidentally go into prod after proof reading. "Sorry you're bankrupt boss it was just a typo"
- Brian_K_White 7y ago
  I cannot express how little sympathy I have for this tale of woe.
  - WilliamEdward 7y ago
    That's kind of the problem - lack of sympathy.
    - slowmovintarget 7y ago
      That's kind of the problem... hiring managers don't hire people because they feel sorry for them. They hire people because they think those people will be good at doing the work the manager needs to have done. After working with you side by side for a few weeks, the manager may, in all likelihood, genuinely feel sympathy for a problem you may have (though apostrophe use likely doesn't fall into that category). But that will have been because you earned it by being a colleague.
- chr 7y ago
  A typo such as misspelling "principal".
im3w1l 7y ago
Consider automatically enforcing your preferred code style.
- jackjeff 7y ago
  It’s not about preferring one style or the other. These developers are blind to white spaces and consistency in general. They semi randomly change style within the same file, even if this is something that they themselves have created from scratch. I had numerous conversations about that with them and they are clueless. Sure they will acknowledge the issue if you point it. However they have the same attitude as OP about apostrophes. They are unnecessary, the code is the same, it’s unimportant and they can’t be bothered... can’t even be bothered to install tools to fix the issue. Sure. You can automate the white space issue away. But unfortunately the same traits tend to show elsewhere... hence the high correlation between this behavior and the fact that they were terrible coders.
guiraldelli 7y ago
> Anecdotally I found there is a high correlation between one’s ability to write correct English and one’s ability to write correct code. I have been thinking a long time about it and I concluded it is about one being methodical. A methodic person tends to put extra attention on (all) the tasks they perform, as well as they are more critic to correctness, and those features combined might make them “better programmers”.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- greenyoda 7y ago
  I agree, but I think it's more than just being methodical - it's also a sign that someone cares about and respects their co-workers. People who take the time to write their code carefully understand that they're writing the code for other people to understand, not just for a machine. They're considerate of others, not wanting them to waste their time in the future trying to make sense of sloppy code. The same is true for e-mails, doc and other written communication - if I take an extra minute to make my message clear, it can save a lot of confusion down the road. (This is even true for things like Slack messages and HN comments.)
- guenthert 7y ago
  Absurd oversimplification. What are "better programmers"? There clearly will be a difference in requirements whether you'll be programming assembly code for a space probe or javascript for yet another web site. Beside, one would think that proper English (which?) grammar and orthography comes easier to native speakers. The same isn't true for Math and logically stringent thinking, which I'd think is more closely related to programming.
  - jobigoud 7y ago
    Programmers whose code can be more easily read and maintained later would be at least one metric. Regarding the use of the apostrophe, I don't have any proof but I think it's more often native speakers rather than non-native speakers that make theses mistakes. Especially it's vs its. I would be really curious to have stats on this and more generally on the categories of errors that non-native speakers make compared to native speakers. I think it's because a non-native speaker has to learn the grammar in a systematic way, as opposed to a more organic/phonetic way. For example we (non-native) learn "it is" before learning "it's", which I imagine is the opposite of a native speaker.
specialist 7y ago
I was once asked by a high school principle why programmers were such terrible writers. I replied that all the good programmers I know are also good writers. That if you can write an essay, you can code. Because it's all just organizing your thoughts and communication. Best job interview I ever had asked me to bring writing samples (not just code).
- Jedd 7y ago
  > I was once asked by a high school principle why programmers were such terrible writers. Was that someone that worked at a high school who had a surfeit of principles, or was it the person that ran the school - ie. a principal?
downerending 7y ago
The spacing thing is absolutely baffling. It's actually more work to get it wrong.
OrderlyTiamat 7y ago
I think you're on to something. I'd bet it is correlated with a person's conscientiousness score. The higher score would both mean less spelling mistakes and tidier code.
- ikeyany 7y ago
  Fewer* :)
DoreenMichele 7y ago
I'm visually impaired, among other things. I make some of my money doing freelance writing and I also know a little HTML and CSS. I refer to editing my own writing as "cleaning" it, an expression borrowed from programming. It's a pain in the ass for me because of my issues, but the computer or human reader equally don't care. So I just work at it and layer in extra steps.
nwallin 7y ago
I recently integrated clang format into my editor for my personal projects. It is physically impossible for me to write code that isn't formatted to a consistent style. I don't even like what the default style is, but that doesn't matter, because it's consistent. It's made me substantially better as a programmer in my personal projects. I'm typing word salad into the editor, and if it formats it wrong I know I've fucked up and need to fix it. It's comparable to the point in my programmer life I decided that every time I declared a variable I would ask myself whether or not I could make it const, and if I couldn't, why not. It's made me worse at my day job, where all of a sudden I think of formatting as a purely output mechanism, where my tooling says "I think you mean this", but in my work environment it's an I/O mechanism. It will be twenty years before I have enough clout at my day job to enforce a uniform coding standard.
- guitarbill 7y ago
  there's definitely a benefit for this in a team environment. having some kind of consistency makes reviewing easier, not to mention onboarding new people and senior engineers jumping into unfamiliar codebases. even in open source it makes sense. there's a reason go fmt and black (for python) are so popular. for what it's worth, i don't 100% agree with the decisions black makes, either. but luckily, you don't have to see eye to eye to reap the benefits. two caveats: it has to be a robust auto-formatter. something like checkstyle is unsuitable, because it creates more work, not less. and the auto-formatting has to be enforced via CI.
jaclaz 7y ago
Anecdotally as well, this extends to other fields besides programming/writing code, though personally I define it as the contrary, i.e. someone that writes "sloppily" (without proper grammar, with typos, etc.) will also work "sloppily", no matter the specific work, paricularly when some "team effort" is needed. I suspect that at the base there is somehow a lack in communication skills and "education", or more generally a lack of respect for otherwise agreed conventions (grammar and spelling when writing) that is corresponding to a same lack of respect for other people or for the specific conventions/rules that apply to the specific work.

WilliamEdward 7y ago

Glad to know the difference between me having money to survive and being jobless will be a typo.

Dylan16807 7y ago
Only if you were right on the border line to begin with.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
commandlinefan 7y ago
Put a different way - isn't it nice to know that the only thing you have to do to avoid being jobless is to spend five minutes proofreading your submissions?
nkrisc 7y ago
What, your keystrokes were streamed to the hiring manager as you typed? Writing is not real-time communication, take the time to review it before you send it. I corrected a few typos while writing this comment.
- WilliamEdward 7y ago
  Mistakes can happen even after proofreading.
  - nkrisc 7y ago
    And if a hiring manager wants to evaluate your proofreading ability and attention to detail, more power to them.
  - nwallin 7y ago
    rm -rf / can accidentally go into prod after proof reading. "Sorry you're bankrupt boss it was just a typo"
Brian_K_White 7y ago
I cannot express how little sympathy I have for this tale of woe.
- WilliamEdward 7y ago
  That's kind of the problem - lack of sympathy.
  - slowmovintarget 7y ago
    That's kind of the problem... hiring managers don't hire people because they feel sorry for them. They hire people because they think those people will be good at doing the work the manager needs to have done. After working with you side by side for a few weeks, the manager may, in all likelihood, genuinely feel sympathy for a problem you may have (though apostrophe use likely doesn't fall into that category). But that will have been because you earned it by being a colleague.
chr 7y ago
A typo such as misspelling "principal".

im3w1l 7y ago

Consider automatically enforcing your preferred code style.

jackjeff 7y ago
It’s not about preferring one style or the other. These developers are blind to white spaces and consistency in general. They semi randomly change style within the same file, even if this is something that they themselves have created from scratch. I had numerous conversations about that with them and they are clueless. Sure they will acknowledge the issue if you point it. However they have the same attitude as OP about apostrophes. They are unnecessary, the code is the same, it’s unimportant and they can’t be bothered... can’t even be bothered to install tools to fix the issue. Sure. You can automate the white space issue away. But unfortunately the same traits tend to show elsewhere... hence the high correlation between this behavior and the fact that they were terrible coders.

guiraldelli 7y ago

> Anecdotally I found there is a high correlation between one’s ability to write correct English and one’s ability to write correct code. I have been thinking a long time about it and I concluded it is about one being methodical. A methodic person tends to put extra attention on (all) the tasks they perform, as well as they are more critic to correctness, and those features combined might make them “better programmers”.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
greenyoda 7y ago
I agree, but I think it's more than just being methodical - it's also a sign that someone cares about and respects their co-workers. People who take the time to write their code carefully understand that they're writing the code for other people to understand, not just for a machine. They're considerate of others, not wanting them to waste their time in the future trying to make sense of sloppy code. The same is true for e-mails, doc and other written communication - if I take an extra minute to make my message clear, it can save a lot of confusion down the road. (This is even true for things like Slack messages and HN comments.)
guenthert 7y ago
Absurd oversimplification. What are "better programmers"? There clearly will be a difference in requirements whether you'll be programming assembly code for a space probe or javascript for yet another web site. Beside, one would think that proper English (which?) grammar and orthography comes easier to native speakers. The same isn't true for Math and logically stringent thinking, which I'd think is more closely related to programming.
- jobigoud 7y ago
  Programmers whose code can be more easily read and maintained later would be at least one metric. Regarding the use of the apostrophe, I don't have any proof but I think it's more often native speakers rather than non-native speakers that make theses mistakes. Especially it's vs its. I would be really curious to have stats on this and more generally on the categories of errors that non-native speakers make compared to native speakers. I think it's because a non-native speaker has to learn the grammar in a systematic way, as opposed to a more organic/phonetic way. For example we (non-native) learn "it is" before learning "it's", which I imagine is the opposite of a native speaker.

specialist 7y ago

I was once asked by a high school principle why programmers were such terrible writers. I replied that all the good programmers I know are also good writers. That if you can write an essay, you can code. Because it's all just organizing your thoughts and communication. Best job interview I ever had asked me to bring writing samples (not just code).

Jedd 7y ago
> I was once asked by a high school principle why programmers were such terrible writers. Was that someone that worked at a high school who had a surfeit of principles, or was it the person that ran the school - ie. a principal?

downerending 7y ago

The spacing thing is absolutely baffling. It's actually more work to get it wrong.

OrderlyTiamat 7y ago

I think you're on to something. I'd bet it is correlated with a person's conscientiousness score. The higher score would both mean less spelling mistakes and tidier code.

ikeyany 7y ago
Fewer* :)

DoreenMichele 7y ago

I'm visually impaired, among other things. I make some of my money doing freelance writing and I also know a little HTML and CSS. I refer to editing my own writing as "cleaning" it, an expression borrowed from programming. It's a pain in the ass for me because of my issues, but the computer or human reader equally don't care. So I just work at it and layer in extra steps.

nwallin 7y ago

I recently integrated clang format into my editor for my personal projects. It is physically impossible for me to write code that isn't formatted to a consistent style. I don't even like what the default style is, but that doesn't matter, because it's consistent. It's made me substantially better as a programmer in my personal projects. I'm typing word salad into the editor, and if it formats it wrong I know I've fucked up and need to fix it. It's comparable to the point in my programmer life I decided that every time I declared a variable I would ask myself whether or not I could make it const, and if I couldn't, why not. It's made me worse at my day job, where all of a sudden I think of formatting as a purely output mechanism, where my tooling says "I think you mean this", but in my work environment it's an I/O mechanism. It will be twenty years before I have enough clout at my day job to enforce a uniform coding standard.

guitarbill 7y ago
there's definitely a benefit for this in a team environment. having some kind of consistency makes reviewing easier, not to mention onboarding new people and senior engineers jumping into unfamiliar codebases. even in open source it makes sense. there's a reason go fmt and black (for python) are so popular. for what it's worth, i don't 100% agree with the decisions black makes, either. but luckily, you don't have to see eye to eye to reap the benefits. two caveats: it has to be a robust auto-formatter. something like checkstyle is unsuitable, because it creates more work, not less. and the auto-formatting has to be enforced via CI.

jaclaz 7y ago

Anecdotally as well, this extends to other fields besides programming/writing code, though personally I define it as the contrary, i.e. someone that writes "sloppily" (without proper grammar, with typos, etc.) will also work "sloppily", no matter the specific work, paricularly when some "team effort" is needed. I suspect that at the base there is somehow a lack in communication skills and "education", or more generally a lack of respect for otherwise agreed conventions (grammar and spelling when writing) that is corresponding to a same lack of respect for other people or for the specific conventions/rules that apply to the specific work.