3 ms·

slightly pompous. Most hackers probably don't use word or have spell check handy. (I use VI or Textpad). When I send a resume, it is usually a simple.txt file,

• icky 18y ago
  > Most hackers probably don't use word or have spell check handy. (I use VI or Textpad). $ man ispell
• ajross 18y ago
  M-x flyspell-mode Get yourself a real editor, kid.
  • gizmo 18y ago
    Nope, doesn't work. Use this instead: :set spell spelllang=en_us
    • ajross 18y ago
      Uh... it was an emacs vs. vi joke. I know (or rather, am completely unsurprised) that vim can do dynamic spell checking too. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if textpad could do it too.
      • gizmo 18y ago
        I thought you claimed (incorrectly) that vim and textmate don't have spellchecking. Why else would it be relevant that emacs has spellchecking?
• gizmo 18y ago
  When you're considering somebody for a position you want to make sure they fit in well. And if everybody at the company has an eye for detail, and habitually spellchecks all internal and external communication then you wouldn't fit in. After all, if people don't spellcheck their resumé they're definitely not going to spellcheck casual emails. Also you have to give the impression that you really want the job. Hiring costs a lot of money, so if they think you might jump ship after 6 months, you're no hire. Sloppy writing and no personalized letter indicate that you don't care for the job or don't really need it. Add the risk of the false positive (money and hassle) to the equitation and you become a clear no-hire.
  • ardit33 18y ago
    I still don't get it how spelling error = bad hire. I probably might have small gramatical lapses, but that doesn't make me a bad engineer. Keep in mind that not everybody knows English natively. I was born in a different country, and know three other languages, and it is common to say a word, and the real meaning is something different from what I think it is. I always spell behaviour, with the U, and word always get is a misspelling, which obviously is not. As I said, I hope a that a future employer is able to look past superficialities, and get to the core if I am a good engineer, and fit for their culture. At my previous Coorporate Job (big finance company), everybody had to dress well (collared Shirts all the time), and your resume had to look good, be formated right, yet the engineers that worked there were two notches down, both in quality and quantity of the work, from the current company where I work now, where everybody dresses casually, people have less formalities and have the "Less b.s. and let's get things done" attitude. Obviously people that care about "looks", and appearances, would not be comfortable at this place. Plus, at work I have both word, and Automatic spellcheck on emails. Yet gramatical errors are almost inevitable for a foreign born, still this doesn't make me a lesser engineer, or a lesser hacker.
    • gizmo 18y ago
      A spelling error can be a superficiality, but it can also be a symptom of an underlying problem: sloppy thinking. And sloppy thinkers generally make for for poor programmers, because they keep making the same trivial mistakes, keep breaking the build, and so forth. There are, of course, many people who are careful programmers but sloppy writers. The question is, should the company take that risk? A large company probably can afford to take that risk, smaller companies probably can't. And if programmers make spelling mistakes in function/variable names, then yes, I'm afraid that makes them lesser engineers.
• Maascamp 18y ago
  Hackers are generally smart people. Smart people know to learn a bit about the company they're applying to BEFORE they apply.