ATC CONTROLLER HIRING PUSH CREATES CLASS STRUGGLE

wrote:
Mxsmanic wrote:
writes:

Care to name any programming language that cares about the spelling
of user defined identifiers?

COBOL, FORTRAN, C, BASIC, ALGOL, assembly language ... most of them. The
spelling has to be consistent, it has to be different from any reserved words,
it sometimes has to be unique within a certain number of characters and/or
free of case-insensitive duplication, and so on. The spelling may also be
restricted by data type (such as the implicit typing of FORTRAN based on the
first letter of an identifier).

Which part of

"To prevent anal nitpicking, a user defined identifier is a name
invented by the programmer that does not conflict with any reserved
words or identifiers and contains only alphabetic characters (to
avoid an endless discussion about languages that may or may not
allow characters like "-" in an identifier).

And, to make it crystal clear, I'm not talking about spelling it
differently after it has been defined."

Then you aren't talking about spelling period; either in the English
language or a programming language.

Matt

Matt Whiting wrote:
wrote:
Mxsmanic wrote:
writes:

Well, that's true enough, but does any programming language care if
you declare something response, resp, Respond, RESP, rasponse, or
anything else which may, or may not, be similar or the same as a
natural language word?

Yes, some do.

Care to name any programming language that cares about the spelling
of user defined identifiers?

To prevent anal nitpicking, a user defined identifier is a name
invented by the programmer that does not conflict with any reserved
words or identifiers and contains only alphabetic characters (to
avoid an endless discussion about languages that may or may not
allow characters like "-" in an identifier).

And, to make it crystal clear, I'm not talking about spelling it
differently after it has been defined.


Not counting the second use is like saying that all misspellings of
English words don't count once they are spelled the first time in the
dictionary. Just as an English dictionary sets the standard for the
spelling of English words, the symbol definition (explicit or implicit)
sets the standard for the symbol. Any different spelling subsequently
is a misspelling. Your exception of anything other than the first use
is just goofy.

Yes, and no.

Once defined, an identifier has to be consistent, obviously.

But a user defined identifier does not have to be spelled according to
any dictionary spelling, which is what MX said when he started this
nonsense.

No programming language checks an English (or any other) dictionary
to see if user defined identifiers, which just happen to be English
words for the sake of readability, are spelled correctly.


--
Jim Pennino

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Matt Whiting wrote:
wrote:
Matt Whiting wrote:
wrote:
Matt Whiting wrote:
wrote:
Matt Whiting wrote:
Maxwell wrote:
"Matt Whiting" wrote in message
...
Maxwell wrote:
"Mxsmanic" wrote in message
...
So how did they manage to write decent programs? Errors like that are
very
serious in software engineering.

A question like that makes me really doubt that you have ever done any
programming regardless of your insistance. Programming languages have
little to do with spelling and grammar skills, and much more to do with
syntax and structure.
Really? Every Pascal, FORTRAN, C, and COBOL compiler I ever used was
quite picky about spelling and syntax is just a subset of grammar.
Then you are as clueless on this one as he is.
But still much less clueless as you. Misspell a previously defined
variable in a language with implicit variable declaration and tell me
how well your program works.
Well, that's true enough, but does any programming language care if
you declare something response, resp, Respond, RESP, rasponse, or
anything else which may, or may not, be similar or the same as a
natural language word?

I don't know all programming languages so I can't say, but I know that
the ones that I've used were quite picky about spelling a given variable
the same way EVERY time you use it. Misspell it once and bad things can
happen, especially in languages like Fortran that will happily create
a new variable for you and carry on.
Yes, that is one of the failings of languages that don't require you
to declare variables.

But that has nothing to do with using an english word for a variable
name and not spelling the english word correctly.

True, but the recent discussion wasn't about the English language it was
about the erroneous statement above: "Programming languages have little
to do with spelling and grammar skills, and much more to do with syntax
and structure."

Saying that spelling doesn't matter much with respect to programming
languages is just flat out false. Misspelling a symbol name in many
programming languages is far more serious than misspelling an English
word in a sentence. In the former, this will cause a compile error if
you are lucky and a very obscure run-time error if you aren't lucky. In
the latter, it makes you look illiterate, but often the reader still
knows what you meant by the context. Most compilers aren't very good at
using context. :-)

Well, I know a lot of programmers that have zip point squat for "spelling
and grammar skills", but are really good programmers.

But since the words they can't spell correctly are always spelled the
same incorrect way, it doesn' matter.

I just don't let them write the end user documentation.


They obviously aren't using a language with reserved words...

Non sequitur.

The reserved words in most languages are the same world wide and a small
subset of English words.

A programmer doesn't need to know English, how to spell other English
words, or anything else about English to write a working program.

If a non-English speaking programmer writes a program that has a
user defined identifier that means to him "acknowledge" and he spells
it (consistently) in the program as "iknoledge", it doesn't matter.

--
Jim Pennino

Remove .spam.sux to reply.

Matt Whiting wrote:
wrote:
Mxsmanic wrote:
writes:

Care to name any programming language that cares about the spelling
of user defined identifiers?

COBOL, FORTRAN, C, BASIC, ALGOL, assembly language ... most of them. The
spelling has to be consistent, it has to be different from any reserved words,
it sometimes has to be unique within a certain number of characters and/or
free of case-insensitive duplication, and so on. The spelling may also be
restricted by data type (such as the implicit typing of FORTRAN based on the
first letter of an identifier).

Which part of

"To prevent anal nitpicking, a user defined identifier is a name
invented by the programmer that does not conflict with any reserved
words or identifiers and contains only alphabetic characters (to
avoid an endless discussion about languages that may or may not
allow characters like "-" in an identifier).

And, to make it crystal clear, I'm not talking about spelling it
differently after it has been defined."

Then you aren't talking about spelling period; either in the English
language or a programming language.

I never was.

MX says spelling is important when programming.

I say you have to use reserved words correctly (which requires no
knowledge of English even though almost all reservered words are
English) and have to be consistent in user defined identifier usage.

The ability to spell English dictionary words is not a requirement to
be able to program.


--
Jim Pennino

Remove .spam.sux to reply.

But a user defined identifier does not have to be spelled according to
any dictionary spelling

.... and a nonce word doesn't have to be spelled according to any
dictionary either.

Jose
--
Quantum Mechanics is like this: God =does= play dice with the universe,
except there's no God, and there's no dice. And maybe there's no universe.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

writes:

Here we go with the semantic game playing.

There's no shame in admitting that one doesn't understand.

Responding to you really is a waste of time.

If that were true, you wouldn't be doing it. You hope to make me look stupid
at some point, but it hasn't worked so far, largely because I'm not stupid.

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

"Matt Whiting" wrote in message
...
You haven't made an intelligent response yet to my points about
misspelling variable names. So, obviously your 25 years of experience
taught you little. I graduated with my BSCS in 1983 so I'll let you do
the math.

Just more smoke. You are still clueless.

"Matt Whiting" wrote in message
...


I've forgotten more than you know... You have yet to give a single
example or argument that supports your ridiculous claim that spelling is
if little concern in programming. Experience is only valid if it teaches
you something, and in our case it didn't.

What do you mean "our" case, you gotta mouse in your pocket?

"Mxsmanic" wrote in message
...

snip -. all

Clearly a attempt to spin off topic.

"Matt Whiting" wrote in message
...

They obviously aren't using a language with reserved words...

Sure we are.