ATC CONTROLLER HIRING PUSH CREATES CLASS STRUGGLE

Chris W writes:

I can't think of a less relevant still than the ability to spell, as an
indicator as to how good someone may be at programming.

Language ability, including and especially vocabulary and spelling ability,
are fairly strongly correlated with general intelligence. If you can give
only a one-item test to a candidate to assess intelligence, a vocabulary test
is a fairly good choice.

I have found that the best programmers are not poor spellers. Spelling and
programming are not directly related, but both are partially a function of
intelligence, and higher intelligence usually leads to better spelling and
better programming ability, and vice versa.

Programmers with poor written communication skills are usually at the lower
end of the skills curve. They can code stuff quickly and it usually kinda
sorta works, but they may not be suited to the most critical programming
tasks.

That said,
someone who doesn't know how to use, as well as understand the
limitations of, a spell checker, is bound to be a pretty pathetic
programmer.

Quite so. But if he needs a spell checker for everything, that may be a bad
sign as well.

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