Re:I’m a Developer. I Won’t Teach My Kids to Code, and Neith...
by AlchemistCamp on Tuesday June 02, 2020 @07:20AM
(#23389832)
I can think of few skills that do more for your career than excellent writing.
Re:I’m a Developer. I Won’t Teach My Kids to Code, and Neith...
by YeGoblynQueenne on Tuesday June 02, 2020 @03:02PM
(#23394829)
Unfortunately, that's not an absolute. I've often been told to basically dumb down my writing in my papers because reviewers who are not native English speakers will not understand what I'm trying to say and will feel frustrated. And you don't want to frustrate reviewers...
For example, I once used the plural "lemmata" for "lemma". That is correct English, "lemma, lemmata", although it's much more common to use the Anglicised form "lemmas" (as, e.g. in formulae/formulas). I've also had colleagues "correct" my grammar when I've used expressions like "Absent X, Y occurs" or "X need not be Y", etc.
Sometimes, "excellent" writing is not the goal; writing that gets the point across, is. Much like code, indeed.
That's not an argument against teaching kids to code- quite the contrary. You don't want your kid to be the odd one out, that doesn't know how to do what all the other kids know (to a greater or lesser extent). But we should maybe rethink the degree to which learning how to code as a child right now will ensure one can make their living coding in the future.