Comment The language excuse (Score 3) 143
Hi there,
I'm Dutch too (assuming Rowan is Dutch). I don't think there's much of an excuse for the amount of misuse of the English language displayed by the article.
Granted, non-native speakers make mistakes. But Rowan chose to write this in English and submitted it to Slashdot for 'publication'. I think more care could easily have been taken.
And even if the language excuse were valid, there is no excuse for the lack of coherence of this rant. I've read rants by Rowan before (on the ggi mailing list and I think he's also been active on the fbcon mailing list). This is one rant too many. Now I'm going to give some potentially unflattering suggestions:
* I think you mentioned you wouldn't learn C on that list, but would start with C++. If you want to have a say in GGI development or Linux kernel development, I strongly advise you to learn C. If you then want to influence the direction of a project, *code* (or document, or test, but do something constructive). If you do that, you may find people may actually listen more carefully to what you have to say.
* If you haven't experience with any programming language yet (though I've seen a reference to Pliant), then with Eric Raymond I suggest you learn Python, which I consider to be a great language. If you come to comp.lang.python (or tutor@python.org) with questions I'll personally help you. But really, any language will do. Even Perl. :)
* Please read a book or web page about writing coherent essays.
Regards,
Martijn
I'm Dutch too (assuming Rowan is Dutch). I don't think there's much of an excuse for the amount of misuse of the English language displayed by the article.
Granted, non-native speakers make mistakes. But Rowan chose to write this in English and submitted it to Slashdot for 'publication'. I think more care could easily have been taken.
And even if the language excuse were valid, there is no excuse for the lack of coherence of this rant. I've read rants by Rowan before (on the ggi mailing list and I think he's also been active on the fbcon mailing list). This is one rant too many. Now I'm going to give some potentially unflattering suggestions:
* I think you mentioned you wouldn't learn C on that list, but would start with C++. If you want to have a say in GGI development or Linux kernel development, I strongly advise you to learn C. If you then want to influence the direction of a project, *code* (or document, or test, but do something constructive). If you do that, you may find people may actually listen more carefully to what you have to say.
* If you haven't experience with any programming language yet (though I've seen a reference to Pliant), then with Eric Raymond I suggest you learn Python, which I consider to be a great language. If you come to comp.lang.python (or tutor@python.org) with questions I'll personally help you. But really, any language will do. Even Perl.
* Please read a book or web page about writing coherent essays.
Regards,
Martijn
