As Joel said, it's crucial for programmers to learn how to write efficiently and understandably because no one will use an extremely complicated code without comments. Sharing ideas is one of the most significant characteristic of computer science. Therefore, the prerequisite for one to share his idea with others is to be able to write clearly in English.
How do programmers let computers do certain jobs/calculations for people? They code! Coding is the process of translating certain algorithm to something that can be recognized by computer. Programmers need to use programming language precisely for computer to operate. What if their code can't be read by computer (may have some errors)? Computer won't be able to function as expected. What this tells us is geeks must make sure that their 'writing'(codes) are extremely precise while doing their jobs. In this way, writing and coding are so tightly related that every programmers should put enough emphasis on how to write clearly.
Noticed that programmers need to 'write' efficiently enough for computer to understand their codes, we have to admit it is also a great concern for programmers to write clearly in English. Just as coding to computer, programmers need to communicate with other programmers, to share ideas with users, to make their codes easy and clear for their codes to be used by others. A complex program without notes and comment definitely won't be accepted by users. To make their codes thrive, programmers need to let people know what their codes can do, how their codes work at first. If a programmer write poorly in English, it'll be so hard for people to grasp the main idea and the algorithm of his code (just as computer can't read poorly written code) that they just turn to other codes instead.
Since computer science is a subject about sharing ideas, efficient writing is one of the basic abilities that every programmer should have.
No comments:
Post a Comment