Re: Writing, Coding, and Professionals (was Re: A Brief Look at History)

m-coughlin <m-coughlin@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>    I once discussed the source code style problem with a woman
> who earned her living as a technical editor. She told me that it
> was unrealistic to expect programmers to be able to both write
> working computer code and understandable English and that it was
> necessary to have a technical writer helping out the
> programmers.

Compare this with:

"A programmer must be able to express himself extremely well, both in
a natural language and in the formal systems.  The need for
exceptional mastery of a natural language is twofold.  Firstly it is
not uncommon that e.g. English is the language in which the problem is
communicated to him and in which he must describe his interpretation
or modification of the problem.  This cir***stance has been a source
of many misunderstandings to the extent that there is a wide-spread
belief that e.g.  English by its very nature is inadequate for the
communication task.  I don't believe it (although sloppy English
certainly is!), on the contrary: I always have the feeling that our
natural language is so intimately tied with what we call understanding
that we must be able to use it to express what we have understood.
Secondly, we should not close our eyes for the fact that
formalization, in a sense, is always "after the fact" and that
therefore natural language is an indispensable tool for thinking, in
particular when new concepts have to be introduced.  And this is what
a programmer has to do all the time; he has to introduce new concepts
--not occurring in the original problem statement-- in order to be
able to find, to describe and to understand his own solution to the
problem."  Dijkstra, EWD 361

Andrew.