Quality of the articles

Mark Salsbery

Nishant Sivakumar wrote:

And I find it hard to believe that someone with that sort of profile can write this sort of code or article.

I don't see ASP.NET anywhere in the list.

RC_Sebastien_C

"I think it's just bad taste pointing someone like that" for little gramatical mistakes on an international forum :rolleyes: Seriously, I thought the "be" was simply missed when Maximilien typed, but I'm curious about that last line:

Colin Angus Mackay wrote:

The article will be put in the purgatory

Is removing the "the" a question of style or grammar? That sounded good to me (who speaks English as a second language).

Member 96

Funny because a lot of computer repair places use our software and they are consistently the most likely to *require* support whereas the plumbers and electrians and every other non computer related service company have comparitively few problems. But the real kicker is that some of the worst people to install and use software and follow even basic instructions are those that put those little letters after their name. It's become a red flag of sorts for our support department that we're going to have trouble. I too have a *very* dim view of certifications having been on both sides of the fence, I have all sorts of certifications but I know how to read a lot of info and pass a test fairly easily, I wrote most of my Novell CNE certification test in less than 10 minutes and they are supposed to take an hour or more. But the info I memorized had really little to do with the more important practical knowledge I gained on the job. I'd much rather hire a person with experience and no certifications or a person with interest and no experience or certifications than I would ever consider hiring a person with lot's of certifications and no experience.

Member 96

Yeah, I'm not impressed at all with their attitude, way too harsh, they should spend their energy giving some constructive criticism to the author, it's easy to sit on the sidelines and snipe at people.

Andy Brummer

Someone I knew in tech support took a great call. 6 MCSEs were trying to figure out this 8602 error on post and they just couldn't figure it out. So he told them to swap the keyboard and the mouse. Problem solved. ;)

Using the GridView is like trying to explain to someone else how to move a third person's hands in order to tie your shoelaces for you. -Chris Maunder

Colin Angus Mackay

HollyHooo wrote:

Is removing the "the" a question of style or grammar? That sounded good to me (who speaks English as a second language).

I'd say grammar. Here are some examples: * I put the ball in the box * My grandad went to heaven * The dictator went to hell * I live in Scotland * I live in the city. If you look at these examples you can see they fall in to two distinct groups. When you insert an article (either definite or indefinite) between the preposition and noun you will notice that the noun is one example of many (an instance of a class in development terms). The other group, where the article is not present, you will notice that the noun is something unique (a singleton). There is only ever one instance of that class.

Upcoming events: * Glasgow Geek Dinner (5th March) * Glasgow: Tell us what you want to see in 2007 My: Website | Blog | Photos

Colin Angus Mackay

HollyHooo wrote:

"I think it's just bad taste pointing someone like that" for little gramatical mistakes on an international forum

Sorry, I didn't mean to embarrass anyone. I don't normally point out minor gramatical errors, it is just that I realised that one possible correction could make the sentence sound really absurd to a non-native English speaker.

Upcoming events: * Glasgow Geek Dinner (5th March) * Glasgow: Tell us what you want to see in 2007 My: Website | Blog | Photos

Maximilien

Thanks! ;)

Maximilien Lincourt Your Head A Splode - Strong Bad

RC_Sebastien_C

Appologies if you feel sorry, it was really just too easy to make a (lame) joke based on Maximilien's original post.

RC_Sebastien_C

Thank you for explaining. I now know for sure that the rule is the same in French. It's me who interpreted CP's Purgatory as a place because of my catholic background. Looking at the "a temporary condition of torment or suffering" definition, and all makes sense! Thanks!

RC_Sebastien_C

Mais un 5 pour le principe :)

Vikram A Punathambekar

Why did you remove the 'the'? The Lounge, the Soapbox... the Purgatory?

Cheers, Vikram.

"...we are disempowered to cultivate in their communities an inclination to assimilate to our culture." - Stan Shannon.

Ashley van Gerven

Obviously the variables should have been strings to make the code easier to understand! Dim DeleteColZero As String = "Yes" :-D

"For fifty bucks I'd put my face in their soup and blow." - George Costanza

CP article: SmartPager - a Flickr-style pager control with go-to-page popup layer.

Bradml

dim DesignSense As Bolean = False

Brad Australian - Christian Graus on "Best books for VBscript" A big thick one, so you can whack yourself on the head with it.

Bradml

function ReturnYes(){ return true; } function ReturnNo(){ return false; } function ReturnPerhaps(){ return rand(); } Dim DeleteColZero As returnYes

Brad Australian - Christian Graus on "Best books for VBscript" A big thick one, so you can whack yourself on the head with it.

Colin Angus Mackay

Vikram A Punathambekar wrote:

Why did you remove the 'the'? The Lounge, the Soapbox... the Purgatory?

That was explained here[^] In short. When the noun is a singleton the "the" is dropped. When it one instance of a class of many it needs an article ("a", "an", "one" or "the")

Upcoming events: * Glasgow Geek Dinner (5th March) * Glasgow: Tell us what you want to see in 2007 My: Website | Blog | Photos

ednrgc

I see code like this whenever I go through outsourced code. My current company doesn't outsource, but I had several WTF moments in past assignments. I can't help but wonder if they are getting paid by line of code, and not the total functionality of the deliverable.

ednrgc

BTW: Was your WTF because it's in VB? :laugh:

Vikram A Punathambekar

I still tend to disagree. (Not with your rule, but with dropping the 'the' before Purgatory.) We only have one Lounge, one SB and one Purgatory. Given that the Lounge and the SB are also singletons, are you saying the correct version is "Don't post programming questions in Lounge"? Also, the rule has many exceptions: Don't look at the Sun directly. He spent three years in the Crimea. The Gambia is surrounded by Senegal.

Cheers, Vikram.

"...we are disempowered to cultivate in their communities an inclination to assimilate to our culture." - Stan Shannon.

Colin Angus Mackay

Vikram A Punathambekar wrote:

Given that the Lounge and the SB are also singletons, are you saying the correct version is "Don't post programming questions in Lounge"?

They are not singletons. I have a lounge in my house, as to my parents. The lounge is one instance of a class. The Soapbox is something that many polititians stand on in order to tell the world their views. Just because here in Code Project there is only one lounge does not mean your drop the article. If you read any well written, grammatically correct, article on the subect of Purgatory you will see that it is never preceded by the word "the" or "a".

Vikram A Punathambekar wrote:

Don't look at the Sun directly.

Incorrect, the sun is a single instance of a class that has many instantiations. There are many suns in our galaxy. (You can say "Don't look at Sol directly" - as there is only one instance of Sol, which is the name of our sun)

Vikram A Punathambekar wrote:

He spent three years in the Crimea.

The correct form is "The Crimea" (note the capital T on The). The two words together make up a proper noun. I've also seen in many texts it refered to as simply "Crimea" also.

Vikram A Punathambekar wrote:

The Gambia is surrounded by Senegal.

Again, "The Gambia" is a proper noun. Also, many people refer to it as simply "Gambia"

Upcoming events: * Glasgow Geek Dinner (5th March) * Glasgow: Tell us what you want to see in 2007 My: Website | Blog | Photos