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jest (4401)
jest
{jester} {at} {panix.com}
Largely unskilled but enthusiastic JAPH. In my other life I hack the Oxford English Dictionary.
{jester} {at} {panix.com}
Largely unskilled but enthusiastic JAPH. In my other life I hack the Oxford English Dictionary.
Wednesday January 07, 2009
05:58 AM
Worst sentence ever written about programming in the MSM
"R is similar to other programming languages, like C, Java and Perl, in that it helps people perform a wide variety of computing tasks by giving them access to various commands."
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/07/technology/business-computing/07program.html
Oh. My. God. I just don't even know where to begin.
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help them think they understand.
--Larry Wall
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what's a better sentence (Score:0)
a better sentence (Score:1)
"Like most modern programming languages, R is capable of performing a variety of tasks, but it specializes in powerful statistical analysis."
The target reader for this article has never heard of C or Perl, and probably not Java; doesn't know the phrase "Turing-complete"; doesn't think that Haskell is cool; doesn't know why one would choose one language over another.
What is this reader supposed to make of "by giving them access to various commands"? I guarantee that if I read that to my father, who is a smar
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
The proposed sentence added the most important thing about R. In light of that the original sentence is overly verbose.
Not knowing anything about programming, OTOH, original sentence is just as good.
- parv
Re: (Score:1)