use Perl

• Book TV (Score:2)

  by gnat (29)

  Ha! I saw the same thing. I was contemplating having him at OSCON as an interesting diversion, but he didn't seem entirely comfortable speaking. Perhaps it was the cameras.

  He had great examples of horrendous twisting of the language: "concretize" was the one that stuck with me. His point wasn't just that these sorts of neologisms are ugly, but that they're deliberately designed by advertisers, PR lackeys, and politicos to conceal the truth and inflate.

  An interesting twist on the same would be a "How
• PEEVE (Score:2, Funny)

  by chromatic (983)

  I'm no big fan of "utilize", as it's nearly always clearer as "use". My big peeve lately is "methodology". Supposing we were to study ways of developing software, would we call it "methodologyology"?
• Yes, but (Score:2)

  by jdavidb (1361)

  ... the other Perl programmer at work keeps telling me that I have "issues." :)

  --
  J. David works really hard, has a passion for writing good software, and knows many of the world's best Perl programmers
• Politics and the English Language (Score:2, Informative)

  by quidity (1296)

  George Orwell wrote a good essay on this, Politics and the English Language [resort.com], two bits of which I liked in particular:

  It is easier -- even quicker, once you have the habit -- to say "In my opinion it is not an unjustifiable assumption that" than to say "I think".

  And this set of rules for writing well:

  1. Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
  2. Never us a long word where a short one will do.
  3. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
  4. N
  • Re:Politics and the English Language (Score:1)

    by koschei (147)

    Strunk and White, "The Elements of Style". Good book to live by.
    
    They even had your rule 3 as a rule. "Omit needless words."

    --
      ---ict / Spoon
    • Re:Politics and the English Language (Score:1)

      by grinder (1100)

      Indeed.

      There is even a (cookie free) online version [sut.ac.th], although .th is Thailand, if I'm not mistaken. Otherwise there's this version [bartleby.com] but it wants a cookie.
      • Re:Politics and the English Language (Score:1)

        by koschei (147)

        Yep. However, do note that the current edition is the 4th edition, and what those sites have is the first. The 4th is somewhat more modern (it mentions computery stuff, but doesn't offer an opinion on terms such as email).

        It's usually best to have some form of modern style reference =)

        --
          ---ict / Spoon