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Re: Java puzzler

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Date	Thu, 12 May 2011 18:28:07 -0700
From	Patricia Shanahan <pats@acm.org>
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Subject	Re: Java puzzler
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On 5/12/2011 9:11 AM, Lew wrote:
> On 05/12/2011 11:13 AM, Patricia Shanahan wrote:
>> On 5/12/2011 5:35 AM, Lew wrote:
>> ...
>>> Telling yourself that Lew has a "magical ability" is a foolish fiction.
>>> I just am not lazy about the JLS. Maybe Patricia has one; I can believe
>>> that. Not me. I'm smart, but the key is I'M AT LEAST TRYING!
>>
>> I'm not a useful data point for this discussion. The writers of the JLS
>> benefited from the multiple decades of language specification writing
>> the preceded it. For example, the syntax notation is a descendant of the
>> BNF notation in the Algol 60 report.
>>
>> Before I started learning Java I had a combination of formal education
>> and practical, on-the-job experience in reading and applying programming
>> language specifications. When I started reading the JLS it was just a
>> new instance of a familiar type of document.
>>
>> There is no way for any of us, myself included, to know how easy or
>> difficult I would have found the JLS if I had read it without that
>> background.
>
> Your experience still provides a useful example.
>
> Perhaps you or I do have a special skill at reading specifications. If
> so, it's the special skill that distinguishes better programmers from
> worse ones, and a very powerful if not actually requisite skill.

I've known many really excellent programmers who never read language
specifications. They worked from a combination of good secondary
sources, experimentation, and asking questions when in doubt.

The only time I've felt programming language specification reading was a
really important skill was when I was project leader for compilers at
Celerity Computing, and had to make decisions about what features to
implement and how to implement them.

Patricia

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Java puzzler Gábor Bakos <aborgabor@gmail.com> - 2011-05-10 16:36 -0700
  Re: Java puzzler Lew <noone@lewscanon.com> - 2011-05-10 20:16 -0400
  Re: Java puzzler Roedy Green <see_website@mindprod.com.invalid> - 2011-05-11 03:03 -0700
    Re: Java puzzler Lew <noone@lewscanon.com> - 2011-05-11 09:07 -0400
      Re: Java puzzler markspace <-@.> - 2011-05-11 08:10 -0700
        Re: Java puzzler Roedy Green <see_website@mindprod.com.invalid> - 2011-05-11 22:02 -0700
          Re: Java puzzler Lew <noone@lewscanon.com> - 2011-05-12 08:35 -0400
            Re: Java puzzler Patricia Shanahan <pats@acm.org> - 2011-05-12 08:13 -0700
              Re: Java puzzler Lew <noone@lewscanon.com> - 2011-05-12 12:11 -0400
                Re: Java puzzler Patricia Shanahan <pats@acm.org> - 2011-05-12 18:28 -0700
          Re: Java puzzler Joshua Cranmer <Pidgeot18@verizon.invalid> - 2011-05-12 10:14 -0400
      Re: Java puzzler Roedy Green <see_website@mindprod.com.invalid> - 2011-05-11 21:49 -0700

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