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Re: Java puzzler

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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.

Or perhaps we have approximately the same aptitude as nearly everyone who 
participates in this Usenet forum.

Either way, both of us - you through more years of formal education than I, 
but both of us through diligent ongoing study over years - have applied 
ourselves to the skill of reading and being clear about specifications, 
language or otherwise.  As Thomas Edison said, "Genius is 1% inspiration and 
99% perspiration."  I aver that it's the study and effort that pays off here, 
not some mysterious brain power that Roedy or most people lack.

If you who wish to (advise those who) program in Java do lack the skill to 
comprehend the JLS, or any other specification, even after diligent study and 
great effort, you may be like the tone-deaf person with a sore throat who 
hopes to audition for /American Idol/ - a touch underqualified for the job. 
But bless your heart for trying.

If you don't even try, however, then you should at least practice this phrase 
for your compatible profession:  "Would you like fries with that?"

-- 
Lew
Honi soit qui mal y pense.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cf/Friz.jpg

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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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