Comment by pkdpic_y9k | Hacker News Reader

Comment by pkdpic_y9k | Hacker News Reader

One thing I sometimes point out to software engineers Im tasked with mentoring at work is the importance of showing other engineers that you care about the code and the questions you're asking via slack etc by proof reading what you write and reviewing your own code before reaching out to others for help. The frustration of reading ia garbled slack message or pulling over to look at a code snippet and realizing the person didn't even look over it themselves is real and has real negative consequences in terms of professional perception.

Like when someone misspells radical candor in the second sentence of a blog post about mentoring.

Seriously though, everybody makes mistakes but when I do slip up like this I don't expect people to engage with what I'm writing. And I do think proof reading is an incredibly important skill for new and experienced software engineers.

[edit] I just noticed the author is a staff engineer at MongoDB. He can misspell whatever he wants. I recant my sassiness.

Thanks! Fixed. We're all human. :-)

And now I've discovered that vim spell check skips words with leading markdown symbols like `*randical`. I'll have to dig into that more.

Update: pasting the web page to Google Docs found a few more typos. I fixed those, too. Usually I print and read to find typos, maybe I skipped that this time. Good reminder to do that and the Gdocs review. Really: thanks for the reminder, regardless of the sassiness. :-)

Anything longer than a few sentences I'll write in vim and am always horrified when I copy to Gmail or Google docs and find spelling mistakes, duplicated words, and incomplete sentences everywhere.

[posting from my primary account]

I really am sorry for being a troll and writing the kind of comment that bums me out on a regular basis. This seems like a good post and a good discussion.

It can just be frustrating for those of us that have a hard time getting traction when we post projects etc on sites like HN. It can manifest into petty toxic behavior especially in comment sections.

In the words of Paul Doherty... "I'll do better next time."

You may have just finally explained why I frequently find spelling mistakes and using vim's spell check. Thanks for the tip!

Aspell is a good interactive spell checker for just before publishing.

‘aspell -c text.md’

Thank you! I just checked and it does not ignore markdown prefixed words.

Also, I found that `:syn off` gets vim to spell check within markdown formatting.

> And now I've discovered that vim spell check skips words with leading markdown symbols like `*randical`. I'll have to dig into that more.

Taking a quick look, for me it seems that (Neo)Vim spell check skips anything in italics or bold. No highlights whatsoever anywhere in that region. Definitely not something you want to realize _after_ publishing articles!

Edit: Considering the comment about using :syn off, seems like this is probably a conflict of some kind with the way Vim actually italicizes/bolds things in terminals that support it, now.

Some rush and are sloppy.

Some are burnt out and unable to focus.

Some have dyslexia and are trying harder than you'll ever know to proof read.

I agree, but you can generally differentiate these cases and handle them appropriately.

If someone is burnt out, the attitude is typically the tell regardless of care. It's deliberately sloppy.

One of the best engineers I ever worked with had dyslexia and by God if his class names weren't the funniest things I've ever seen, but they were consistent and the structure and documentation was thoughtful.

#3 so much. Still always garbled.

Ironic that you pointed out an error in blog post's 2nd sentence when you also have one in your 2nd sentence. Either that or a nag trap. Or an unconscious parallel humility.

Or an example of Muphry's Law.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muphry's_Law

I usually have a knee-jerk reaction when I see grammar and spelling errors in blogs, but I try to remind myself that these posts aren't published works that made it through an editorial staff. Mistakes happen, especially when the author isn't a professional writer.

I agree, the guys clearly legit. I was just indulging some recreational morning pedantry before actually getting some work done.

I wouldn't normally point this out, but you're missing an apostrophe (should be "guy's"). Good example of Muphry's Law.

You mean Murphy’s Law, perhaps?

Nope, I mean Muphry's Law: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muphry%27s_law

This is all true of course, but is it really so much to expect someone to proof-read something they're publishing? All things being equal, more of these types of simple-to-catch errors will make people think less of your [skill, dedication, attention to detail, etc.], whether right or wrong.

I ran a very popular site for a decade and won multiple writing awards. There are many elements that make a well written piece, and of course, spelling and grammar are two important ones.

Unfortunately, over 12 years, I had two spelling mistakes slip through my hours of editing and proofreading. Some people absolutely eviscerated me for it. I mean, how could I not know how to spell X word? I must be a moron! In my opinion, these "simple-to-catch" errors are not always simple-to-catch when the writer knows what it is supposed to say and they are trying to proofread their own work.

That said, it proves you're right -- people do think less of you when you make such a mistake. I think we should all strive to cut people a little more slack, at least on Slack.

I don't think adding a jerk-ish edit helps you sounding a engaging and/or caring mentor although I admit that I was almost bursting out. Being consistent is hard, but let's try within the same <textarea>.

I mean it, he's a more accomplished engineer and mentor than I'll ever be. That's why I added the edit.

All right, So I'm more cynical than I was aware of :-)

I'm*

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