[Article Context, First Draft] Concurrency, Parallelism and D

[Andrei Alexandrescu]

On 04/11/2011 03:09 AM, Don wrote:
> Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
>> On 04/10/2011 06:29 PM, Don wrote:
>>> Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
>>>> On 04/09/2011 09:27 PM, dsimcha wrote:
>>>>> On 4/9/2011 10:22 PM, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
>>>>>> On 04/09/2011 08:31 PM, dsimcha wrote:
>>>>>>> On 4/9/2011 7:56 PM, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
>>>>>>>> I think the article's title is missing a comma btw.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Andrei
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Where?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Where could it ever be? After "parallelism".
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Andrei
>>>>>
>>>>> Actually, I specifically remember learning about this grammar rule in
>>>>> middle school. When listing stuff, the comma before the "and" is
>>>>> optional. Putting it and not putting it are both correct.
>>>>
>>>> I see. I go by "Bugs in Writing" (awesome book)
>>>
>>> Ugh. I have a profound hatred for that book. Rule of thumb: if any style
>>> guide warns agains split infinitives, burn it.
>>
>> You may want to reconsider. This is one book that most everybody who
>> is in the writing business in any capacity agrees with: my editor,
>> heavyweight technical writers, my advisor and a few other professors...
>
> My experience is quite different. Maybe it's different in the US (I
> encountered the book from an American colleague, I've never seen it used
> by anyone else).
>
>
>> Besides you can't discount the book on account of one item you
>> disagree with. The book has hundreds of items, and it is near
>> inevitable one will find an issue a couple of them.
>>
>> Andrei
>
> For sure, but it was not the only item. The recommendation is use 'that'
> vs 'which' was an even more offensive item. There were several
> recommendations in that book which I thought were dreadful. I also read
> a couple of scathing criticisms of that book. (I think one was in Bill
> Bryson's excellent 'Mother Tongue').
> In fairness, it had a few good examples, but in general I could not
> stomach the snobbish pedantry in that book. I've read too much
> functional grammar to take arbitrary normative rules seriously, when
> they are not backed up by an extensive corpus. (Which is why I recommend
> 'split infinitives' as a good litmus test -- if they say "don't do it",
> they haven't used a corpus).

I have "Mother Tongue" as well, haven't read it yet. You recommendation 
bumped it up a notch.

One thought - since you enjoy this kind of stuff, I think you'd find 
great reward in writing. Since you have so much stuff to say about D, I 
highly recommend you try your pen more often. A lot of good things are 
happening in D lately, and in no small part due to you. It is worth 
sharing all that good stuff with the larger community.


Andrei