"Andrei Alexandrescu" <SeeWebsiteForEmail@erdani.org> wrote in message news:inr5cq$m2e$1@digitalmars.com...
> 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) and Strunk/White. They both recommend the comma, no ifs and buts (hard for me to get used to because in Romanian that comma is _never_ correct).
>
> Just googled it now, it's quite a story. Found among other things a Wikipedia page dedicated entirely to the topic! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_comma
>
> Above all, it's your article, and one great thing about that is you get to decide everything about it. A great feeling!
>

Nice to know us programmers aren't the only ones who do serious bikeshedding :)

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.

On 4/10/2011 7:29 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.
>

Another of my memories from my middle school education.  I specifically remember being told not to use split infinitives.  Then, a few weeks later we were watching the daily news video that was part of the middle school curriculum at the time and it was mentioned that the Oxford dictionary had voted to consider split infinitives proper grammar. (This was in either late 1998 or early 1999.)  All this happened with the teacher in the room watching.

Am 11.04.2011 01:51, schrieb dsimcha:
> On 4/10/2011 7:29 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.
>>
> 
> Another of my memories from my middle school education.  I specifically remember being told not to use split infinitives.  Then, a few weeks later we were watching the daily news video that was part of the middle school curriculum at the time and it was mentioned that the Oxford dictionary had voted to consider split infinitives proper grammar. (This was in either late 1998 or early 1999.)  All this happened with the teacher in the room watching.

"Those that can't do, teach"

(And those that can't teach become lawyers and sue the pants off
everyone else to make up for it)[1]

;-)

[1] http://sheldoncomics.com/archive/040605.html

dsimcha wrote:
> On 4/10/2011 7:29 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.
>>
> 
> Another of my memories from my middle school education.  I specifically remember being told not to use split infinitives.  Then, a few weeks later we were watching the daily news video that was part of the middle school curriculum at the time and it was mentioned that the Oxford dictionary had voted to consider split infinitives proper grammar. (This was in either late 1998 or early 1999.)  All this happened with the teacher in the room watching.

Bill Bryson's 'Mother Tongue' contains an excellent diatribe against that and other silly rules. He asks the question, who originally comes up with these rules? And the answer is, hobbyists. It's quite incredible where some of them originate.

Is there a split infinitive in the first sentence below?
"We must boldly go where none have gone before."
"We have to boldly go where none have gone before."

Am 10.04.2011 00:27, schrieb Torarin:
> 2011/4/8 dsimcha <dsimcha@yahoo.com>:
>> Here's a first draft of an article on D's approaches to concurrency and parallelism for D's article contest.  It's not an official submission yet, but feedback would be appreciated.
>>
>> http://davesdprogramming.wordpress.com/2011/04/07/7/
>>
> 
> A very good article! And I like that you linked to other articles that go into more detail on  relevant subjects. I wouldn't mind a couple more examples.
> 
> Torarin

After all the language bikeshedding I'll add something on-topic to this thread ;)

I agree with Torarin: It's a very good article, I like how further explanations are linked and I also wouldn't mind some more examples.

Some additional notes:
 * A link to the std.parallelism docs would make sense
 * "This means that no data that is not either immutable or shared may
be transitively reachable via pointers or references passed into a
spawned function or passed as a message." is a strange sentence with
those two negations in it.
 * Maybe you could compare std.parallelism to OpenMP in terms of syntax
and functionality? That would probably help all the people that are
familiar with it.

Cheers,
- Daniel

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...

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

On 4/10/2011 8:28 PM, Daniel Gibson wrote:
> Am 10.04.2011 00:27, schrieb Torarin:
>> 2011/4/8 dsimcha<dsimcha@yahoo.com>:
>>> Here's a first draft of an article on D's approaches to concurrency and
>>> parallelism for D's article contest.  It's not an official submission yet,
>>> but feedback would be appreciated.
>>>
>>> http://davesdprogramming.wordpress.com/2011/04/07/7/
>>>
>>
>> A very good article! And I like that you linked to other articles that
>> go into more detail on  relevant subjects. I wouldn't mind a couple
>> more examples.
>>
>> Torarin
>
> After all the language bikeshedding I'll add something on-topic to this
> thread ;)
>
> I agree with Torarin: It's a very good article, I like how further
> explanations are linked and I also wouldn't mind some more examples.
>
> Some additional notes:
>   * A link to the std.parallelism docs would make sense

Good idea.

>   * "This means that no data that is not either immutable or shared may
> be transitively reachable via pointers or references passed into a
> spawned function or passed as a message." is a strange sentence with
> those two negations in it.

Yeah, this could be worded a little better.  Will change.

>   * Maybe you could compare std.parallelism to OpenMP in terms of syntax
> and functionality? That would probably help all the people that are
> familiar with it.

A few others have asked for this, but honestly, I don't know much about OpenMP.  I've read a little about it but never actually used it before, so I don't think I could write a solid comparison.

>
> Cheers,
> - Daniel

On 4/10/2011 8:28 PM, Daniel Gibson wrote:
> After all the language bikeshedding I'll add something on-topic to this
> thread ;)
>
> I agree with Torarin: It's a very good article, I like how further
> explanations are linked and I also wouldn't mind some more examples.
>

Can you please give some specifics about where more examples would help?  I intentionally left out using shared, because it's somewhat complex and buggy and IMHO it's the ugly bastard child of message passing, intentionally limited and meant to be used infrequently in the std.concurrency paradigm.

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).