Jabber's English Note---035 -jabber(jabber) @巴尔的摩华人论坛:巴尔的摩枫下论坛 The Rolia Forum of Baltimore

Jabber's English Note---035

jabber(jabber)

本文发表在 rolia.net 枫下论坛Do you have a car? Yes?! great!

In English, there are some special idioms related to car. Here are two examples.

1) Under the hood. I am a programmer. I need make my clients and managers happy. I need to talk them. However, I need do my best to avoid using technical jargons such as static variables, prepared statements, method signatures, and local variables. Why? Because they just want to have the project done, have a working system, have a good performace in our system. They don't have any interest in looking into what's under the hood. If we really need to show laymen what's under the hood in our system, we need make some preparations.

2) Re-invent the wheels. As a programmer, I need to do my best to utilize other's work. For instance, I try to use core Java library classes as many as possible. I don't want to re-invent the wheels. Of course, we do stupid things ----re-inventing the wheels, here or there, then and now. For the programmers, they often re-invent the wheels simply because they don't know there have already been solutions to their problems.

Simply because we cannot use such idioms elegantly as we do in speaking Chinese, our Englihs speakings are always plain and plain.
For instance, one of my Chinese colleagues always say "The question is ....". That's fine. But if you repeat it 10 times everyday, the listener thinks you don't have any true questions.更多精彩文章及讨论，请光临枫下论坛 rolia.net

(#176239@0)
Last Updated: 2001-8-22

So how do we correct "The question is..."? Use "What I want to say is ...", OK? -pyramid(金字塔); 2001-8-22 (#176259@0)

No. I think you misunderstood him. He meant that, it is not wrong to say "the question is...", but if you express one meaning in same words repeatedly, it is sort of uncomfortable to the listener. -birdincage(birdincage); 2001-8-22 (#176433@0)
I found it is very difficult for me to talk my Chinese colleagues in English. -jabber(jabber); 2001-8-23 {215} (#176853@0)
For the person I mentioned, I often lead her to an empty office and explain things to her in Chinese. Some other colleagues are unhappy at this, but I ignore their unhappiness because I am in power..............

Just because she often says "the question is..."? -birdincage(birdincage); 2001-8-23 (#176859@0)

Not only for that.... -jabber(jabber); 2001-8-23 {288} (#176880@0)
She has been in USA for more than 10 years and have worked as a programmer for more than 6 years, but I found she has great difficulties in understanding computer things in English. (She has no problem in understanding everyday English. She can even make some very good jokes in English).

How come? It is also her daily must. I guess you are too picky:-) -birdincage(birdincage); 2001-8-23 (#176950@0)

My friend, I am not very picky. I have different requirements for different people -jabber(jabber); 2001-8-23 {1476} (#177128@0)
本文发表在 rolia.net 枫下论坛It is impolite to speak Chinese as some other non-Chinese colleagues are around. So I have to talk my Chinese colleague by avoiding others. This is not a good thing. That others don't complaint does not mean that I do the right thing. However, if I stick to speaking English, my Chinese colleague always misunderstand me and the project will be delayed.

I can give you an example. We are doing projects for dentists. Each dentist office has some chairs and each chair has a number called chair number, just as each person in Canada has a SIN number. We have a stored procedure that is used to select chairnumber and some other information. My colleague insisted saying "My understanding is that chair number means how many chair an office has...". I spent 30 minutes to explain what the bunisess is but she still insisted she was right. I teold her that one could not confuse chair count and chair number, but she had no ears.. Finally, I told her "whatever you though it is right, you just go ahead and finish your task as soon as possible". Unfortunately, after two day's fussing, she did not make any process and had to come back to me.... People may criticise me for not being kind. But if all of my team players treat me this way, I will be kicked off the track sooner or later. Recently, we hired some contractors. I explicitly told them they must follow my instructions and finsih their task in time. Otherwise, I will walk them out.更多精彩文章及讨论，请光临枫下论坛 rolia.net

Serial number of the chair, what's so difficult to understand ar? -slimpiggy(瘦猪犹如插翅虎); 2001-8-23 (#177132@0)

You won't believe. -jabber(jabber); 2001-8-23 {1199} (#177216@0)
本文发表在 rolia.net 枫下论坛I have ever asked my Chinese colleague to write a small Java application to count how many java source files there are in our project
placed under C:\project. I explicitly told her to use java.io.File class and look into its API documentation. I also told her to use recursive method calls ... one day passed, two days passed, ...I had to ask for the result. At this stage, my Chinese colleague began to prove that the task I trusted with her are too difficult to complete. I aksed: "Have you tried to use recurcive calls? " She answered: "The questions is .....". I immediately created code for that small exercise by using JDK, with her standing by me. Finally, I find she did not understand what "recursive calls" mean.

All other teammates know that my Chinese colleague's question is not a real question. I asked her to create a JSP filter page for another Chinese colleague. The latter openly told me that I could have ??? create the filter page but he would not use it. He would create one by himself rather than use his teammate's artifact.

Let's stop here. Originally I had no intention to talk about this matter. I think I have gone too far. Let's wind up.更多精彩文章及讨论，请光临枫下论坛 rolia.net

wow, this is too much for me to swallow, beyond shocked -slimpiggy(瘦猪犹如插翅虎); 2001-8-23 (#177228@0)

Dear Mr. Pig, just for your reference -jabber(jabber); 2001-8-23 {897} (#177232@0)
The following is the code that may be useful to some people. My code is not polished. If you are a coding expert, please do not comment on the stupidness in my code. Thank you.

import java.io.*;

public class FileCount{

private static int javacount=0;

public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception{
if(args.length !=1) {
System.out.println("usge: java FileCount <dir>");
return;
}
File file = new File(args[0]);
count(file);
System.out.println("There are " + javacount + " java files under "+ args[0]);

}

private static void count(File f)throws Exception{
File list[] = f.listFiles();
for(int i=0; i<list.length; i++) {
if(list[i].isDirectory()) {
count(list[i]);
} else{
String s = list[i].getName();
int index = s.indexOf(".java");
if(index !=-1) {
javacount++;
}

}
}

}

Brother Jabber is obviously a High-Hand ar -slimpiggy(瘦猪犹如插翅虎); 2001-8-23 (#177308@0)

你这个同事不是英语问题，纯粹是技术问题，即使你不告诉她她也该想到用什么方法，在那种场合，你从国内随便找一个英语一般的编程高手他也会马上反应过来recursive是什么意思，即使他以前根本不知道这个单词 -000(老九); 2001-8-23 (#177239@0)
I suggest you give her warnings and some deadline to improve her skills. Otherwise .... These kind of people may just had a java crush course and look for a job. They will be your pain in the neck. -guest:; 2001-8-23 (#177257@0)
I think everyone who finishes the course of data structure should undertand "recursive", espesially if he/she learns it in the States. -sailor(Sailor); 2001-8-23 (#177296@0)

why not fire that gal? what you want? -guest:; 2001-8-23 (#177247@0)

How is the fact -jabber(jabber); 2001-8-23 {1087} (#177317@0)
本文发表在 rolia.net 枫下论坛Whether you are in Canada or in USA, you have to accept the following fact: It is easy to hire a person, and it is desparately difficult to fire a person. Employees cannot be fired unless you he/she has made a big mistake, say, screw up the business in your company. I have no authority to fire any employees, I am also reluctant to see people are fired or laid off (fire and lay off are two different things). What I can do is to push my CTO to hire contractors instead of employees (they have permanent positions). I do have authority to send my consulants home, but I don't think I will use such previliges. The reason is simple: I have given them a tough interview before they come on aboard, so they know who they are and they cherish the job they are doing. The Chinese colleague I mentioned was hired by my CTO...I think she won't leave my company unless our company closes the door. After some lessons, I have decided not to assign any serious task on my Chinese colleague.

By the way, I have two more Chinese developers. They are terrific!
Let's stop here.更多精彩文章及讨论，请光临枫下论坛 rolia.net

have you found just being here very long dosen't mean anything. If it means something, the meaning is he/she is dumper than average person. I have seen many of them. ...in Rolia -guest:; 2001-8-23 (#176984@0)

Why can you not be a little more tolerant? People are different. Even if there are someone more like dump than you, it is not a wise way for you to scorn them. -guest:; 2001-8-23 (#177000@0)

"Because you are in power..." you are a funny guy... hmmm, I don't know if I like to have you as my subordinate.... hmmm, maybe ok -guest:; 2001-8-23 (#176987@0)
hei, I really wish I had a leader like you! You are so kind. -guest:; 2001-8-23 (#177252@0)

@Baltimore

Jabber's English Note---035

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