this–this! makes me want to punch geeks in the face

[erastes]

Question: What is Twitter API?
Twitter has added a new feature called API or the Application Programming Interface. API is a way for a program in Twitter to do task relating to data modification. It makes every feature in your site on Twitter is supported by a high technology of the API mechanism.

What?  WHAT?

Comments

[tim crowhurst (from livejournal.com)]

It might be a little easier to understand if the sentences' structures made grammatical sense. They don't.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

exactly.

[tim crowhurst (from livejournal.com)]

The scary thing is that syntax in computer programming has to be incredibly precise. One wrong letter and the program doesn't work. Things like this make you wonder how we have any working computer programs.

[lee-rowan.livejournal.com]

The way a computer thinks isn't the way humans think. I think that when people talk to computers too long, some of them forget how to talk to other non-geek people. Not all, my bro-in-law can converse in perfectly normal English, but he's got my sister to talk English to him at home...

[tim crowhurst (from livejournal.com)]

That only explains away some of their apparently ballistic approach to grammar.

[lee-rowan.livejournal.com]

Schools stopped teaching how to diagram sentences a couple of decades ago. I used to work in a college and some of the stuff I typed up -- for graduate students! -- had grammar my 10th-grade English teacher would have read aloud and corrected for the entire class. It isn't just the geeks.

[tim crowhurst (from livejournal.com)]

What the f**k were graduate students doing getting other people to type up their work for them? The only instance where I'd think that acceptable would be if the student in question was dyslexic or deaf, in which case poor English is not merely excusable, but actually expected, but somehow I have the impression that tis was not the case.

When I was studying, a portion of the mark for any essay was reserved for grammar and punctuation.

[lee-rowan.livejournal.com]

I had a sideline typing dissertations. No abuse of department offices. This was back in the Dark Ages when dissertations had to be produced on a mechanical device. At least it was a correcting Selectric...

And a lot of teachers don't bother correcting English anymore. Mainly, I fear, because they don't know it.

[tim crowhurst (from livejournal.com)]

I think that last comment would be hilarious if it were not true. As it is, it is worrying.

[yakalskovich]

I just completely fail to see how that is new. It's been possible for quite a while to put Twitter functionality on one's own site, blog, whatever; and that's exactly what that API is promising to do...

[erastes.livejournal.com]

I doubt that it's new. It's just I don't know what it is. and so I went to have a look for what it was and found this explanation. I don't want to know what it is now.

[yakalskovich]

If you don't have a web site that you want to integrate with Twitter so tweets are twittering all over the place, then you really don't need it.-

[loritoland.livejournal.com]

My Uncle asked a web company to make a website for his company and paid them $30k for it. They put up all the pages, including all the how-to wash their shirts and all. There were a huge amount of typos and my uncle asked can't you guys spell (not that he could) and they said we deal in code all day, not English. If you want to proof the copy you send to us, then fine. LOL. I loved that the website took 30K to set-up.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Well, in this case I'd probably agree with them--although they are hugely unprofessional and won't get much repeat business--if it was my company I would supply the copy and have it proof read more than once before sending to the web guys!

[loritoland.livejournal.com]

That's what I asked him. Apparently, it was proofread (no hope for any of the people out in San Diego) I was laughing because I deal in HTML code too and I know all I do is copy and paste from, for example, my publisher's webpage and just edit the code on the website.

I consider it karma. He's a jerk. A stupid jerk.

[essayel.livejournal.com]

Mu inner-beta is narrowing her eyes and wondering how to put my response kindly. Luckily I don't have to in this case so bleah.

You'd think they'd get their FAQ proof read.

[aishabintjamil.livejournal.com]

Putting on my geek hat for a moment. API is a generally used term in programming for a specification that describes how to access features of another program so you can write a program that uses them without having to know the details of the program to which the API refers.

For example a hypothetical API for twitter might specify that if you wanted to post a message to twitter, you could do it by invoking a routine named "Post-my-message". It would might expect information as part of that invocation like the text of your tweet, the user ID the tweet was supposed to come from, and a password for that user ID. That way you could write a program of your own that would post tweets for you, without actually logging in.

Lots of things have APIs. For example, if you were writing a computer game to run on windows, you'd want to use the API which lets you display things on the screen. That way you don't know to worry about the nasty hardware details of the screen, or how windows manages it (which Microsoft almost certainly doesn't want to tell you either....)

As for the English in the description, it was probably written by someone in India whose native language is not English, and everyone knows programmers and engineers can't write in anything but code, so they probably figure the target audience won't know the difference either.

You don't want to know how many weird reactions a dual major in computer science and a foreign language, with an English minor got me while I was going through college...

[aishabintjamil.livejournal.com]

Darn, I wish I could edit that comment. I was typing with the cat on my lap, and it did *not* improve my English....

[cassiopaya.livejournal.com]

I have no idea what that means and I'm glad I don't have twitter.