Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

> Okay, so this non-technical person is sending me codes now.

I started wondering if this person was actually a developer here. Maybe just a typo, or maybe a dialect thing, but does anyone actually use "codes" as a plural?



Always assume the author is ESL in these situations.


In other disciplines, yes. Very common to hear it in mechanical or aerospace engineering, for example. They'll say "codes" to refer to multiple programs or "a code" to refer to a single program. It's amusing, when I was in the field I just went with it.


It’s not just that, there are other things in the article pointing to the person being a non-native English speaker. Which is fine, I’m one too.

It’s somehow ironic though that his written output could’ve been improved by running it through an AI tool.


I'd much rather read someone's actual errored, nonnative writing than whatever an LLM would produce from it. Not only because it's annoying reading the same fake style over and over, but also because the less fluent they are the less able they are to tell when the LLM output is changing things in ways that don't reflect what they're thinking.

And if the main complaint is just a few odd words or structures, it's really not that big of a deal to me.


> his written output could’ve been improved by running it through an AI tool.

I mean, it could've been homogonized by running it through an AI tool. I don't think there's a guarantee that it would've been an improvement. Yes, it probably could've helped refine away phrases that give away a non-native English speaker, but it also would've sanded down and ground away other aspects of the personality of the author. Is that an improvement? I'm not so sure.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: