I'm reading Coders at Work by Peter Seibel, and many a time it has been mentioned that programmers who can't write generally make poor programmers - it's been claimed by Douglas Crockford, Joshua Bloch, Joe Armstrong, Dijkstra (and I've only read half the book).What's your view of this? Is an inability to express yourself in writing in a natural language such as English a hindrance of writing good code?
Do poor writers make poor programmers?
writing
There's much more to programming than 'writing code'. A big part of being a successful programmer involves communication; Being able to connect with customers, understand their needs, translate them into the technical realm, express them in code, and then explain the result back to the customers.Programmers who have a hard time expressing themselves clearly in writing may not be able to communicate well in general, whereas those who have a good grasp of language and writing can generally translate those skills to the code they write. I think being unable to write well, and thus communicate well, will keep one from being a very good programmer.As Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson (of 37signals) say in their book Rework:If you're trying to decide among a few people to fill a position, hire the best writer. Being a good writer is about more than writing. Clear writing is a sign of clear thinking. Great writers know how to communicate. 