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I don't know, I don't think your example sentence is particularly hard to parse, and I'm not a native speaker. But I have to say, even as a non-native speaker, I just can't understand whats hard about "its" and "it's" and "their", "there" and "they're" and it makes me cringe every time to read such mistakes (as does confusing "loose" with "lose"). That said, I don't expect perfection but if I read a text that is littered with such mistakes and makes them consistently I won't read it because, for me, it's arduous to correct all those mistakes in my mind while reading.


I still cringe at all the "would of"s and incorrect "your"s and "their" on the Net. As an English speaker from outside the US, these aren't mistakes I commonly see in my country, and they grate. I'm like you - I find it arduous and irritating to read a passage littered with them, because each one pops up and distracts me.

That said, if I were hiring programmers, I wouldn't go by grammar. Business concerns and core capabilities come first. If the person makes mistakes but does the job best, no biggie. It all comes down to the situation in the labour market - does demand for programmers exceed supply, or vice versa? If I were flooded with good potential applicants then I'd weight grammar more heavily as a differentiating factor - but since good programmers are hard to come by currently, it's just pointless to do so.


oh the US Constitution is wonderful to throw at grammar nazis.

Article 1, section 10, clause 2:

"No State shall, without the Consent of the Congress, lay any Imposts or Duties on Imports or Exports, except what may be absolutely necessary for executing it's inspection Laws: and the net Produce of all Duties and Imposts, laid by any State on Imports or Exports, shall be for the Use of the Treasury of the United States; and all such Laws shall be subject to the Revision and Controul of the Congress."




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