I think that language is mostly used by people for forming bonds with other people. That's the purpose of most conversations. It is emotionally fulfilling. But autistic people typically respond emotionally more to things than to people. (This is something that many here should be able to understand to some degree.) Watch the video. She talks about a "conversation" with her surroundings. I think that's what she means by "language". She specifically says that her language doesn't have any semantic content, if that is what is bothering you.
"(iv) Never use the passive where you can use the active."
In the following passage Orwell is describing a particular type of bad writing. Notice however that every single sentence is passive. Notice especially the first sentence. It contains an irony bomb.
"In addition, the passive voice is wherever possible used in preference to the active, and noun constructions are used instead of gerunds (by examination of instead of by examining). The range of verbs is further cut down by means of the -ize and de- formations, and the banal statements are given an appearance of profundity by means of the not un- formation. Simple conjunctions and prepositions are replaced by such phrases as with respect to, having regard to, the fact that, by dint of, in view of, in the interests of, on the hypothesis that; and the ends of sentences are saved by anticlimax by such resounding commonplaces as greatly to be desired, cannot be left out of account, a development to be expected in the near future, deserving of serious consideration, brought to a satisfactory conclusion, and so on and so forth."
Another parallel: Willful ignorance of evolutionary theory is to conservatives as willful ignorance of economics is to liberals. (Liberals in the American sense.)
Pushing it a bit further, Keynesian economics corresponds to Intelligent Design in the above parallel.
From the executive summary at the link I provided: "And despite all the stories about the erosion of U.S. manufacturing primacy, the United States remains the world's most prolific manufacturer--producing two and a half times more output than those vaunted Chinese factories in 2006."
Really? I don't believe that you said that with much conviction. I agree with your other comments. I thought the comic sucked. I rarely find Dilbertian cynicism to be funny.
> The article mentions the strategy pattern which, ironically, often requires inheritance to implement.
Not really. It only requires interface inheritance for statically-typed languages, which is not really inheritance, and no inheritance at all for duck-typed languages.