I'm veering slightly off topic here but something in this post fascinated me...
Are you sincere in your claim that you were genuinely confused because of the its vs it's mix up in the original post? I had always assumed people pointing it out were doing so just to be pedantic or to make the person who made the mistake look foolish, it never occurred to me that genuine confusion could result.
I'm honestly curious, not trying to anything subversive here. I always read the word "loose" correctly, even when by context it is clear that the author meant "lose" and end up having to pause or re-read the section, so I can certainly understand the experience, it had just never occurred to me that its or it's would really cause confusion.
For what it's worth, very personal point of view ...
I'm serious and sincere. I learned to read very young, and I don't (as a rule) vocalize. Net result is that ungrammatical constructions or phonetic spellings slow me way down and cause serious cognitive dissonance. Likewise the latest idiomatic mutation - "I could care less" - makes absolutely no sense, and forces me explicitly to guess what the author may have meant. Then I need to carry forward the possibility that my guess is wrong and I'll have to backtrack. Sort of a Garden Path sentence on steroids.
Your code will be read and modified far more often than theone time it was written, and hence you should take time to make it clear. Similarly anything you write will (most likely) be read far more often than the one time it was written. It is simple politeness to take time to make sure it's as correct as you can sensibly make it.
Yes, there are people who struggle, either because English is not their first language (although many of them put native speakers to shame) or because they are dyslexic, or whatever, but remember that the comparatively small amount of time it takes to get it right is paid back many-fold in the readers' time by not having to backtrack, second guess, or even, worse still, give up and ignore you completely.
Are you sincere in your claim that you were genuinely confused because of the its vs it's mix up in the original post? I had always assumed people pointing it out were doing so just to be pedantic or to make the person who made the mistake look foolish, it never occurred to me that genuine confusion could result.
I'm honestly curious, not trying to anything subversive here. I always read the word "loose" correctly, even when by context it is clear that the author meant "lose" and end up having to pause or re-read the section, so I can certainly understand the experience, it had just never occurred to me that its or it's would really cause confusion.