English is not an easy second language to learn as an adult, and technical English doubly so.
The author's primary (and perhaps only) contact with users is through their documentation. Incorrect capitalization and apostrophe use is distracting and will put off some potential users. The author looks sloppy and uncaring because these types of mistakes are preventable.
Being a non-native speaker is not an excuse for basic errors (excepting novices). Proof-read your docs! If you're not confident in your language skills, ask someone else to!
I doubt it is the lack of time. But natively English-speaking acquaintance to proof-read technical documentation can be very hard to come by. Most projects have to do by with the folks they have. ( I am in need for such a person myself. If anyone has the time Searchdaimon ( https://github.com/searchdaimon/enterprise-search ) could need some help :) )
One trick can be to at least wikify the documentation so other can easier pitch in.
Instead of bashing someone on hnews comments, you could send them an errata patch.
rgbrgb, I agree that it's superficial, but in direct contrast to your praise of the superficial style of the documentation, I was unfortunately distracted by the superficial mistakes in grammar and spelling. I wish someone would take the time to help the author of this code, Dmitry Simonenko, to improve the documentation. To that point, here are my hopefully constructive criticisms specifically of the language used in the documentation. I have performed no audit of the library itself, and cannot speak to its quality.
Does this still come off to you as poor form?
The problem with the docs aren't these small gramattical errors. In most cases you cite the meaning is clear, so this is just pedantry.
What bothers me about the documentation is that the explanation of his algorithms is a bit opaque.
But all told, I'd much rather someone contribute than hold back because of concerns about language mastery.
