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Possible Duplicate:
Are there any simple rules for article usage (“a” vs “the” vs none)

I always don't understand which one to use, a or the or nothing.

I got a question about programming and wanted to ask something like "What would be the best way to release a beta version of a plugin?" Here I'm always not certain that a noun after the of, in this case, plugin, should have which article, a or the or none.

Which one is correct?

  1. "What would be the best way to release a beta version of a plugin?"
  2. "What would be the best way to release a beta version of the plugin?"
  3. "What would be the best way to release a beta version of plugin?"

I understand that a means one of many and the means a specific one. So I guess #1 is the correct sentence but I'm not sure.

Also if the sentence gets more details like "What would be the best way to release a beta version of (a/the/none) plugin of WordPress?"

Then it becomes specific to WordPress so should the noun, plugin, have an article, the? But there are so many WordPress plugins in public. So it could be a; I don't know.

But what if the sentence is like "What would be the best way to release a beta version of (a/the/none) plugin of WordPress which I'm currently working on?"

This one should be the I guess because it's very specific.

This is really a hard part to get in English for me.

Thanks for your explanation.

[Update]

I found another confusing case.

Me: If I use the WordPress caching functionality, does it slow down (the/a/none) page loading speed?

Somebody: No, it won't affect (the/a/none) speed.

Me: Are you sure? How can you tell it won't affect (the/a/none) server responses?

In this case, it's specific to the speed on a server which uses WordPress caching feature. However, it could be many; there are lots of Web servers which installed WordPress and using the caching system. So it could be one of those. So I don't know if a could be applied here too.

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Teno
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  • You may want to read this very similar question –  Sep 21 '12 at 02:19
  • Oh, thanks. I'm kind of relieved that there are some who feel using articles are really hard. – Teno Sep 21 '12 at 02:42
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    I don't understand it. I cannot find the usage in this specific occasion. You may not know how this is difficult thing to learn for some people. For us, seeing different examples in different situations would really help. Also I'm not asking the general rule but the exact usage in this specific situation. – Teno Sep 21 '12 at 02:56
  • Small...Really? – Noah Sep 21 '12 at 05:36
  • @Teno: we know very well how this is a difficult thing to learn for some people. Which is precisely why we are about to create a sister site specifically for English language learners. Please support it. This site here, however, is targeted at "linguists, etymologists, and serious English language enthusiasts". In other words, people here are expected to already have a certain grasp of the language. – RegDwigнt Sep 21 '12 at 09:11
  • @ЯegDwight as Noah expresses in the above comment, there are some feeling the question is not small and requires experts' insight. In other words, the question is based on a certain grasp of the language. – Teno Sep 21 '12 at 13:51
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    @Teno: he refers to your question being rather long and not deserving of the epithet "small" for that reason. – RegDwigнt Sep 21 '12 at 13:55
  • @ЯegDwight I don't mean to offend but the person who interprets the question as being long would not be expert enough to read English to answer English questions in general, I suppose. It's rather short. – Teno Sep 21 '12 at 14:16
  • Not sure why you address me, since the original remark is @Noah's, but at any rate, this question is longer than most questions we get, so his remark is not entirely unfounded. Short is in the eye of the beholder. – RegDwigнt Sep 21 '12 at 14:27
  • @ЯegDwight If the interpretation of whether it's short or long depends on the person, then whether this question is too basic/ an exact duplicate or not is also up to the person who interprets it. You are addressed because you addressed me for the reason you think the question is not based on a certain grasp of the language. I disagree. – Teno Sep 21 '12 at 14:41
  • The length of the question has nothing to do with its ontopicness. Our entire discussion of someone else's two-word comment on a single word of yours in such excruciating detail is off-topic. If you wish to continue it, let's take it to chat. I only ever addressed you to offer guidance. My comment was meant to be helpful. Of course you as the OP will think your question on-topic — otherwise you wouldn't have posted it in the first place. But the fact of the matter is, five other people deemed it closable. You can dispute it by opening a meta post. Comments are not really suited for this. – RegDwigнt Sep 21 '12 at 14:59
  • I've already posted a new topic in the forum you linked to avoid further off-topic discussions. I'm willing to end this off-topic discussion as well. The best way to be helpful in my view is to simply provide an answer for the question but it seems to be really hard for some people for some reasons, especially for self-appointed English experts. – Teno Sep 21 '12 at 15:22

1 Answers1

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Your guesses above are correct. It's never grammatical to omit the article completely from this sentence. Use "the" only when other words in your sentence (or before your sentence) identify which plugin you're talking about. Use "a" if you can't expect your reader to know which plugin you mean.

  • Thanks for ensuring it. I updated the question to describe the problem in another situation. – Teno Sep 21 '12 at 02:49