this essay's style seems endemic in tech writing: logorrheic and trafficking in technical details/protocols in place of the underlying principles (cogency, brevity, a single unifying argument that can be simply stated).
i appreciate any tips to aid my writing, but i think very few match the tried and true approach of reading masters of the craft and revising one's writing, again and again, for brevity. i suspect that the blog format discourages the latter.
I also agree. But it occurred to me that the authors intent was probably to create a sort of reference guide that could be referred to over and over in order to apply the techniques discussed.
In that context, the use of lists makes a lot more sense. What's interesting is that the article also seems to be written in conversational style while at the same time intending to be a re-usable reference. At least, that's my take on it.
This is because there are two families of tech writing, one is concise and detail oriented, the other is long form because it contains complex ideas that cannot be summarised in bullets.
Take as an example most of Dijkstra's output. Could you reduce "On the Cruelty of Really Teaching Computer Science" [1] into bullets and still retain its message?
> i suspect that the blog format discourages the latter.
I don't really see how the blog format makes this any worse than writing published essays did.
The foreword to "American Essays"[1] edited by Shaw is remarkably relevant and on-point for what I would consider the good parts of blogs and on-line writing. There aren't all that many that I am aware of that write consistently and well - apart from the odd article in The New Yorker, Greenspun, Spolsky, Graham as well as Norvig are a few that come to mind (and I'm reminded I've not really read anything by any of them lately).
Many of the blogs that are posted here on hn are good first drafts, that if the author found the time to put in about three to five times the effort, might be considered decent essays. I absolutely understand why people don't do that -- it is a lot of work, for little immediate reward. But I think that a lot of writers could do well to aspire to match Hemmingway or White, rather than just trudging out interesting first-drafts and sketched ideas.
I believe the greatest benefits to the authors, other than improving their writing skill, would probably be improving their thinking - the level of understanding needed to write simply and delightfully about a subject is significantly above the level needed to jot down a few ideas and join them into sentences by rote application of a few stylistic guidelines.
We should probably all aspire to write better than a well-trained neural network that takes a few keywords as input ;-)
I also came across an old note on another essay collection, "Essays of E.B. White" - from his own foreword:
"The essayist is a self-liberated man, sustained by the childish belief that everything he thinks about, everything that happens to him, is of general interest. He is a fellow who thoroughly enjoys his work, just as people who take bird walks enjoy theirs. (...) Only a person who is congenitally self-centered has the effrontery and the stamina to write essays.
There are as many kinds of essays as there are human attitudes or poses (...). The essayist (...) selects his garb from an unusually extensive wardrobe: he can pull on any sort of shirt, be any sort of person, according to his mood or his subject matter -- philosopher, scold, jester, raconteur, confidant, pundit, devil's advocate, enthusiast. I like the essay, (...) but I am not fooled about the place of the essay in twentieth-century American letters -- it stands a short distance down the line. The essayist, unlike the novelist, the poet, and the playwright, must be content in his self-imposed role of second-class citizen. A writer who has his sights trained on the Nobel Prize or other earthly triumphs had best write a novel, a poem or a play, and leave the essayist to ramble about, content with living a free life and enjoying the satisfactions of a somewhat undisciplined existence. (...)
There is one thing the essayist cannot do, though -- he cannot indulge himself in deceit or in concealment, for he will be found out in no time. Desmond MacCarthy, in his introductory remarks to the 1928 E. P. Dutton & Company edition of Montaigne, observes that Montaigne "had the gift of a natural candour....". It is the basic ingredient. And even the essayist's escape from discipline is only a partial escape: the essay, although a relaxed form, imposes its own disciplines, raises its own problems, and these disciplines and problems soon become apparent and (we all hope) act as a deterrent to anyone wielding a pen merely because he entertains random thoughts or is in a happy or wandering mood.
I think some people find the essay the last resort of the egoist, a much too self-conscious and self-serving form for their taste; they feel that it is presumptuous of a writer to assume that his little excursions or his small observations will interest the reader. There is some justice in their complaint. I have always been aware that I am by nature self-absorbed and egoistical; to write of myself to the extent I have done indicates a too great attention to my own life, not enough to the lives of others. I have worn many shirts, and not all of them have been a good fit. But when I am discouraged or downcast I need only fling open the door of my closet, and there, hidden behind everything else hangs the mantle of Michel de Montaigne, smelling slightly of camphor."
-- E. B. White, 1977, in foreword to Essays of E. B. White
looking up the paper on pubmed reveals a flurry of letters to the editor published in the subsequent issue that call out the 'tai method' for what it is. i would actually bet a good number of the 70 citations that so worry 'flip tomato' are actually criticisms or commentary papers like this, as opposed to earnest citations.
it's ironic that a blog post like this would use an image that appears to be poking fun at the fervor with which people record and analyze paul graham's teachings
yet, his personal blog is largely attacks on people who publish essays questioning his conclusions. for instance, he appears to be still steaming over the whole pinker review/ eigenvalue debacle. i guess i can't really argue with the quotation you provide but he seems to me like someone who takes his conclusions (too) seriously.
i don't grasp the 'problem' with the rating system. a 4.5 star deli offers 4.5 star deli cuisine, and a 4 star restaurant offers 4 star haute cuisine. are they that much more comparable than a 4 star restaurant and a 5 star laundromat?
the people here seem so self-motivated that i would be surprised if many of them would want to pay yearly fees to be told they are smart, as opposed to simply telling themselves they're smart or, better yet, not really worrying about it at all.
those looking for a new, ultra-stimulating social circle may think mensa offers more than their local universities or alumni associations, but i'm not so sure. i would also worry that mensa might select for a unique type of person who is highly invested in his perceived intelligence (which is often to the detriment of friendship and productive conversation). i wonder if anyone can tell us more about the organization...
the 'relevance of grades' argument never seems to die here. like any other measure of ability, the use of GPA has its limitations. the reason the debate continues, i suspect, is that a lot of people here got bad grades.
Anecdote: I went to a $40,000 / yr college and got a GPA-based "Presidential Scholarship" every semester. A friend of mine, who didn't really know what to do with college, got a 2-year degree in general ed from a state college. I can tell you that he's at least as smart and about 3x wiser than I am. He gets more out of his job, has a better social life, is in better shape, etc etc etc.
So from my perspective, GPA is about 95% useless in real life.
:)
I did say "in my experience"! I also called the story out as an anecdote, not anything statistically useful. The 95% figure is an estimate based on lots of people I know, not just the one story.
I think we agree completely that the use of GPA as a measure of ability is limited. To be fair, though, I never asserted that GPA would predict who would 'have a better social life' or who would be 'in better shape.' In fact, I might predict that these would be negatively correlated with GPA. Also, I'm not sure I understand your story: did your friend actually have low grades, or are you just saying he was highly successful after attending a less famous school?
In any case, I hesitate to offer my own examples: I don't have a sufficiently large sample size, as I don't hang out with people who had low GPAs.
It is exactly because the "top x" title is a gimmick that I want it faithfully included in HN titles. This way, I know to not click on the link in the first place, as I typically avoid these types of list articles.
i appreciate any tips to aid my writing, but i think very few match the tried and true approach of reading masters of the craft and revising one's writing, again and again, for brevity. i suspect that the blog format discourages the latter.