Good writing comes from practice. You can learn guidelines, but they are just that -- guidelines. (I posted Skunk and White below as something I used for traini

Good writing comes from practice. You can learn guidelines, but they are just that -- guidelines. (I posted Skunk and White below as something I used for training wheels a long time ago.) I think programmers typically start out writing stylistically worse than non-programmers because they are used to both tools that supervise syntax and semantics that are easily testable (i.e. does this work.) Expressing ideas in written word is far less rigid. Happily, readers are capable of parsing near non-sense. The can lex smyobls form gibebrsih and construct meaning from ambiguity. Unfortunately, readers are under no obligation to read what you have written. Whether you are trying to inform, influence, or entertain, you first have to engage. Programmers -- and engineers -- forget this lesson easily (if they ever knew it to begin with.)