4 ms·
What makes these inverse guides so appealing, anyway...
by detcader 17y ago
What makes these inverse guides so appealing, anyway...
- hugh3 17y agoI don't know. It's really just a cheap trick that makes half-assed advice sound much cleverer than it really is. But it works!
- chipsy 17y agoWe need to go one step further and make inverse inverse guides: "How to not fail at not failing" etc.
- smwhreyebelong 17y agoFunny you say that. pg used an inverse-inverse title for his 2007 Startup School talk. It was titled :"Why to Not Not start a startup" http://www.paulgraham.com/notnot.html http://www.paulgraham.com/notnot.html
- kalid 17y agoI really dislike these inverse guides -- they fight a strawman by negating an obviously false statement. You see this in programming essays, where people show examples of absurd commenting (i++; // increment i). Yes, yes, we're reasonably intelligent readers know that's bad -- show us an example of nuanced commenting, or nuanced thinking!
- sophacles 17y agoSometimes there is more than one "correct" method. In a lot of those cases, the "wrong" way is pretty specific, or at least tightly constrained. At such times, it is easier to explain that instead of explaining a large group of extremely different options. Other times, it is just a simple case of "I don't know what works, but I know what doesn't work". This allows the next person to not make that mistake.