5 ms·

I'm now wondering whether it's worth spending a day a week writing, instead of coding. It's true that you can generate much more ideas by writing, and it allows

by mdemare 19y ago

I'm now wondering whether it's worth spending a day a week writing, instead of coding. It's true that you can generate much more ideas by writing, and it allows you to cast your gaze a lot further than whatever particular method you're working on. Any thoughts?

JesseAldridge 19y ago
I think writing is more about teaching others than helping yourself. pg can afford to write because he's made his fortune. Simple notes to yourself should be sufficient for generating and refining ideas.
- danohuiginn 19y ago
  "writing is more about teaching others than helping yourself." I disagree. I write a lot of stuff that nobody else sees, just to clarify my thinking. My head's full of vague ideas, and it's only when I write them down that I can pick apart the contradictions. It's no different from coding: once you actually start writing code (rather than just planning it) you suddenly notice a host of edge cases and potential bugs.
  - rantfoil 19y ago
    It's true, writing is a great way to capture thought. The brain just can't hold enough things at one time to fully understand many problem spaces, but a Word doc can be infinitely long.
    - philh 19y ago
      That's not it. The brain can hold far more than any hard drive. And you don't really understand something that's not in your brain: all the neural links just don't exist on paper. It's the writing that helps. I'm not entirely sure how, but something about putting thoughts into sentences makes the thoughts themselves more coherent. Maybe because it forces you to think them in new ways => more connections => better understanding.
      - phaedrus 19y ago
        Not quite. Long term memory does hold much more than a hard drive. But what the GP is talking about is the limited capacity of short-term memory. When you are thinking about something and fill up your short-term memory, things start dropping out and by definition you can't notice that fact, because all your short-term memory is full! The benefit of an essay is that you can fix the ideas down on paper and move on in your thinking, without having to worry about forgetting where you started from.
        philh 19y ago
        Granted: if you want to capture a specific train of thought, you'll probably have to write it down. But I was more referring to "to fully understand many problem spaces", for which STM isn't really relevant. Understanding is a matter of how a topic is stored in LTM. Writing it down will improve your understanding of it, but it won't directly increase the amount you can understand.
      - deleted 19y ago
        [deleted]
  - mdemare 19y ago
    Writing about your problem domain may also help you to make better pitches and sell your product better. I'm passionate about what I'm building, yet find myself fumbling for words when explaining it to sceptical acquaintances. It takes practice to master any skill.
phaedrus 19y ago
Sometimes when I get stuck on a code problem, I start writing an essay describing how the system works. Even if I don't have a clear idea what that should be, by the time I finish the essay, I've worked out what I should write in the code.
bootload 19y ago
"... I'm now wondering whether it's worth spending a day a week writing, instead of coding ..." Do you have a blog? ~ http://inglua.wordpress.com/ http://inglua.wordpress.com/ then write some interesting things up and submit them

by mdemare 19y ago

JesseAldridge 19y ago

I think writing is more about teaching others than helping yourself. pg can afford to write because he's made his fortune. Simple notes to yourself should be sufficient for generating and refining ideas.

danohuiginn 19y ago
"writing is more about teaching others than helping yourself." I disagree. I write a lot of stuff that nobody else sees, just to clarify my thinking. My head's full of vague ideas, and it's only when I write them down that I can pick apart the contradictions. It's no different from coding: once you actually start writing code (rather than just planning it) you suddenly notice a host of edge cases and potential bugs.
- rantfoil 19y ago
  It's true, writing is a great way to capture thought. The brain just can't hold enough things at one time to fully understand many problem spaces, but a Word doc can be infinitely long.
  - philh 19y ago
    That's not it. The brain can hold far more than any hard drive. And you don't really understand something that's not in your brain: all the neural links just don't exist on paper. It's the writing that helps. I'm not entirely sure how, but something about putting thoughts into sentences makes the thoughts themselves more coherent. Maybe because it forces you to think them in new ways => more connections => better understanding.
    - phaedrus 19y ago
      Not quite. Long term memory does hold much more than a hard drive. But what the GP is talking about is the limited capacity of short-term memory. When you are thinking about something and fill up your short-term memory, things start dropping out and by definition you can't notice that fact, because all your short-term memory is full! The benefit of an essay is that you can fix the ideas down on paper and move on in your thinking, without having to worry about forgetting where you started from.
      - philh 19y ago
        Granted: if you want to capture a specific train of thought, you'll probably have to write it down. But I was more referring to "to fully understand many problem spaces", for which STM isn't really relevant. Understanding is a matter of how a topic is stored in LTM. Writing it down will improve your understanding of it, but it won't directly increase the amount you can understand.
    - deleted 19y ago
      [deleted]
- mdemare 19y ago
  Writing about your problem domain may also help you to make better pitches and sell your product better. I'm passionate about what I'm building, yet find myself fumbling for words when explaining it to sceptical acquaintances. It takes practice to master any skill.

phaedrus 19y ago

Sometimes when I get stuck on a code problem, I start writing an essay describing how the system works. Even if I don't have a clear idea what that should be, by the time I finish the essay, I've worked out what I should write in the code.

bootload 19y ago

"... I'm now wondering whether it's worth spending a day a week writing, instead of coding ..." Do you have a blog? ~ http://inglua.wordpress.com/ http://inglua.wordpress.com/ then write some interesting things up and submit them