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"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

"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.

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.