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"In most cases programmers make an error in the last line of similar text blocks." I've noticed something similar in prose. When there's a sentence in a paragr
by montrose 9y ago
"In most cases programmers make an error in the last line of similar text blocks."
I've noticed something similar in prose. When there's a sentence in a paragraph that should be cut, it's disproportionately often the last one. I've seen this in my own writing and in other people's. Interestingly, it's particularly noticeable in the writing of Wodehouse; these bad final sentences are one reason his later stuff is not quite as good.
- pavel_lishin 9y agoTaking this heuristic to its ultimate conclusion, one should trim writing until nothing remains. (I should have followed that heuristic in this comment.)
- OtterCoder 9y agoTrim until the idea to be conveyed disappears. Then ctrl-z once.
- Sharlin 9y ago”Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler.” —Unknown, attributed to Einstein
- tjalfi 9y agoYears ago (2005), there was a Java tool called Guantanamo[0] that would delete or comment out code that is not covered by unit tests. [0] https://github.com/codehaus/ashcroft/tree/master/guantanamo https://github.com/codehaus/ashcroft/tree/master/guantanamo