4 ms·

That looks more like a very short pdf with a white background than a 'whitepaper'.

steveklabnik 8y ago
If you have more specific feedback about what you'd expect a whitepaper to look like, we'd love to hear it. We surveyed some stuff and didn't really find much commonality, but would prefer to follow conventions if there are any!
- faitswulff 8y ago
  I think one thing that I expect to see in something labeled a "paper" of any sort is data, but that may be a personal bias.
  - chrisseaton 8y ago
    It's not supposed to be a scientific paper - it's narrative a report on their experience doing something. Obviously not all papers have data in them - not even all computer science research papers have data in them!
  - steveklabnik 8y ago
    Thanks! I do think that some data would be good, but at the same time, the kind of data that's relevant here is really hard to get in any concrete terms, so might actually be harmful. > a "paper" of any sort Remember that this isn't a paper of just any sort: it's a whitepaper. So it has a specific audience: CTOs, VPs, and other technical management types. Audience is important for what you have to include in any work.
    - faitswulff 8y ago
      That makes sense, thanks!
      - steveklabnik 8y ago
        No problem. I bet CTOs would love “we had a 30% reduction in defect rate” or data like that, for sure, it’s just so hard to collect...
        faitswulff 8y ago
        Oh! Actually, I'm paging through "Rust in production at Figma" (https://blog.figma.com/rust-in-production-at-figma-e10a0ec31929 https://blog.figma.com/rust-in-production-at-figma-e10a0ec31...) and I think this is closer to what I would expect in a "paper" - while acknowledging that am predisposed toward thinking "graphs and data" when I think of a paper, I do think these kinds of blog posts have more of an impact (and seem more true to the idea of a "paper") on me than the current Rust whitepapers. That said, I will happily concede that I have no idea who the target audience is for the whitepapers and probably don't know the accepted industry definition of a whitepaper. However, I'm very happy to see Rust flourish either way.
chrisseaton 8y ago
I'm not sure what you mean - this looks like a very conventional whitepaper to me. Wikipedia says > In business, a white paper is closer [than the government meaning of a policy document] to a form of marketing presentation, a tool meant to persuade customers and partners and promote a product or viewpoint.
- thanatropism 8y ago
  Much of what I've done professionally over the past decade was to produce white papers in the following sense: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_literature https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_literature

If you have more specific feedback about what you'd expect a whitepaper to look like, we'd love to hear it. We surveyed some stuff and didn't really find much commonality, but would prefer to follow conventions if there are any!

faitswulff 8y ago
I think one thing that I expect to see in something labeled a "paper" of any sort is data, but that may be a personal bias.
- chrisseaton 8y ago
  It's not supposed to be a scientific paper - it's narrative a report on their experience doing something. Obviously not all papers have data in them - not even all computer science research papers have data in them!
- steveklabnik 8y ago
  Thanks! I do think that some data would be good, but at the same time, the kind of data that's relevant here is really hard to get in any concrete terms, so might actually be harmful. > a "paper" of any sort Remember that this isn't a paper of just any sort: it's a whitepaper. So it has a specific audience: CTOs, VPs, and other technical management types. Audience is important for what you have to include in any work.
  - faitswulff 8y ago
    That makes sense, thanks!
    - steveklabnik 8y ago
      No problem. I bet CTOs would love “we had a 30% reduction in defect rate” or data like that, for sure, it’s just so hard to collect...
      - faitswulff 8y ago
        Oh! Actually, I'm paging through "Rust in production at Figma" (https://blog.figma.com/rust-in-production-at-figma-e10a0ec31929 https://blog.figma.com/rust-in-production-at-figma-e10a0ec31...) and I think this is closer to what I would expect in a "paper" - while acknowledging that am predisposed toward thinking "graphs and data" when I think of a paper, I do think these kinds of blog posts have more of an impact (and seem more true to the idea of a "paper") on me than the current Rust whitepapers. That said, I will happily concede that I have no idea who the target audience is for the whitepapers and probably don't know the accepted industry definition of a whitepaper. However, I'm very happy to see Rust flourish either way.

chrisseaton 8y ago

I'm not sure what you mean - this looks like a very conventional whitepaper to me. Wikipedia says > In business, a white paper is closer [than the government meaning of a policy document] to a form of marketing presentation, a tool meant to persuade customers and partners and promote a product or viewpoint.

thanatropism 8y ago
Much of what I've done professionally over the past decade was to produce white papers in the following sense: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_literature https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_literature