Any piece about writing will violate its own rules. I think this could be a law ;) This is because writing is hard. It is just like coding, in the sense that I

Any piece about writing will violate its own rules. I think this could be a law ;) This is because writing is hard. It is just like coding, in the sense that I can revise it three times and still find ways to make it better the fourth time, or the tenth time. So no writing is perfect, but I think I can often tell when a writer has read the right books (like On Writing Well). Every now and then an article will jump out to me as being 10 times more lucid and concise than the norm --- even though it's still imperfect. Also I think the rules are not black and white. There is some judgment needed at every turn. Sometimes you will want to bend one rule to preserve another, and people with different tastes will either praise you or blame you for how you make the call.