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One thing I appreciate about John D. Cook's blog is that he doesn't feel the need to pad out what he wants to say. Here, he had a thought, and he expressed it
by dmlorenzetti 6y ago
One thing I appreciate about John D. Cook's blog is that he doesn't feel the need to pad out what he wants to say.
Here, he had a thought, and he expressed it in two paragraphs. I'm sure he could have riffed on the core idea for another 10 paragraphs, developed a few tangential lines of thought, inserted pull quotes -- in short, turned it into a full-blown essay.
Given that his blog serves, at least in part, as an advertisement for his services, he even has some incentive to demonstrate how comprehensive and "smart" he can be.
His unpadded style means I'm never afraid to check out a link to one of his posts on HN. Whereas I will often forego clicking on links to Medium, or the Atlantic, or wherever, until I have looked at a few comments to see whether it will be worth my time.
- partyboat1586 6y ago"I enjoy that John D. Cook doesn't pad his posts."
- Accujack 6y agoHe's a concise blogger.
- gmfawcett 6y agoPlease edit all of my writing. ;-)
- noworriesnate 6y agoCheck out The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr. He talks about how to write and stresses the importance of being concise.
- vinceguidry 6y agoI suspect the point was that brevity is harder than it looks.
- Kalium 6y agoBe concise. Be forcible. Have a plan to kill every sentence you meet. ---- This is my preferred summary of Strunk and White.
- eben-ezer 6y agoThis is the first time I've seen one his posts. It caught me really off guard but I completely agree with your sentiments. It is refreshing to see and I wish more blogs took this method to heart
- jihadjihad 6y agoHonestly I was on the fence about clicking the link until I saw where it was from--his content is reliably interesting and straight to the point. If it was on Medium I wouldn't have even bothered and, like you, would have gone to the comments. The compression is lossy but it's a great filter for crap content.
- gmfawcett 6y agoA few links would have been nice -- e.g. to any serious comparison of LEGO to software components.
- mduncs 6y agoIts an interesting statement, but how much discussion can we get from it as an audience? I haven't thought about this very much, and there is a lot I'm curious about that he hasn't elaborated on. What are the signs of rejection? Whats an example of failure, are there examples of that wonderful modular behavior that he admires? Its a nice way to introduce a thought or observation, but I want to know more about why he thinks that, not what he thinks.
- qchris 6y agoThere was a science teacher in my high school that used to have a rule about doing things similarly. For any kind of a lab report, instead of "you must write a report of at least 3 pages", it was "your report must not be more than 2 pages long." Not only am I sure it made it easier for him to grade, but it really forced students to write concisely about their work.
- groby_b 6y agoFor what it's worth, as an advertisement for his services, conciseness is better. It's easier to disagree with parts of a detailed opinion than with a vague general statement. You can then project your own opinions into the general framework, and you find you fully agree :) As a consultant, "I 100% agree with you, you understand me" is exactly the feeling you want. He writes the long articles that show off his smarts in fairly specialized areas, where you need to be an expert to disagree. It's really clever, and I'm curious if it's intentional on his part, or just his style.
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