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Easier said than done. Being concise is hard. Even this comment has 3 sentences when 1 would have sufficed, and one of the sentences is an overly meta multipart

Easier said than done. Being concise is hard. Even this comment has 3 sentences when 1 would have sufficed, and one of the sentences is an overly meta multipart monstrosity that is adding no value and should be removed.

giardini 6y ago
vikramkr says:>Easier said than done.< FTFY
- vikramkr 6y ago
  If I had just said "easier said than done." - then it would look pretty darn easily done, ya know?
Normille 6y ago
"Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away." Antoine de Saint-Exupery
cxr 6y ago
This is a shallow dismissal. Note that the author's goal is actually "writing more". There is no a priori goal of conciseness, which is orthogonal. I'd wager that what the author has been doing is finding themselves writing minimally in-the-moment, setting that aside as a draft with the self-imposed criteria that it needs to be beefed up[1][2] before publication, and then never going back to do that. So between the options of shorter and shortest, go for whichever actually results in "writing" (read: publishing) more. If that means the former happens more than the latter, it doesn't contradict what the author is actually advising here. 1. https://pchiusano.github.io/2014-10-11/defensive-writing.html https://pchiusano.github.io/2014-10-11/defensive-writing.htm... 2. We're almost in strange loop territory: the kind remarks you're now making are the reason why author feels this need to have long, well-qualified posts—and therefore why he or she wrote this post. (It's also why I edited this comment half a dozen times.)
- vikramkr 6y ago
  I think you misread my argument - It's not a shallow dismissal and I know what the authors point is. I'm pointing out that keeping posts short is hard for a lot of folks and requires work - you might be able to get a lot more posts out if you don't take the time to edit for clarity and concise prose. Its easier to be long and rambly.
  - cxr 6y ago
    > I think you misread my argument - It's not a shallow dismissal I think you've misread mine. And I think you're trying to retcon things.

giardini 6y ago

vikramkr says:>Easier said than done.< FTFY

vikramkr 6y ago
If I had just said "easier said than done." - then it would look pretty darn easily done, ya know?

Normille 6y ago

"Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away." Antoine de Saint-Exupery

cxr 6y ago

This is a shallow dismissal. Note that the author's goal is actually "writing more". There is no a priori goal of conciseness, which is orthogonal. I'd wager that what the author has been doing is finding themselves writing minimally in-the-moment, setting that aside as a draft with the self-imposed criteria that it needs to be beefed up[1][2] before publication, and then never going back to do that. So between the options of shorter and shortest, go for whichever actually results in "writing" (read: publishing) more. If that means the former happens more than the latter, it doesn't contradict what the author is actually advising here. 1. https://pchiusano.github.io/2014-10-11/defensive-writing.html https://pchiusano.github.io/2014-10-11/defensive-writing.htm... 2. We're almost in strange loop territory: the kind remarks you're now making are the reason why author feels this need to have long, well-qualified posts—and therefore why he or she wrote this post. (It's also why I edited this comment half a dozen times.)

vikramkr 6y ago
I think you misread my argument - It's not a shallow dismissal and I know what the authors point is. I'm pointing out that keeping posts short is hard for a lot of folks and requires work - you might be able to get a lot more posts out if you don't take the time to edit for clarity and concise prose. Its easier to be long and rambly.
- cxr 6y ago
  > I think you misread my argument - It's not a shallow dismissal I think you've misread mine. And I think you're trying to retcon things.