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Editing is easier than creating (blank page paralysis). When I wrote my masters thesis I auto-generated 50 pages of Lorem Ipsum, properly formatted, and starte

Editing is easier than creating (blank page paralysis). When I wrote my masters thesis I auto-generated 50 pages of Lorem Ipsum, properly formatted, and started editing it. “The title is clearly wrong, I’ll change that. Oh look, the first heading is also wrong, let’s put something else in here. Now the paragraph doesn’t match the heading, better fix that” By the time I get to the paragraph I’m mentally invested and continuing is easy

chrsig 5y ago
If I could upvote this more than once, I would. It doesn’t just apply to writing human readable text, either. It’s great while developing software as well. I’ve learned to try and get some minimal deployable unit complete, then start filling it in. The sooner something is deployable, the sooner you’re iterating on it rather than having some huge first iteration before you get feedback. It may not be useful at first, but it’s great for finding integration problems early, nailing down interfaces so that others can build off of it (e.g., start with an in memory representation before writing a persistence layer, so it “works”, with a bug being that it loses all info after a restart) It also means that you can get metrics and monitoring in early, so you’re not having to tack that on at the last minute. Once I internalized this, I found it made it a lot easier to fit in with writing user stores pretty well. Once you’ve got that first deployment done, you’re a able to have a feedback loop, so instead of designing some big system up front, you can get something small out and validate that it meets it’s need. and that there is a need.
anonAndOn 5y ago
> auto-generated 50 pages of Lorem Ipsum This seems like a fantastic specialized tool to have in the mental tool box.
gremlinsinc 5y ago
Right now they could probably use gpt3 to generate like actual text that's probably 75% of the way there.. get a lot further than lorem ipsum ... and easier to edit.
- brtkdotse 5y ago
  Back in ‘07 lorem ipsum was all we had (easily available) :)
- chrsig 5y ago
  You just made me consider how gpt3 might impact things like school assignments. e.g,. Have it write 75% of an essay and modify from there
btschaegg 5y ago
Interesting -- I wouldn't have thought of that. However, I usually use an approach that isn't all that different: Initially, just make some notes explainig what the document you write should contain. I use org-mode style nested bullet point for this. This is also nice because you'll have to start with defining "goals" for your text: What should it explain? Which points are most important? Are there "gotchas" you should keep in mind? After that, I start expanding on those bullet points. Also, there will be a couple of iterations of "refactoring" until I'm sure what the best way to structure the text will be. Having written down the basic goals first -- and thus having a more complete overview in mind -- helps with that, too.

chrsig 5y ago

If I could upvote this more than once, I would. It doesn’t just apply to writing human readable text, either. It’s great while developing software as well. I’ve learned to try and get some minimal deployable unit complete, then start filling it in. The sooner something is deployable, the sooner you’re iterating on it rather than having some huge first iteration before you get feedback. It may not be useful at first, but it’s great for finding integration problems early, nailing down interfaces so that others can build off of it (e.g., start with an in memory representation before writing a persistence layer, so it “works”, with a bug being that it loses all info after a restart) It also means that you can get metrics and monitoring in early, so you’re not having to tack that on at the last minute. Once I internalized this, I found it made it a lot easier to fit in with writing user stores pretty well. Once you’ve got that first deployment done, you’re a able to have a feedback loop, so instead of designing some big system up front, you can get something small out and validate that it meets it’s need. and that there is a need.

anonAndOn 5y ago

> auto-generated 50 pages of Lorem Ipsum This seems like a fantastic specialized tool to have in the mental tool box.

gremlinsinc 5y ago

Right now they could probably use gpt3 to generate like actual text that's probably 75% of the way there.. get a lot further than lorem ipsum ... and easier to edit.

brtkdotse 5y ago
Back in ‘07 lorem ipsum was all we had (easily available) :)
chrsig 5y ago
You just made me consider how gpt3 might impact things like school assignments. e.g,. Have it write 75% of an essay and modify from there

btschaegg 5y ago

Interesting -- I wouldn't have thought of that. However, I usually use an approach that isn't all that different: Initially, just make some notes explainig what the document you write should contain. I use org-mode style nested bullet point for this. This is also nice because you'll have to start with defining "goals" for your text: What should it explain? Which points are most important? Are there "gotchas" you should keep in mind? After that, I start expanding on those bullet points. Also, there will be a couple of iterations of "refactoring" until I'm sure what the best way to structure the text will be. Having written down the basic goals first -- and thus having a more complete overview in mind -- helps with that, too.