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IMO the author was just attempting to make his text engaging and approachable, but people have personalities, and some personality quirks can rub certain people

by epgui 4y ago

IMO the author was just attempting to make his text engaging and approachable, but people have personalities, and some personality quirks can rub certain people the wrong way. There is no shortage of drier materials on the subject!

esperent 4y ago
I've written a lot of tutorial material. Not sure if that qualifies me to comment here but... One aspect of my personality is that I'm a snarky cynical bastard who loves to confront perceived flaws in things via jokes. So how does this come across in my tutorial writing? Not at all. That part of my personality is completely absent (I hope) from anything I create that is intended to teach people. Because the people I want to teach programming to could be anybody. They could be someone who can barely speak English and will just be totally confused by snark. They could be a precocious ten year old whom I would rather not expose to my adult cynicism. They'll get enough of it in life anyway. Teaching materials should be clear, cynicism and snark free, and should never be condescending to either the reader or any alternative technology or point of view. That doesn't mean criticism free. But the criticism should feel balanced. Does comparing the alternative with a dirty nappy feel balanced to you?
- epgui 4y ago
  I agree with you. I was merely describing what I thought the author was trying to do. I wasn’t necessarily suggesting we give them a medal for style. This being said, if you understand the author’s intention, it’s much easier to focus on the substance of the text, which IMO is the more important part here.
  - esperent 4y ago
    > if you understand the author’s intention, it’s much easier to focus on the substance of the text, which IMO is the more important part here In that case we're back to the original criticism which is that proponents of functional programming have a marked tendency to be snarky and condescending towards other programming paradigms and that (regardless of whether they are right or not) this is weird and off-putting to people who just want to learn what functional programming is and make up their own minds about it. Every group of people develop a culture and for some reason the group of people who are into FP have developed a culture of condescension and self righteousness (+). That's certainly worthy of criticism. This piece of writing would be better off without dirty nappy references and if they were absent, we'd be discussing the content rather than the tone. Or possibly even just reading and learning from it which I have to assume is the author's intention. (+) Of course not all of them, and I have read through the introduction of this book and it's not the worst in this regard. It's just frustrating is all.
    - epgui 4y ago
      I really don’t mean to be dismissive of this criticism— you and/or the parent commenter don’t seem to be alone in finding the tone offputting. But I read through the first 4 chapters, and I personally did not get a whiff of condescension. Is it possible that people are projecting their insecurities into a perceived slight? I also constantly hear this refrain from “FP outsiders”, but I’ve been obsessed with FP books and journal articles for the past couple years, and I really don’t see “the FP community” (if that’s really one thing) the same way you do. I’ve found that when I approach people with even the silliest of questions, they will bend over backward trying to give me a good answer, they will be happy that someone wants to talk about what they love, and personally I have found most people in these circles to be monstrously smart.
      - esperent 4y ago
        > Is it possible that people are projecting their insecurities into a perceived slight? In my case, I don't think so. I don't have any strong opinion on the topic of FP. I do have strong opinions about writing style in tutorials though. However, rather than characterizing it as insecurities, I think you could say people are projecting their prior experience with FP proponents and being harsher in their criticisms because of that. It's something for the writer to be aware of. Every topic will come up against preconceptions. If you write about quaternions, for example, you'll need to address the preconception of "quaternions are hard to understand". All math writing has to address that on some level actually, unless it's directed to math experts. Likewise, writing on FP has to deal with the preconception that FP proponents are condescending to other programming styles. And by "deal with" , I don't mean "directly address", although that is an option. I mean that you need to keep it in mind while writing so that your audience gets the value you intend from your work.

by epgui 4y ago

esperent 4y ago

I've written a lot of tutorial material. Not sure if that qualifies me to comment here but... One aspect of my personality is that I'm a snarky cynical bastard who loves to confront perceived flaws in things via jokes. So how does this come across in my tutorial writing? Not at all. That part of my personality is completely absent (I hope) from anything I create that is intended to teach people. Because the people I want to teach programming to could be anybody. They could be someone who can barely speak English and will just be totally confused by snark. They could be a precocious ten year old whom I would rather not expose to my adult cynicism. They'll get enough of it in life anyway. Teaching materials should be clear, cynicism and snark free, and should never be condescending to either the reader or any alternative technology or point of view. That doesn't mean criticism free. But the criticism should feel balanced. Does comparing the alternative with a dirty nappy feel balanced to you?

epgui 4y ago
I agree with you. I was merely describing what I thought the author was trying to do. I wasn’t necessarily suggesting we give them a medal for style. This being said, if you understand the author’s intention, it’s much easier to focus on the substance of the text, which IMO is the more important part here.
- esperent 4y ago
  > if you understand the author’s intention, it’s much easier to focus on the substance of the text, which IMO is the more important part here In that case we're back to the original criticism which is that proponents of functional programming have a marked tendency to be snarky and condescending towards other programming paradigms and that (regardless of whether they are right or not) this is weird and off-putting to people who just want to learn what functional programming is and make up their own minds about it. Every group of people develop a culture and for some reason the group of people who are into FP have developed a culture of condescension and self righteousness (+). That's certainly worthy of criticism. This piece of writing would be better off without dirty nappy references and if they were absent, we'd be discussing the content rather than the tone. Or possibly even just reading and learning from it which I have to assume is the author's intention. (+) Of course not all of them, and I have read through the introduction of this book and it's not the worst in this regard. It's just frustrating is all.
  - epgui 4y ago
    I really don’t mean to be dismissive of this criticism— you and/or the parent commenter don’t seem to be alone in finding the tone offputting. But I read through the first 4 chapters, and I personally did not get a whiff of condescension. Is it possible that people are projecting their insecurities into a perceived slight? I also constantly hear this refrain from “FP outsiders”, but I’ve been obsessed with FP books and journal articles for the past couple years, and I really don’t see “the FP community” (if that’s really one thing) the same way you do. I’ve found that when I approach people with even the silliest of questions, they will bend over backward trying to give me a good answer, they will be happy that someone wants to talk about what they love, and personally I have found most people in these circles to be monstrously smart.
    - esperent 4y ago
      > Is it possible that people are projecting their insecurities into a perceived slight? In my case, I don't think so. I don't have any strong opinion on the topic of FP. I do have strong opinions about writing style in tutorials though. However, rather than characterizing it as insecurities, I think you could say people are projecting their prior experience with FP proponents and being harsher in their criticisms because of that. It's something for the writer to be aware of. Every topic will come up against preconceptions. If you write about quaternions, for example, you'll need to address the preconception of "quaternions are hard to understand". All math writing has to address that on some level actually, unless it's directed to math experts. Likewise, writing on FP has to deal with the preconception that FP proponents are condescending to other programming styles. And by "deal with" , I don't mean "directly address", although that is an option. I mean that you need to keep it in mind while writing so that your audience gets the value you intend from your work.