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I'm trying to figure out why I instinctively hate this. I think it's probably because the purpose of computer languages is different from human language. It's

by jrm4 3y ago

I'm trying to figure out why I instinctively hate this. I think it's probably because the purpose of computer languages is different from human language. It's certainly valuable to have a linter to make sure the code works, and there's probably value in "style" as well for readability. But when you get to human language, I don't know, feels like you have the potential to suck out soul/creativity etc. As in, I imagine you throw a great poem or something in here and of course it will tear it apart.

petesergeant 3y ago
This is for when three different people on your marketing team decide to come up with “opensource”, “open source”, and “open-source” respectively when writing whitepapers.
- CharlesW 3y ago
  To "yes, and" this, it gets even worse — employees often mess up their own company, technology, and people names. This seems like a useful tool for helping alert writers to potentially embarrassing and/or brand-damaging gaffes.
bayindirh 3y ago
I think iA Writer does this well. It has a "mark fillers" setting which crosses out cliches, fillers and other things which dilute the sentences. It's just a finger pointing at "you might want to reconsider this", and if it's indeed something I don't want there, I take it out, otherwise leave it in. I strive to write with a very neutral tone, and without any strong words, so it really helps me. You can see the results of that process at https://blog.bayindirh.io https://blog.bayindirh.io
- ggoo 3y ago
  > I strive to write with a very neutral tone, and without any strong words, so it really helps me. Curious, why? I would think this would make your writing more "boring", which would make it less likely for people to pay attention to.
  - Swizec 3y ago
    > I would think this would make your writing more "boring“ As a fellow iA Writer enthusiast – it makes your writing less boring because it nudges you to get rid of filler. for example: “Usually you can just remove some words that iA Writer suggests are filler and your sentence improves so much” —> “You can remove words that iA Writer suggests are filler and your sentence improves”
  - bayindirh 3y ago
    First of all, why not give that blog a go, and share your opinions of it here or via e-mail, if you prefer? Now, on to your question. I don't believe words have to be strong or provocative or divisive to be true. Life is not black and white, neither my choice of words. Also, I practice zen in my daily life, so my writing is both a reflection of my inner state and the state I aspire to be in, at the same time. Yes, as a human being, I want my blog to be read, and get some feedback occasionally, but at the end, it's a blog for myself. An instrument for taking note of my life and my journey on this pale blue dot.
    - ggoo 3y ago
      I have no disagreement on the truthiness of words, my comment was really only about the enjoyment of your readers. Regardless, it sounds like you have a vision for what you want your writing to be, and so far as I know, it's working well for you. As for feedback, since you asked, I'll be honest and say that it does read pretty boring... Very monotone with too many idioms. Feels like what you read from schoolchildren writing about a topic they're not really interested in. I'll also say, there's no _you_ in this writing. Reviewing the latest entry, "Practice and Experience" - no stories, metaphors, or even examples of real events to impress your point. People understand a lot through storytelling, often the only takeaway we will have will be a story or metaphor. More importantly though, they are an opportunity to identify with the reader and share something about you and your life. Apologies if that felt harsh.
      - bayindirh 3y ago
        Thanks for your honest feedback. I greatly appreciate and value that, and there are no hard feelings, and no, it wasn't harsh. > I'll also say, there's no _you_ in this writing. It's intentional to remove myself from my writing, because it's not about me. I'm not trying to put myself out there, and say "look at me". These are distilled mind notes. A way of sharing what I learnt about life, without me. The writings I publish are intended to make readers to reflect themselves upon and see themselves, or get some personal insight about themselves or life. Maybe they also fascinated by this, or they never observed that angle about the life. If they think 5 seconds about the subject itself, that's nice. If they say it's boring, that's fine. On the other hand, what I'm sharing there is highly personal. It's just devoid of bells, whistles and blinkenlights. Much like a Dieter Rams or Bauhaus design, in a sense. > Feels like what you read from schoolchildren writing about a topic they're not really interested in. That's an interesting take. It's true that I'm not aiming for a literary tour de force there, but it's not true that I'm not interested in the subject, it's actually the contrary. The language is simplified to that point to make it straightforward and direct. Making indirect statements, and slowly approaching points while not quite touching them is very easily accomplished by constructing freight-train long sentences by chaining seldomly used vocabulary end to end with small punctuation marks, as if they were small fragile cotton strings knotted meticulously, and with care, if one decides to write in that way. However, writing with no fillers have a feel of density and directness, which makes things appear with no fanfare. It's up to the reader to process this "thing" they just encountered. > no stories, metaphors, or even examples of real events to impress your point. "Practice and Experience" is a distillation of at least two decades of observation and self-reflection. If I decided to add the stories and examples paved the way to the realizations made in that piece, it'd be a novella. Not that I remember every detail of it, either. That blog lives true to its tag line "tail -f /dev/brain0". When I understand something, I draft an entry. It sits and simmers for some time, refined occasionally, and when it reaches a density and purity I like, I publish. However, thanks again for your honest feedback. I'll be saving this.
jhbadger 3y ago
(human) Copy editors have long been part of the professional writing field, though. It's not like applying rules to writing is something new. Yes, "genius" writers can and do break the rules, but 99% of writers aren't them.
- andrepd 3y ago
  One thing is a human editor with taste and understanding of the text. Another very different is a dumb LLM.
kstrauser 3y ago
I use(d) Grammarly to double-check my personal blog posts. A lot of its purely technical catches, like duplicating words, mismatching tenses, mismatching plurals, etc. are great. I usually ignore its style suggestions altogether, especially when I'm deliberately breaking a rule because the "wrong" text reads better.
pseudotrash 3y ago
Similar reaction here. That said I'd love the idea of a locally hosted https://hemingwayapp.com/ https://hemingwayapp.com/ to help with keeping things short and simple ... this linter sadly isn't it.
trws 3y ago
Having used it myself, though maybe not the usual way, I have a feeling you might like it more with a bit of context. If you take a huge rule set, like Microsoft’s style for example, it can definitely have the effect you’re talking about. That’s what I love about vale though. It makes it very easy to build up rules for my own projects, import ones we care about, and not run anything else. I work on a number of API and programming language standards where specific “words of power” are used, and must be used, to have specific effects. Being able to write rules for common mistakes with these has helped me many times. Having one for weasel words I can run on my papers, or those of my graduate students, can save a good deal of time. It’s the flexibility to make it fit my needs/wants on each thing that make it so useful. To the point about poetry, I haven’t tried it, but it wouldn’t shock me if you could make some rules useful to certain styles of rhyming or verse to help catch technical mistakes.
starkparker 3y ago
If you use it for all general prose, Vale is terrible for those reasons. So is dogmatic adherence to any style guide. For docs, technical writing, and other formal content where you have multiple authors and consistency matters, Vale can be a fantastic tool to remind users of situations where rules help maintain standards without needing to dedicate time to editing. It can also be terrible, if it's used to force awkwardness to satisfy rules arbitrarily, especially in something like CI (which is where I see Vale abused most often - never block a docs contribution on a prose style rule violation that has no functional effect on the content, just iterate on the language).
sidpatil 3y ago
It depends on what you're trying to communicate and why. Controlled languages [1] have been around for a while — the goal is to simplify the semantics and syntax, in order to improve consistency and ease of use/understanding. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controlled_natural_language https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controlled_natural_language
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

by jrm4 3y ago

petesergeant 3y ago

This is for when three different people on your marketing team decide to come up with “opensource”, “open source”, and “open-source” respectively when writing whitepapers.

CharlesW 3y ago
To "yes, and" this, it gets even worse — employees often mess up their own company, technology, and people names. This seems like a useful tool for helping alert writers to potentially embarrassing and/or brand-damaging gaffes.

bayindirh 3y ago

I think iA Writer does this well. It has a "mark fillers" setting which crosses out cliches, fillers and other things which dilute the sentences. It's just a finger pointing at "you might want to reconsider this", and if it's indeed something I don't want there, I take it out, otherwise leave it in. I strive to write with a very neutral tone, and without any strong words, so it really helps me. You can see the results of that process at https://blog.bayindirh.io https://blog.bayindirh.io

ggoo 3y ago
> I strive to write with a very neutral tone, and without any strong words, so it really helps me. Curious, why? I would think this would make your writing more "boring", which would make it less likely for people to pay attention to.
- Swizec 3y ago
  > I would think this would make your writing more "boring“ As a fellow iA Writer enthusiast – it makes your writing less boring because it nudges you to get rid of filler. for example: “Usually you can just remove some words that iA Writer suggests are filler and your sentence improves so much” —> “You can remove words that iA Writer suggests are filler and your sentence improves”
- bayindirh 3y ago
  First of all, why not give that blog a go, and share your opinions of it here or via e-mail, if you prefer? Now, on to your question. I don't believe words have to be strong or provocative or divisive to be true. Life is not black and white, neither my choice of words. Also, I practice zen in my daily life, so my writing is both a reflection of my inner state and the state I aspire to be in, at the same time. Yes, as a human being, I want my blog to be read, and get some feedback occasionally, but at the end, it's a blog for myself. An instrument for taking note of my life and my journey on this pale blue dot.
  - ggoo 3y ago
    I have no disagreement on the truthiness of words, my comment was really only about the enjoyment of your readers. Regardless, it sounds like you have a vision for what you want your writing to be, and so far as I know, it's working well for you. As for feedback, since you asked, I'll be honest and say that it does read pretty boring... Very monotone with too many idioms. Feels like what you read from schoolchildren writing about a topic they're not really interested in. I'll also say, there's no _you_ in this writing. Reviewing the latest entry, "Practice and Experience" - no stories, metaphors, or even examples of real events to impress your point. People understand a lot through storytelling, often the only takeaway we will have will be a story or metaphor. More importantly though, they are an opportunity to identify with the reader and share something about you and your life. Apologies if that felt harsh.
    - bayindirh 3y ago
      Thanks for your honest feedback. I greatly appreciate and value that, and there are no hard feelings, and no, it wasn't harsh. > I'll also say, there's no _you_ in this writing. It's intentional to remove myself from my writing, because it's not about me. I'm not trying to put myself out there, and say "look at me". These are distilled mind notes. A way of sharing what I learnt about life, without me. The writings I publish are intended to make readers to reflect themselves upon and see themselves, or get some personal insight about themselves or life. Maybe they also fascinated by this, or they never observed that angle about the life. If they think 5 seconds about the subject itself, that's nice. If they say it's boring, that's fine. On the other hand, what I'm sharing there is highly personal. It's just devoid of bells, whistles and blinkenlights. Much like a Dieter Rams or Bauhaus design, in a sense. > Feels like what you read from schoolchildren writing about a topic they're not really interested in. That's an interesting take. It's true that I'm not aiming for a literary tour de force there, but it's not true that I'm not interested in the subject, it's actually the contrary. The language is simplified to that point to make it straightforward and direct. Making indirect statements, and slowly approaching points while not quite touching them is very easily accomplished by constructing freight-train long sentences by chaining seldomly used vocabulary end to end with small punctuation marks, as if they were small fragile cotton strings knotted meticulously, and with care, if one decides to write in that way. However, writing with no fillers have a feel of density and directness, which makes things appear with no fanfare. It's up to the reader to process this "thing" they just encountered. > no stories, metaphors, or even examples of real events to impress your point. "Practice and Experience" is a distillation of at least two decades of observation and self-reflection. If I decided to add the stories and examples paved the way to the realizations made in that piece, it'd be a novella. Not that I remember every detail of it, either. That blog lives true to its tag line "tail -f /dev/brain0". When I understand something, I draft an entry. It sits and simmers for some time, refined occasionally, and when it reaches a density and purity I like, I publish. However, thanks again for your honest feedback. I'll be saving this.

jhbadger 3y ago

(human) Copy editors have long been part of the professional writing field, though. It's not like applying rules to writing is something new. Yes, "genius" writers can and do break the rules, but 99% of writers aren't them.

andrepd 3y ago
One thing is a human editor with taste and understanding of the text. Another very different is a dumb LLM.

kstrauser 3y ago

I use(d) Grammarly to double-check my personal blog posts. A lot of its purely technical catches, like duplicating words, mismatching tenses, mismatching plurals, etc. are great. I usually ignore its style suggestions altogether, especially when I'm deliberately breaking a rule because the "wrong" text reads better.

pseudotrash 3y ago

Similar reaction here. That said I'd love the idea of a locally hosted https://hemingwayapp.com/ https://hemingwayapp.com/ to help with keeping things short and simple ... this linter sadly isn't it.

trws 3y ago

Having used it myself, though maybe not the usual way, I have a feeling you might like it more with a bit of context. If you take a huge rule set, like Microsoft’s style for example, it can definitely have the effect you’re talking about. That’s what I love about vale though. It makes it very easy to build up rules for my own projects, import ones we care about, and not run anything else. I work on a number of API and programming language standards where specific “words of power” are used, and must be used, to have specific effects. Being able to write rules for common mistakes with these has helped me many times. Having one for weasel words I can run on my papers, or those of my graduate students, can save a good deal of time. It’s the flexibility to make it fit my needs/wants on each thing that make it so useful. To the point about poetry, I haven’t tried it, but it wouldn’t shock me if you could make some rules useful to certain styles of rhyming or verse to help catch technical mistakes.

starkparker 3y ago

If you use it for all general prose, Vale is terrible for those reasons. So is dogmatic adherence to any style guide. For docs, technical writing, and other formal content where you have multiple authors and consistency matters, Vale can be a fantastic tool to remind users of situations where rules help maintain standards without needing to dedicate time to editing. It can also be terrible, if it's used to force awkwardness to satisfy rules arbitrarily, especially in something like CI (which is where I see Vale abused most often - never block a docs contribution on a prose style rule violation that has no functional effect on the content, just iterate on the language).

sidpatil 3y ago

It depends on what you're trying to communicate and why. Controlled languages [1] have been around for a while — the goal is to simplify the semantics and syntax, in order to improve consistency and ease of use/understanding. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controlled_natural_language https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controlled_natural_language

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]