5 ms·

Do you speak like this in real life? I went ahead and read your other comments on other threads and I can't understand what you're writing until I've read the w

by cko 14y ago

Do you speak like this in real life? I went ahead and read your other comments on other threads and I can't understand what you're writing until I've read the words at least three times.

wamatt 14y ago
Interesting that you should pick up on that. It usually depends on the audience. In general if one has a slightly more divergent worldview than that of the company in which he/she finds themselves, it's historically been useful (albeit frustrating at times), to be more considered and precise. Between my best friend, a fellow coder/entrepreneur of ten years, (who has a very different personality), we can communicate in shorthand as he understands what I mean, irrespective of the natural imprecision, that creeps in by wanting to be "good enough" to get the message across. Although the early days of our friendship was somewhat.. challenging. Some of the usernames on HN that I've noticed that have insightful content, do not appear to reward sloppy rhetoric, and even, I suspect, use it as a filtering signal. Hence, it would seem rational to at least demonstrate one is willing to embrace the norms of that group, but more importantly to avoid genuine misunderstanding, which has plagued me since childhood. (I know what a cliche, what a special snowflake etc etc ;) Yes I dislike how it sounds too. Lastly my own values dictate a personal preference for dialectic over sophistication. But perhaps that's a debate for another time.
- cryptbe 14y ago
  You use too many ",", and they make your writing hard to understand. Use shorter sentences, and consider replacing "," with a full stop.
  - klibertp 14y ago
    It's not about commas, it's about "asides" (I just looked this up in a dictionary, I hope it's a correct term in English) - end it's true that he's using many of them, but I wouldn't necessarily recommend changing this. Rather, I'd think about assigning priorities to those asides and grouping them in relevant chunks, using parentheses, dashes and semicolons beside colons, because - as we all should know (and those who do not have a chance to learn) - this could substantially increase readability of his writing. Long sentences can be a pleasure to read as long as their construction follows some consistent plan. Just trying to help a bit :)

by cko 14y ago

Do you speak like this in real life? I went ahead and read your other comments on other threads and I can't understand what you're writing until I've read the words at least three times.

wamatt 14y ago

Interesting that you should pick up on that. It usually depends on the audience. In general if one has a slightly more divergent worldview than that of the company in which he/she finds themselves, it's historically been useful (albeit frustrating at times), to be more considered and precise. Between my best friend, a fellow coder/entrepreneur of ten years, (who has a very different personality), we can communicate in shorthand as he understands what I mean, irrespective of the natural imprecision, that creeps in by wanting to be "good enough" to get the message across. Although the early days of our friendship was somewhat.. challenging. Some of the usernames on HN that I've noticed that have insightful content, do not appear to reward sloppy rhetoric, and even, I suspect, use it as a filtering signal. Hence, it would seem rational to at least demonstrate one is willing to embrace the norms of that group, but more importantly to avoid genuine misunderstanding, which has plagued me since childhood. (I know what a cliche, what a special snowflake etc etc ;) Yes I dislike how it sounds too. Lastly my own values dictate a personal preference for dialectic over sophistication. But perhaps that's a debate for another time.

cryptbe 14y ago
You use too many ",", and they make your writing hard to understand. Use shorter sentences, and consider replacing "," with a full stop.
- klibertp 14y ago
  It's not about commas, it's about "asides" (I just looked this up in a dictionary, I hope it's a correct term in English) - end it's true that he's using many of them, but I wouldn't necessarily recommend changing this. Rather, I'd think about assigning priorities to those asides and grouping them in relevant chunks, using parentheses, dashes and semicolons beside colons, because - as we all should know (and those who do not have a chance to learn) - this could substantially increase readability of his writing. Long sentences can be a pleasure to read as long as their construction follows some consistent plan. Just trying to help a bit :)