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It occurs to me that as members and professionals within the technical community, hackers have just as much of a responsibility to use plain English when commun

It occurs to me that as members and professionals within the technical community, hackers have just as much of a responsibility to use plain English when communicating with stakeholders and laypeople as members of the law community. Often, I find it extremely hard to distill a technical concept down to the basic takeaway. It's a skill I've been flexing for years now, and yet I still feel the need to drastically simplify my explanations. It often doesn't seem fair. To bear the burden of consolidating an ocean of understanding into a few word summary your stakeholder can grok sometimes seems impossible! Nevertheless, I think Clarence Thomas sets an awesome example which really puts it in perspective for me. As people who are trying to deliver results to our stakeholders, we owe it them to explain what we're doing for them in as plain and simple language as we can muster.* *note: I totally acknowledge that this is a difficult skill which can take a fair amount of practice. Not saying I am personally perfect or even great at this skill. I'm just saying it's an important one to work on!

saraid216 14y ago
It's certainly not easy to, but when the other person actually understands the concept you're trying to convey, you should also remember this is a strong indicator that you have a very solid understanding yourself.
einhverfr 14y ago
What do you mean by plain english though? If I am talking to an accountant I use different words and levels of detail than if I am talking to the person in charge of network security, and very different still from if I am talking with a 10 year old. The problem as I see it is that "plain English" doesn't really exist in any objective sense. We all speak different versions of the language depending on who we are talking to. Indeed if you think about it, a lot of computing and programming terms are quite readily understandable to an imaginative layperson. Words like "stack" or "pipe" are pretty clear metaphors for existing every-day concepts and in fact when I introduce concepts like "heap" or "stack" I always use everyday example, like a stack of books.... > Nevertheless, I think Clarence Thomas sets an awesome example which really puts it in perspective for me. As people who are trying to deliver results to our stakeholders, we owe it them to explain what we're doing for them in as plain and simple language as we can muster.* Thomas is one of those justices who, whatever you think of his preferred views on jurisprudence, is both an impressive writer and an impressive speaker and someone I am happy to see on the court even when I disagree with him.

saraid216 14y ago

It's certainly not easy to, but when the other person actually understands the concept you're trying to convey, you should also remember this is a strong indicator that you have a very solid understanding yourself.

einhverfr 14y ago

What do you mean by plain english though? If I am talking to an accountant I use different words and levels of detail than if I am talking to the person in charge of network security, and very different still from if I am talking with a 10 year old. The problem as I see it is that "plain English" doesn't really exist in any objective sense. We all speak different versions of the language depending on who we are talking to. Indeed if you think about it, a lot of computing and programming terms are quite readily understandable to an imaginative layperson. Words like "stack" or "pipe" are pretty clear metaphors for existing every-day concepts and in fact when I introduce concepts like "heap" or "stack" I always use everyday example, like a stack of books.... > Nevertheless, I think Clarence Thomas sets an awesome example which really puts it in perspective for me. As people who are trying to deliver results to our stakeholders, we owe it them to explain what we're doing for them in as plain and simple language as we can muster.* Thomas is one of those justices who, whatever you think of his preferred views on jurisprudence, is both an impressive writer and an impressive speaker and someone I am happy to see on the court even when I disagree with him.