4 ms·

You know what's a nice feature? Capitalization. Removing it did not make this essay better.

by RyanMcGreal 13y ago

emhart 13y ago
Precisely. I was 2 paragraphs in when the total lack of capitalization had me distracted beyond comfort.
- laurent123456 13y ago
  I didn't went past the first paragraph before opening Chrome DOM inspector and checking if some "text-transform:lowercase;" had been forgotten somewhere, but no it's apparently on purpose.
bouke 13y ago
Stopped me after the first 2 sentences.
- FreshCode 13y ago
  The font is also hard-to-read :\. http://contrastrebellion.com/ http://contrastrebellion.com/
  - bhauer 13y ago
    Yes. The font weight is too light and it's #333333. I switched the text to black and weight 600. Then I read the whole thing and I now wish I had stopped after two sentences like so many others.
sergiosgc 13y ago
Thanks. I was about to post the same remark, and then I would be the one passing off as grammar nazi.
- RyanMcGreal 13y ago
  Happy to take one for the team.
notacoward 13y ago
Agreed, and it's a perfect example of what's wrong with the GNOME attitude. Capitals exist for a reason. People who can read at more than a snail's pace use them to scan for the start of each sentence as quickly as possible (milliseconds do count), but apparently Mr. Siegel isn't in that category himself so he considers the feature expendable. Then he even changes capitalization in quotes, which he should know is wrong according to every style guide ever written, but those guides were written by non-GNOME people so of course he treats them as inferior to his own "Must. Be. Different!" anti-aesthetic. There are some important lessons here about the use of "it's open source" as an excuse for developer laziness/intransigence, but that should probably be another essay.
- nsmartt 13y ago
  For a long time, I avoided capitals in exactly this way. It wasn't as negative as the reasons you've suggested. I figured that capitals were unnecessary for parsing because I didn't have difficulty reading my own writing without them. It wasn't until I began writing in larger paragraphs that I noticed what you've said here—that capitals do actually count in terms of speed. I wouldn't be so quick to attribute this to arrogance or nonconformity. I noted that the brevity of individual paragraphs is similar to the way I had been writing. Mixed with the font, which does make it easier to catch the beginnings of sentences, it's entirely possible that he's making exactly the same mistake I made in exactly the way I made it—such that he hasn't yet noticed it does have an impact on reading speed. Edit: Some of the other comments take a similar view, so I do want to point out that I may lack context. I don't use GNOME and I'm not particularly well-informed on the subject. My comment refers only to the lack of capitals and an anecdote about my own experience with avoiding capitals.
pisarzp 13y ago
Totally agree. It feels like author just doesn't want me to to read that... On the same note, I don't understand why in some countries signs on highways use all-capital letters. Words written that way are actually harder and slower to read [1] than ones written with proper capitalization. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_caps#Readability http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_caps#Readability
- wmil 13y ago
  That's largely because of tradition. All capital is easier to engrave in wood / stone. Because of that all of the old signs were in all-caps. New signs with proper capitalization look odd.
noptic 13y ago
This will burn all my carma: Can we please talk about what he says? Is the topic in any way related to good blog design? There are quite a few blogs without capitalization and if it is really so important to you feel free to write about it. IMHO All those comments on design/grammar/font/... in every discussion on HN are mere distractions and add no value.
- TylerE 13y ago
  Nonsense! They create social pressure to not make a web page that looks like hot trash.
- notacoward 13y ago
  In general I have the same reaction as you, but in this specific case I think there's a connection. Both the cummings-esque lack of capitals and the general GNOME decision-making process seem to have their roots in a mindset that values "style" over respect for others - users, quoted authors, whoever is deemed "outside" with respect to the post author's own small circle. While comments that focus only on the unfortunate orthography without making that connection might be a waste of time, I think using the visual representation as a symbol of the underlying problem has some validity. Maybe if we all talked about gNOme (as in "NO" to every user request) it would make the point more clearly.
- emhart 13y ago
  I rarely join in the sideline / distracting conversations on HN comment threads, but I do genuinely believe in this case it acts as a mirror to the content. Absolutely not going to downvote you for pointing out the disconnect, though, hopefully no one else did, either.
- chris_wot 13y ago
  I really think it shows a disconnect between what the author thinks is good design and what IS good design. But speaking of substance, there wasn't really much there. He talked about users like they were an inconvenience and were unreasonable, and that they had some odd psychological issue that needed correcting. Yet he never addressed the genuinely useful features that were removed, or the feeling by users that if they used features in Gnome they might one day lose them, even if the need them.
chris_wot 13y ago
Imagine, if you will, that Gnome developers had control over keyboards. The first key to be removed would be sysreq, then scroll-lock, and break. And it was dubbed Keyboard 2.0 In Keyboard 2.1, the caps lock key was removed as you can use the shift key. The Windows key was surplus to requirements, there's a perfectly good alt key. Fast forward to Keyboard 3.0. There is no longer a control key (hold down alt for 2 seconds!), numlock is gone (the top row has numbers), cursor keys gone (you can use a mouse to move around). In Keyboard 3.1 they removed the shift key as stylistically capitals aren't necessary. in keyboard 3.2 they removed the comma and semicolon. these really aren't necessary as you don't need to pause when reading. in keyboard 33 there is no need for single quotes because you should not use contractions. that just causes confusion and besides the amount of debates and derision around it were getting ridiculous. justification: world peace and an end to grammar nazis. in keyboard 35 they are seriously considering removing the enter key the exclamation mark and any characters that require umlauts. this will help with a cleaner text rendering codebase.
pessimizer 13y ago
Hated lack of caps in zines, still hate it in blogs. It's an affectation of profundity sorta inherited from e.e. cummings, but mostly from his 60s imitators. Now if people would start tech blogging in rhyme or iambic pentameter, that might be awesome.

You know what's a nice feature? Capitalization. Removing it did not make this essay better.

emhart 13y ago

Precisely. I was 2 paragraphs in when the total lack of capitalization had me distracted beyond comfort.

laurent123456 13y ago
I didn't went past the first paragraph before opening Chrome DOM inspector and checking if some "text-transform:lowercase;" had been forgotten somewhere, but no it's apparently on purpose.

bouke 13y ago

Stopped me after the first 2 sentences.

FreshCode 13y ago
The font is also hard-to-read :\. http://contrastrebellion.com/ http://contrastrebellion.com/
- bhauer 13y ago
  Yes. The font weight is too light and it's #333333. I switched the text to black and weight 600. Then I read the whole thing and I now wish I had stopped after two sentences like so many others.

sergiosgc 13y ago

Thanks. I was about to post the same remark, and then I would be the one passing off as grammar nazi.

RyanMcGreal 13y ago
Happy to take one for the team.

notacoward 13y ago

Agreed, and it's a perfect example of what's wrong with the GNOME attitude. Capitals exist for a reason. People who can read at more than a snail's pace use them to scan for the start of each sentence as quickly as possible (milliseconds do count), but apparently Mr. Siegel isn't in that category himself so he considers the feature expendable. Then he even changes capitalization in quotes, which he should know is wrong according to every style guide ever written, but those guides were written by non-GNOME people so of course he treats them as inferior to his own "Must. Be. Different!" anti-aesthetic. There are some important lessons here about the use of "it's open source" as an excuse for developer laziness/intransigence, but that should probably be another essay.

nsmartt 13y ago
For a long time, I avoided capitals in exactly this way. It wasn't as negative as the reasons you've suggested. I figured that capitals were unnecessary for parsing because I didn't have difficulty reading my own writing without them. It wasn't until I began writing in larger paragraphs that I noticed what you've said here—that capitals do actually count in terms of speed. I wouldn't be so quick to attribute this to arrogance or nonconformity. I noted that the brevity of individual paragraphs is similar to the way I had been writing. Mixed with the font, which does make it easier to catch the beginnings of sentences, it's entirely possible that he's making exactly the same mistake I made in exactly the way I made it—such that he hasn't yet noticed it does have an impact on reading speed. Edit: Some of the other comments take a similar view, so I do want to point out that I may lack context. I don't use GNOME and I'm not particularly well-informed on the subject. My comment refers only to the lack of capitals and an anecdote about my own experience with avoiding capitals.

pisarzp 13y ago

Totally agree. It feels like author just doesn't want me to to read that... On the same note, I don't understand why in some countries signs on highways use all-capital letters. Words written that way are actually harder and slower to read [1] than ones written with proper capitalization. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_caps#Readability http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_caps#Readability

wmil 13y ago
That's largely because of tradition. All capital is easier to engrave in wood / stone. Because of that all of the old signs were in all-caps. New signs with proper capitalization look odd.

noptic 13y ago

This will burn all my carma: Can we please talk about what he says? Is the topic in any way related to good blog design? There are quite a few blogs without capitalization and if it is really so important to you feel free to write about it. IMHO All those comments on design/grammar/font/... in every discussion on HN are mere distractions and add no value.

TylerE 13y ago
Nonsense! They create social pressure to not make a web page that looks like hot trash.
notacoward 13y ago
In general I have the same reaction as you, but in this specific case I think there's a connection. Both the cummings-esque lack of capitals and the general GNOME decision-making process seem to have their roots in a mindset that values "style" over respect for others - users, quoted authors, whoever is deemed "outside" with respect to the post author's own small circle. While comments that focus only on the unfortunate orthography without making that connection might be a waste of time, I think using the visual representation as a symbol of the underlying problem has some validity. Maybe if we all talked about gNOme (as in "NO" to every user request) it would make the point more clearly.
emhart 13y ago
I rarely join in the sideline / distracting conversations on HN comment threads, but I do genuinely believe in this case it acts as a mirror to the content. Absolutely not going to downvote you for pointing out the disconnect, though, hopefully no one else did, either.
chris_wot 13y ago
I really think it shows a disconnect between what the author thinks is good design and what IS good design. But speaking of substance, there wasn't really much there. He talked about users like they were an inconvenience and were unreasonable, and that they had some odd psychological issue that needed correcting. Yet he never addressed the genuinely useful features that were removed, or the feeling by users that if they used features in Gnome they might one day lose them, even if the need them.

chris_wot 13y ago

Imagine, if you will, that Gnome developers had control over keyboards. The first key to be removed would be sysreq, then scroll-lock, and break. And it was dubbed Keyboard 2.0 In Keyboard 2.1, the caps lock key was removed as you can use the shift key. The Windows key was surplus to requirements, there's a perfectly good alt key. Fast forward to Keyboard 3.0. There is no longer a control key (hold down alt for 2 seconds!), numlock is gone (the top row has numbers), cursor keys gone (you can use a mouse to move around). In Keyboard 3.1 they removed the shift key as stylistically capitals aren't necessary. in keyboard 3.2 they removed the comma and semicolon. these really aren't necessary as you don't need to pause when reading. in keyboard 33 there is no need for single quotes because you should not use contractions. that just causes confusion and besides the amount of debates and derision around it were getting ridiculous. justification: world peace and an end to grammar nazis. in keyboard 35 they are seriously considering removing the enter key the exclamation mark and any characters that require umlauts. this will help with a cleaner text rendering codebase.

pessimizer 13y ago

Hated lack of caps in zines, still hate it in blogs. It's an affectation of profundity sorta inherited from e.e. cummings, but mostly from his 60s imitators. Now if people would start tech blogging in rhyme or iambic pentameter, that might be awesome.