3 ms·

His writing needs compaction too.

pchristensen 19y ago
Yes, he should write short and succinct articles like Paul Graham or Joel Spolsky :) With written or spoken communication (as opposed to visual), you have to say things a lot of times, in a lot of ways, to get people to listen. Which is more memorable - this or a Valleywag post?
- davidw 19y ago
  Most of pg's articles feel like they have less fluff to me. They may be long, but most of the writing feels like it has a point. A bit less so with Steve Yegge, or perhaps it's more hit and miss...
  - Goladus 19y ago
    There's a lot of humor in pg's essays but overall Yegge is more consistently funny and often downright hilarious. He'll often have a valid point, but equally important is the goal of presenting that point in an entertaining way. I think of it less as fluff and more of a tasty cream filling. Yegge has an exceptional sense of comic timing in writing, and sometimes it takes a bit of buildup. Imagine a kingdom of nouns and verbs, where nouns have lots of rights and verbs are oppressed. Imagine replacing all the verbs with just one verb, 'execute!' Get it? Verb/execute/oppression?? I guess not, not when I try to cram all the ideas into 2 sentences. Sure it takes Yegge a page or so to get there, but the payoff is a hearty laugh.
edw519 19y ago
In my case, there seems to be an invisible "limit" as to how much I'll read. For a book, it seems to be about 300 pages. For an on-line essay, x words (I really don't know how many), but about 5 to 10 minutes. When I'm working (always), I don't want to take a break for much longer. I realize that this may not be the best belief system - still haven't read "War and Peace", but that's just the way it is. This essay looks to be about 5 times as long as I could easily handle during the work day. You lost me at "continued".
- pchristensen 19y ago
  I generally do the same thing, although I vary x depending on the context. Certain writers (Graham, Spolsky, Yegge, Raganwald) can write as long as they want and I'll read it. Their signal to noise is so much higher (both in content and entertaining writing) that I find it better than reading the rest of the stuff on the internet. But yeah, 300-350 is about my limit for books too. I've passed up books I wanted to read when I found out they were over 500 pages. I just put them back in the todo list for later.
  - edw519 19y ago
    Funny, every Sunday morning my other half sits at the dining room table with 3 newspapers while I'm in the adjoining office reading Hacker News. She says, "Why don't you come in here and read with me?" I tell her, "As soon as any of those papers has anything as good as this, I will."
    - reitzensteinm 19y ago
      Laptop.

Yes, he should write short and succinct articles like Paul Graham or Joel Spolsky :) With written or spoken communication (as opposed to visual), you have to say things a lot of times, in a lot of ways, to get people to listen. Which is more memorable - this or a Valleywag post?

davidw 19y ago
Most of pg's articles feel like they have less fluff to me. They may be long, but most of the writing feels like it has a point. A bit less so with Steve Yegge, or perhaps it's more hit and miss...
- Goladus 19y ago
  There's a lot of humor in pg's essays but overall Yegge is more consistently funny and often downright hilarious. He'll often have a valid point, but equally important is the goal of presenting that point in an entertaining way. I think of it less as fluff and more of a tasty cream filling. Yegge has an exceptional sense of comic timing in writing, and sometimes it takes a bit of buildup. Imagine a kingdom of nouns and verbs, where nouns have lots of rights and verbs are oppressed. Imagine replacing all the verbs with just one verb, 'execute!' Get it? Verb/execute/oppression?? I guess not, not when I try to cram all the ideas into 2 sentences. Sure it takes Yegge a page or so to get there, but the payoff is a hearty laugh.

edw519 19y ago

In my case, there seems to be an invisible "limit" as to how much I'll read. For a book, it seems to be about 300 pages. For an on-line essay, x words (I really don't know how many), but about 5 to 10 minutes. When I'm working (always), I don't want to take a break for much longer. I realize that this may not be the best belief system - still haven't read "War and Peace", but that's just the way it is. This essay looks to be about 5 times as long as I could easily handle during the work day. You lost me at "continued".

pchristensen 19y ago
I generally do the same thing, although I vary x depending on the context. Certain writers (Graham, Spolsky, Yegge, Raganwald) can write as long as they want and I'll read it. Their signal to noise is so much higher (both in content and entertaining writing) that I find it better than reading the rest of the stuff on the internet. But yeah, 300-350 is about my limit for books too. I've passed up books I wanted to read when I found out they were over 500 pages. I just put them back in the todo list for later.
- edw519 19y ago
  Funny, every Sunday morning my other half sits at the dining room table with 3 newspapers while I'm in the adjoining office reading Hacker News. She says, "Why don't you come in here and read with me?" I tell her, "As soon as any of those papers has anything as good as this, I will."
  - reitzensteinm 19y ago
    Laptop.