Proselint • Hacker News Board

Re: Proselint

#111

Post by jonstokes » Mon, Mar 07, 2016, 4:38 PM UTC

suchow wrote: post #107

jonstokes wrote: post #100

I'm a writer and editor, and I dislike the idea of this tool quite a bit. 1. Writing isn't coding. In coding, you can do various types of "cargo cult programming" and "copypasta" and what-have-you -- in other words, as long as the code runs you don't necessarily have to know why or how a programming idiom or convention works, or how/why expressing it one way in code is better than expressing it another way in code. T…

Thanks for the feedback. These are issues we've thought about, and we came to different conclusions: re 2, you'll see at http://proselint.com/approach/ that one of the guiding principles of Proselint is that we defer to experts. In practice, that's meant almost all the advice comes from Bryan Garner's usage guide, Garner's Modern American Usage. He is a careful compiler of advice and you'll find that he is almost nev…

Calling someone from Manchester a "Manchesterian" instead of "Mancunian" is not wrong, or even necessarily bad. Rather, it communicates something to the reader. Depending on the context, it could mean this person doesn't know that the correct term is "Mancunian", and did not look it up or even know that it should be looked up, all of which gives me useful info and context about the writer and their education level and the amount of effort they put into the piece and the amount of editing it underwent and so on. At the very least I can surmise that the writer is not a Mancunian. Or, it could mean that the writer is attempting to be clever.

Widespread use of proselint to correct this type of thing wouldn't improve writing. Rather, it would just add another interpretive option to the above range of scenarios, i.e. "ah, I can tell that this writer did or did not run that proselint tool before submission, because their text is or is not littered with boilerplate proselintisms."

The way to improve genuinely bad writing is not with rules and tools -- it's with lots of reading, a little mentorship, and lots and lots and lots of practice.

Re: Proselint

#112

Post by jonstokes » Mon, Mar 07, 2016, 4:39 PM UTC

slm_HN wrote: post #109

jonstokes wrote: post #100

I'm a writer and editor, and I dislike the idea of this tool quite a bit. 1. Writing isn't coding. In coding, you can do various types of "cargo cult programming" and "copypasta" and what-have-you -- in other words, as long as the code runs you don't necessarily have to know why or how a programming idiom or convention works, or how/why expressing it one way in code is better than expressing it another way in code. T…

>I'm a writer and editor, and I dislike the idea of this tool quite a bit. You dislike this tool the same way welders dislike computer welding or the same way truck drivers will dislike automated driving. Everyone wants to believe their job is so complex that a computer will never be able to perform the same task adequately. Is critiquing a sentence really as complex as driving a car in heavy traffic? Or playing ches…

I don't believe that at all. That is total nonsense, in fact. My criticism is of this linting tool, not of artificial intelligence. I take it for granted that anything I can do, an AI will eventually be able to do much better. A linting tool is not an AI.

Re: Proselint

#113

Post by ayushgta » Mon, Mar 07, 2016, 4:40 PM UTC

gepoch wrote: post #105

See also write-good: https://github.com/btford/write-good

Gitbook has open sourced their proofreader at https://github.com/GitbookIO/rousseau

Re: Proselint

#114

Post by kbenson » Mon, Mar 07, 2016, 5:12 PM UTC

jonstokes wrote: post #100

I'm a writer and editor, and I dislike the idea of this tool quite a bit. 1. Writing isn't coding. In coding, you can do various types of "cargo cult programming" and "copypasta" and what-have-you -- in other words, as long as the code runs you don't necessarily have to know why or how a programming idiom or convention works, or how/why expressing it one way in code is better than expressing it another way in code. T…

> I dislike the idea of this tool quite a bit.

> This tool may be a terrible idea, but the idea of automated prose linting is not terrible.

So which is it? The idea of the tool is prose linting, and you've now stated both that you dislike it quite a bit, and that it's not terrible.

Part of what I think you may be missing, is that it doesn't need to be an all inclusive set of generally terrible, conflicting suggestions. With code style checkers we've already mostly solved this problem, by both storing metadata regarding the source of the rules, and allowing this metadata to be referenced when making custom rulesets. Perl::Critic[1] is a good example of this. It allows you to use the default ruleset and select a severity of criticism, or it allows an organisation (or individual) to create their own custom ruleset to enforce how they want their code to look.

Keeping this in mind, what if the default ruleset was curated to have select rules from multiple sources, but allowed you to easily take a source and use its rules? For example, if I want to write using Strunk & White today, that might be as easy as a command line flag, or downloading a specifically compiled ruleset. If I want to use something else, the same. If I want to make my own custom ruleset based on rules from multiple rulesets and a few of my own thrown in, that should be possible too.

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perl::Critic

Re: Proselint

#115

Post by ianstormtaylor » Mon, Mar 07, 2016, 5:19 PM UTC

jonstokes wrote: post #111

suchow wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the feedback. These are issues we've thought about, and we came to different conclusions: re 2, you'll see at http://proselint.com/approach/ that one of the guiding principles of Proselint is that we defer to experts. In practice, that's meant almost all the advice comes from Bryan Garner's usage guide, Garner's Modern American Usage. He is a careful compiler of advice and you'll find that he is almost nev…

Calling someone from Manchester a "Manchesterian" instead of "Mancunian" is not wrong, or even necessarily bad. Rather, it communicates something to the reader. Depending on the context, it could mean this person doesn't know that the correct term is "Mancunian", and did not look it up or even know that it should be looked up, all of which gives me useful info and context about the writer and their education level an…

Felt like someone should say this in this thread, but calling someone a "Manchesterian" offers no insight into anyone's education level, and I honestly don't even think it's something that we should be focusing corrections on. If anything, it would probably be nice if everyone started using "Manchesterian" instead of "Mancunian" because that seems a hell of a lot more clear to me ;)

To the library authors, Proselint looks very cool!

Re: Proselint

#116

Post by amperser » Mon, Mar 07, 2016, 5:27 PM UTC

jonstokes wrote: post #111

suchow wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the feedback. These are issues we've thought about, and we came to different conclusions: re 2, you'll see at http://proselint.com/approach/ that one of the guiding principles of Proselint is that we defer to experts. In practice, that's meant almost all the advice comes from Bryan Garner's usage guide, Garner's Modern American Usage. He is a careful compiler of advice and you'll find that he is almost nev…

Calling someone from Manchester a "Manchesterian" instead of "Mancunian" is not wrong, or even necessarily bad. Rather, it communicates something to the reader. Depending on the context, it could mean this person doesn't know that the correct term is "Mancunian", and did not look it up or even know that it should be looked up, all of which gives me useful info and context about the writer and their education level an…

> Calling someone from Manchester a "Manchesterian" instead of "Mancunian" is not wrong, or even necessarily bad. Rather, it communicates something to the reader. Depending on the context, it could mean this person doesn't know that the correct term is "Mancunian", and did not look it up or even know that it should be looked up, all of which gives me useful info and context about the writer and their education level and the amount of effort they put into the piece and the amount of editing it underwent and so on. At the very least I can surmise that the writer is not a Mancunian. Or, it could mean that the writer is attempting to be clever.

If the only goal of writing were to allow accurate assessment of the writer, then I would agree. But there are other reasons for writing — informing, persuading, clarifying, &c. — where writing clear, consistent, and idiomatic prose can help. Yours is a condemnation at all attempts to improve writing beyond the first-draft capabilities of the author.

> The way to improve genuinely bad writing is not with rules and tools -- it's with lots of reading, a little mentorship, and lots and lots and lots of practice.

Agreed, Proselint is not the right tool to improve genuinely bad writing. Reading great authors and sweating through drafts is what we'd recommend to get better at the craft, too.

Re: Proselint

#117

Post by mkaziz » Mon, Mar 07, 2016, 5:38 PM UTC

jonstokes wrote: post #100

I'm a writer and editor, and I dislike the idea of this tool quite a bit. 1. Writing isn't coding. In coding, you can do various types of "cargo cult programming" and "copypasta" and what-have-you -- in other words, as long as the code runs you don't necessarily have to know why or how a programming idiom or convention works, or how/why expressing it one way in code is better than expressing it another way in code. T…

How would you suggest budding writers improve their skills then? This tool seems useful for that purpose to me.

Re: Proselint

#118

Post by dbcurtis » Mon, Mar 07, 2016, 5:52 PM UTC

jonstokes wrote: post #100

I'm a writer and editor, and I dislike the idea of this tool quite a bit. 1. Writing isn't coding. In coding, you can do various types of "cargo cult programming" and "copypasta" and what-have-you -- in other words, as long as the code runs you don't necessarily have to know why or how a programming idiom or convention works, or how/why expressing it one way in code is better than expressing it another way in code. T…

It may not be universally applicable, and it may not be helpful to you in your work, but there is a spectrum of writing output requirements, and the tool (if well done) could be helpul in many situations.

1) Editing fiction by Terry Pratchett -- not too useful. 2) Editing a newspaper article -- maybe it would catch a few typo-level issues that crept in under deadline pressure, but a professional writer wouldn't lean on it. 3) A non-native speaker of English running meeting minutes through it before blasting out the e-mail -- that has a lot of utility. (Actually, the "I went to engineering school because I dislike writing." native speaker of English would benefit from linting that e-mail, too.)

Re: Proselint

#119

Post by zimpenfish » Mon, Mar 07, 2016, 6:00 PM UTC

suchow wrote: post #107

jonstokes wrote: post #100

I'm a writer and editor, and I dislike the idea of this tool quite a bit. 1. Writing isn't coding. In coding, you can do various types of "cargo cult programming" and "copypasta" and what-have-you -- in other words, as long as the code runs you don't necessarily have to know why or how a programming idiom or convention works, or how/why expressing it one way in code is better than expressing it another way in code. T…

Thanks for the feedback. These are issues we've thought about, and we came to different conclusions: re 2, you'll see at http://proselint.com/approach/ that one of the guiding principles of Proselint is that we defer to experts. In practice, that's meant almost all the advice comes from Bryan Garner's usage guide, Garner's Modern American Usage. He is a careful compiler of advice and you'll find that he is almost nev…

Do you have any linguists consulting / on staff?

Bryan Garner might be a careful compiler but doesn't seem to be a linguist and seems to be a traditionalist who makes simple errors.

e.g. http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001869.h...

"His chapter is unfortunately full of repetitions of stupidities of the past tradition in English grammar — more of them than you could shake a stick at."

http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=5630

"So why did Bryan Garner, a highly intelligent and insightful person, make this elementary error?"

http://www.arrantpedantry.com/2007/01/02/editing-chicago/

"A good editor should know that Bryan Garner’s take on the subject is misleading and incorrect. It’s become apparent to me that many of the self-appointed guardians of the language don’t even know what it is they’re guarding."

etc.etc.

Re: Proselint

#120

Post by debacle » Mon, Mar 07, 2016, 6:13 PM UTC

joosters wrote: post #63

Vivtek wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This would catch something like "even more unique". In fact, looking at the code ( https://github.com/amperser/proselint/blob/master/proselint/... ) it would even catch something like "extremely unique", which I've been guilty of using. But yes, there should be examples on the front page.

So this program is like having some insufferable pedants arguing over your language? Great! Does it accept 'nearly unique' ?

It accepts "kind of unique" and "hardly unique" but also "greatly unique" which in my mind is very close to "very unique."

This tool is a blunt instrument. Writing is an art.