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Undervalued Engineering Skills: Writing Well

blog.pragmaticengineer.com

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Re: Undervalued Engineering Skills: Writing Well

#81

Post by everyone »

tombert wrote: post #6

I do find it a bit bizarre that the otherwise smart people that I work with, with English as their first language, will often resort to writing emails and documentation like a 14-year-old on AIM. I'm obviously much more forgiving of people that had to learn English as adults, but somewhat paradoxically I find that they typically write a lot more comprehensibly than most of the native-speaking engineers. I'm hardly Jo…

"when r u going to do this?"

Why is that annoying? Its perfectly clear and concise. Good writing imo.

Re: Undervalued Engineering Skills: Writing Well

#82

Post by sandGorgon »

adenverd wrote: post #65
scarejunba wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. Is the advice published externally somewhere? The Everything Store does mention the silent reading bit.

+1 would really love to read any style guides or writing class materials from Amazon, if anyone can share!

+1 on this.

Any info on what the writing class covers ?

Re: Undervalued Engineering Skills: Writing Well

#83

Post by sixstringtheory »

asark wrote: post #35
enriquto wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I do think that writing smsesque (...) is a really good way to make yourself look dumber, especially to non-engineers. Maybe they do that in purpose, then?. They do not need to be admired by everybody, especially not by non-engineers. Like the very rich people who dress extremely humbly, with torn-down clothes.

Yup. Anti-signal-signals are a thing. "I don't want or need to care how hard it is for you to understand me, so I'm not going to give any thought or effort to making it easier for you" is certainly a kind of signal.

The signal I get from that is arrogance, then.

Also, in an industry where “fake it till you make it” is the rallying cry, one shouldn’t appear dumb, lest one actually becomes dumb (at least in the eyes of their colleagues/superiors/reports/clients).

Re: Undervalued Engineering Skills: Writing Well

#84

Post by closeparen »

tombert wrote: post #6

I do find it a bit bizarre that the otherwise smart people that I work with, with English as their first language, will often resort to writing emails and documentation like a 14-year-old on AIM. I'm obviously much more forgiving of people that had to learn English as adults, but somewhat paradoxically I find that they typically write a lot more comprehensibly than most of the native-speaking engineers. I'm hardly Jo…

From my experience peer-editing class papers, bad writers aren’t dumb people. Someone would have an interesting idea and explain it cogently to me in person while sounding normal and fluent. The paper would be a train wreck, but a transcript of the verbal explanation would be worth at least a B.

It seems some people just have a disconnect between text and verbal processing.

Re: Undervalued Engineering Skills: Writing Well

#85

Post by wazoox »

paulcole wrote: post #54
wazoox wrote: post #52

Writing well can have several meanings. I've found that hilarious bug tickets are much better received and treated than dry ones. Maybe because they get many eyeballs (of the sort that makes all bug shallow). Here is one of the first ticket I wrote in my still current company: Then God appeared to wazoox and told him: "You will not spread your software on the face of the world without properly testing the new feature…

Do it once and it's kind of clever. Do it twice and it gets a lot less fun.

You have to find a different angle each time.

Re: Undervalued Engineering Skills: Writing Well

#86

Post by munificent »

adamnemecek wrote: post #2

It's hardly undervalued. Another one mentioned too much is "empathy". I feel like these are such softball answers, as no one will say no, this is bullshit.

This is such a weird take. Your own comment here is an example of writing for humans that uses emotional language to try to persuade an audience. By writing this comment at all, you imply that your comment is wrong.

Re: Undervalued Engineering Skills: Writing Well

#87

Post by joshuacc »

Along these lines, I have a half-completed book on GitHub titled Prose for Programmers: https://github.com/joshuacc/prose-for-programmers

I started it because I found that being able to write effectively was my biggest advantage at work. Compared to others who were at least as technically competent as myself, I was more often able to persuade others to take the course of action I prefer.

Re: Undervalued Engineering Skills: Writing Well

#88

Post by la_barba »

beat wrote: post #76
la_barba wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds like a contrived scenario to me personally. Most programmers simply do the task that their supervisor or manager has assigned to them. Its not like they can refuse to do a task simply because it was worded poorly. They would just ask for further clarification.

Most programmers simply do the tasks assigned to them, because most programmers don't know how to sell! If you can sell , then you get to decide what you should be working on, convince your manager (and team leads, and other managers, and business teams, and anyone else who might be a stakeholder or shot caller) that it is in their best interest to have you work on the thing you have recommended. Note that this can't…

Its not that I didn't understand your point. I just don't think this applies to most software engineers.

Re: Undervalued Engineering Skills: Writing Well

#90

Post by petra »

mabbo wrote: post #27

Amazon is obsessive about this stuff. I'm surprised the article never mentions it. There are internal classes offered on writing better documents (and it's a great class). There's videos, guides, documents, everything. Writing well at Amazon is key to a successful career here. Got a project idea? Write a very good 1-pager explaining it and you've got a much higher chance of it actually happening. Want to share a desi…

>> Write a very good 1-pager explaining it and you've got a much higher chance of it actually happening.

Who does this 1-page explainer go to ? who is the gate-keeper ?

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