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Undervalued Engineering Skills: Writing Well

blog.pragmaticengineer.com

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Re: Undervalued Engineering Skills: Writing Well

#241

Post by ben509 »

valbaca wrote: post #142
petra wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And even if you can't publish, but can recommend some other material with close-enough content, that would be great.

I've taken the class within Amazon. Honestly there isn't anything that you couldn't get by simply reading and applying the advice from "The Elements of Style" by Strunk and White[1] and "On Writing Well" by Zinsser [2]. The primary philosophy is that if you can't write well, then you haven't thought it through. The act of writing is an act of reasoning. 0. Practice in a strong feedback loop. This applies for anything…

#0 is correct. I'll recommend this piece on S&W [1] and specifically on point #5 [2].

These style guides, especially points #1 through #6, came about from bureaucrats who were essentially filibustering or otherwise obfuscating in their writing.

The root problem there was not the long-winded writing, it was their intent to hide bad things.

If you can make sure you're not carrying water for corrupt officials, you best strategy is to try to write natural prose. Yes, do look for wordy phrases or cliches, but don't obsess over adverbs or the passive voice.

[1] https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=15509 [2] http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/003366.h...

Re: Undervalued Engineering Skills: Writing Well

#242

Post by ordinaryradical »

lpolovets wrote: post #188

Writing well is an undervalued skill in life, not just in engineering. When you work on a team of peers with similar skills in your field, whether that field is engineering or something else, being able to write well and communicate well become strong differentiators. FWIW, I'm pretty sure that writing (reasonably) well online is what got me a job in venture capital after ten years as an engineer. David Perell (host…

I'm curious about your experience. How do you think your writing translated into value in the eyes of the VC world? Or was it that you'd built a platform online first through your writing and then they solicited you?

In my experience my ability here has always been valued after the fact; I have the strong impression that few companies value writing, even as a secondary skill, or see it as a differentiator.

Re: Undervalued Engineering Skills: Writing Well

#243

Post by la_barba »

funkymike wrote: post #108
la_barba wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Understanding the problem domain, i.e. what the customers really want and need rather than just what they specifically ask for, will help any software engineer do their job better. Only then can you suggest alternative solutions that solve the real needs vs. patching one requested item after another that are all half measures to solving the real problems.

I don't know what scenario you're envisioning, but I'm envisioning a scenario where the task a programmer works on is assigned to them by a supervisor, a project manager, a lead, a project planner or whatever other similar designation companies have.

The idea that non-trivial projects get built by engineers "selling" their ideas to each other doesn't align with my experience or even expectations. As a manager, I want my best developer to work on certain tasks, and not a junior developer. I don't want someone not familiar with the domain or technology to pick tasks which they have a high likelihood of failing at, etc, etc. Nothing controversial. Simple basic common sense.

Companies have ways to escalate concerns programmers have about the tasks themselves. And it could also be that programmers are invited to comment on the road map/big picture. But that is something different.

Re: Undervalued Engineering Skills: Writing Well

#244

Post by la_barba »

beat wrote: post #114
la_barba wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It circles back to my point, though. It doesn't apply to them because they don't try to sell their own ideas. If more engineers took the reins of their own work, I think they'd be happier and more successful.

Okay, we'll just have to agree to disagree on that then. :)

Edit: Upon re-reading the thread, I may have misinterpreted your original point. Disregard my comments.. sorry

Re: Undervalued Engineering Skills: Writing Well

#245

Post by sixstringtheory »

lightsighter wrote: post #237
aphextim wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recently got to ride in the co-pilot seat of our company plane and it was a neat experience to see everything and listen to the radio chatter and the view was amazing to watch the sun rise and the moon set at the same time. He showed me how as a fighter pilot he was trained to spot other aircraft. When one would show up on the radar he would point and be like see that plane over there? I could never see it until we…

Actually there is some vision science behind this phenomenon. Your fovea is what you use to focus on things and it's got lots of cone cells that are good at picking up colors and specific details but are not so good at picking up motion. The rest of your eye though has tons of rod cells that effectively see just black and white, but are really good at doing motion detection (mainly to recognize predators and prey in…

There was a great article on this a while back:

“A Fighter Pilot’s Guide to surviving on the roads” https://www.portsmouthctc.org.uk/a-fighter-pilots-guide-to-s...

> Only a small part of the retina, in the centre and called the fovea, can generate a high-resolution image. This is why we need to look directly at something, by moving our eyes, to see detail. The rest of the retina contributes to our visual experience by adding the peripheral detail — hence peripheral vision. Peripheral vision cannot resolve detail, which prevents the brain from being overloaded with too much information, but it is very good at detecting movement.

> Well, first, it is an unfortunate fact that if you are converging on a given point with another vehicle at the same speed, and assuming that you are both traveling in a straight line, then there is no apparent movement noticeable by the occupant of either vehicle. That is, to the driver of each vehicle, the other will remain in exactly the same position in the windscreen up to the point of impact. There is no relative movement — so our peripheral vision is not suited to detecting it.

> Now for the really interesting part. When we move our head and eyes to scan a scene, our eyes are incapable of moving smoothly across that scene and seeing everything. This makes perfect sense: just like trying to take a picture without holding the camera still. The image would be blurred. So, our clever brain overcomes this by moving our eyes (really fast, remember) in a series of jumps (called saccades) with very short pauses (called fixations and it is only during the pauses that an image is processed. Our brains fill in the gaps with a combination of peripheral vision and an assumption that what is in the gaps must be the same as what you see during the pauses.

Previously discussed:

- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12422378

- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17900759

Re: Undervalued Engineering Skills: Writing Well

#246

Post by sixstringtheory »

finder83 wrote: post #212
sixstringtheory wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

This may not apply as much to written language, but there are benefits at times to pretending to be more ignorant or dumb than you actually are. My father was actually a master at this. He was brilliant in his own ways (not the academic sense, but mechanically and socially brilliant), but had the persona of the "dumb hick" down completely. People would underestimate him, sometimes try to take advantage of him, then h…

Ah yes, the Columbo! I have no problem doing this with bona fide scammers. But condescending to colleagues is a really bad look, IMO.

Re: Undervalued Engineering Skills: Writing Well

#248

Post by pests »

Crinus wrote: post #44
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.

No they do not. I've seen a LOT of smsesque text that come from all sorts of different people who i'm 100% they are not trying to "appear dumber". I do not know why people do it, so i assume laziness. Smart people can be lazy too.

In the end all writing or speech is about communicating an idea.

My opinion is these people have learned it doesn't matter. If an idea can be conveyed in smsesque and still get the point across while being quicker to write, then why not?

I have a feeling power/authority/expert status matters here because the listeners will power through unclear communication just to gleam a glimpse of the underlying idea from this idol.

Re: Undervalued Engineering Skills: Writing Well

#249

Post by dboreham »

tombert wrote: post #59
bluGill wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is easy to say, but it doesn't work that way. Your mind knows what you wanted to say and assumes it said that. Even when you read your writing again you know what you meant to say and you will skip over the bad grammar. Note that this same problem exists in spoken speech. Someone will ask a passenger to "please adjust your window out" which makes no sense. What they really want is adjust the mirror out, but the…

I mentioned earlier that I am fairly understanding of typos. Typos are an honest mistake, and since I work with humans, they are going to make mistakes. Even using the wrong version of "its" or "it's" is ok, because at least that is an easy mistake to make. However, when someone writes me an email using a lot of abbreviations and shorthand, like something a 14-year-old would write on AIM, it makes me feel like I'm be…

LOL

Oh..wait..

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