You might as well be a great copy editor
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You might as well be a great copy editor
1–10 of 58 posts
Re: You might as well be a great copy editor
#2You need to be the reader's advocate, to try to set aside your ego and read your work as if someone else wrote it. This is not substantially different from adjusting your code. One might argue that with code you have also a very demanding reader, the computer, which might fail to run it or wreck something. Still you are writing for a human audience.
Re: You might as well be a great copy editor
#3Something I've known for a while (but have really come to terms with more recently) is just how important writing skills are even for technical people (even coders). It's hard to get anything done if you can't convince people why they should listen to you.
Especially in this increasingly remote-connected world, writing skills are key.
Re: You might as well be a great copy editor
#4I would like to add a third recommendation to the list of two, and recommend "Style: Towards Clarity and Grace". (Alternatively, use any similar book by Joseph M. Williams featuring the words Style, Clarity, and Grace in the title).
This book discusses the information architecture of clear and coherent phrases, sentences and paragraphs in the English language, and a few passes through its contents will leave you able to reason about the way you lay out ideas and information in your writing.
Re: You might as well be a great copy editor
#5Knowing how to tighten the screws on a text is essential for a lot of workplace communication, especially if you're trying to get something from your higher-ups. Don't think everyone is going to take their time to become a great copy editor, but it pays to learn the craft at least a little.
Re: You might as well be a great copy editor
#6As the joke goes, "an author is someone who wasn't good enough at writing to become an editor."
Re: You might as well be a great copy editor
#7Something I've known for a while (but have really come to terms with more recently) is just how important writing skills are even for technical people (even coders). It's hard to get anything done if you can't convince people why they should listen to you. Especially in this increasingly remote-connected world, writing skills are key.
>how important writing skills are even for technical people (even coders).
Especially coders. Writing clear programs is a lot like clear writing. A function is like a paragraph of a text. It should meaningfully abstract one concept of your higher level logic. It should be introduced by a clean input from the previous "paragraph", and produce an output that is the input for the next "paragraph".
If your higher level function becomes too large, you can create larger structures like sections in writing.
Having this ability to mercilessly copy edit, paring down your functions to their core concept and putting them into meaningful context is really useful if you want others to understand your code.
Re: You might as well be a great copy editor
#8I would like to add a third recommendation to the list of two, and recommend "Style: Towards Clarity and Grace". (Alternatively, use any similar book by Joseph M. Williams featuring the words Style, Clarity, and Grace in the title). This book discusses the information architecture of clear and coherent phrases, sentences and paragraphs in the English language, and a few passes through its contents will leave you able…
There is a fantastic section that shows why the passive has its uses, and that "avoid passive voice" can be harmful.
Re: You might as well be a great copy editor
#9Something I've known for a while (but have really come to terms with more recently) is just how important writing skills are even for technical people (even coders). It's hard to get anything done if you can't convince people why they should listen to you. Especially in this increasingly remote-connected world, writing skills are key.
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Re: You might as well be a great copy editor
#10You need to be the reader's advocate, to try to set aside your ego and read your work as if someone else wrote it. This is not substantially different from adjusting your code. One might argue that with code you have also a very demanding reader, the computer, which might fail to run it or wreck something. Still you are writing for a human audience.
Computers demand formal precision, which is different from conceptual clarity. Every obfuscator (including optimizers) relies on this fact.
Good code has both formal precision and conceptual clarity.