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Vale.sh – A Linter for Prose

vale.sh

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Re: Vale.sh – A Linter for Prose

#22
post #19

My favorite is a tool called write-good https://github.com/btford/write-good

Just curious, how exactly you're using this? You'll write stuff in a file and run `write-good stuff-i-wrote.md` and then look through the suggestions and modify as needed?

Re: Vale.sh – A Linter for Prose

#23
This looks great!

By the way, I can't be the only one using ChatGPT to rewrite docs and messages, right? I regularly tell ChatGPT: "Rewrite the following, don't make it too formal:.." or "rewrite the following optimizing for brevity:..." and it usually spits something out much clearer than my first revision. Sometimes there's just one sentence I was struggling to write clearly and this helps a ton. Really valuable in this remote work world we live in where so much of our communication happens in writing.

Re: Vale.sh – A Linter for Prose

#24
I don't really understand this, what is a linter for prose? Like Grammarly? Is it an end-user product or for a programmatic interface? If the former, why are there "integrations?" What does it mean to integrate this into Kong, for example? Does it work through VSCode?

Edit: Ok, now I see, it is like an offline version of Grammarly for the editor of your choosing, as well as a lint tool for CI for your docs, like docs.konghq.com.

Re: Vale.sh – A Linter for Prose

#26

As there's a theme in comments here - I'm surprised people are so confused by the landing page. Between "a linter for prose" and the screenshot at the top of the page, I found it quite clear what the use case and point of the tool was. Personally interested where the confusion is- maybe unfamiliarity with "linting" or "prose"?

The name linter is not widespread in its use as some think. In some ecosystems it's just called "static analysis tools" or something. I came to learn the tool "linter" after having exposure to a few tools of this kind, several years into the programming career.

Re: Vale.sh – A Linter for Prose

#28

As there's a theme in comments here - I'm surprised people are so confused by the landing page. Between "a linter for prose" and the screenshot at the top of the page, I found it quite clear what the use case and point of the tool was. Personally interested where the confusion is- maybe unfamiliarity with "linting" or "prose"?

It’s the lack of examples (I actually browsed the site for 2–3 minutes for some and didn’t find any), and that the screenshot doesn’t show the input prose text that the output applies to.

Instead of the long list of integrations, more exposition and context would be helpful, or at least an immediate link to an introduction page providing that. In earlier times, software documentation would provide a whole introductory book chapter providing the context, use cases, and some examples.

As a side note, regarding the screenshot, I’m wondering whether the tool also provides a rationale for each item, as the displayed text isn’t very informational on the why.

Re: Vale.sh – A Linter for Prose

#30
Have tried to use this a few times but it's a big lift. Like adding unit tests to an existing application, it's a good idea to start small. And vale doesn't make this super easy (at least I couldn't figure out an easy way to do this). If I could wave my wand, I'd want a way to:

* apply vale to just the doc I was working on

* have a minimal set of rules

* add to them over time

At $curjob, we have a detailed public list of rules of doc ( https://github.com/FusionAuth/fusionauth-site/blob/master/Do... ) and as our team expands, I'd love to have them be applied rigorously. vale seems like a good fit, but there's an activation energy that I haven't been able to get over yet.

I am not aware of any other cli tools similar to this, though, so totally admire the team behind it.

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