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Why I can't have conversations using Twitter

antirez.com

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Re: Why I can't have conversations using Twitter

#61

Post by yetanotherHNacc »

jameskilton wrote: post #59
yetanotherHNacc wrote: post #57

If you can't have a conversation on Twitter you may be doing something wrong. Thanks to the peers on the network we've found all sorts of interesting things. Things like the location of rockets associated with sarin attacks in Syria[0] placed squarely on Mezzeh military airbase in Damascus. The rockets at the time were thought to be Iranian Falaq but more evidence showed them to be part of their own distinct program.…

Sure sounds like you're blaming antirez for people on Twitter taking his tweet out of context and running with it. It's also completely unfair to say "Twitter was awesome in this very explicit situation so you obviously did something wrong in your situation".

No, that is on the people who did that. If anything I would blame antirez for getting flustered enough about this non-Twitter specific problem to write a blog post.

Re: Why I can't have conversations using Twitter

#62

Post by ianstallings »

The older I get the more I ignore. I'm not missing out on anything by not following twitter and it's really just a distraction from my goals. I sink way more time into HN than other social media, and I don't spend that much time here. My goal is to be completely off in my own world a decade from now, focusing strictly on what is important to me.

Now if I can just kick my HN habit..

Re: Why I can't have conversations using Twitter

#63

Post by Jedd »

chton wrote: post #6

There are conversations that work on twitter, and ones that don't. In general, twitter conversations are quick back-and-forth affairs. If you need more than 2 tweets to express your thought, you're either using the wrong medium or thinking too far. If that conversation model doesn't fit you, that's perfectly fine, but that's not the fault of twitter. It's just a bad match-up. In that case, it's perfectly fine to resp…

> In general, twitter conversations are quick back-and-forth affairs. If you need more than 2 tweets to express your thought, you're either using the wrong medium or thinking too far.

Hmmm. I'm not sure how to respond to the suggestion that people who can't fully express their thoughts in around 300 characters are thinking too far ... or the subtly implied pejorative of 'too-far-thinking'.

Aside: I note you used 1386 characters to describe the benefits of terseness.

Re: Why I can't have conversations using Twitter

#64

Post by genericuser »

Jedd wrote: post #63
chton wrote: post #6

There are conversations that work on twitter, and ones that don't. In general, twitter conversations are quick back-and-forth affairs. If you need more than 2 tweets to express your thought, you're either using the wrong medium or thinking too far. If that conversation model doesn't fit you, that's perfectly fine, but that's not the fault of twitter. It's just a bad match-up. In that case, it's perfectly fine to resp…

> In general, twitter conversations are quick back-and-forth affairs. If you need more than 2 tweets to express your thought, you're either using the wrong medium or thinking too far. Hmmm. I'm not sure how to respond to the suggestion that people who can't fully express their thoughts in around 300 characters are thinking too far ... or the subtly implied pejorative of 'too-far-thinking'. Aside: I note you used 1386…

Most people probably fall into the using the wrong medium category. If you are taking are taking over 140 characters to say what amount's to 'Who want's to go to Olive Garden?' then you are thinking too far though.

And he specifically chose a medium which was not twitter to describe it.

Re: Why I can't have conversations using Twitter

#65

Post by simias »

epaga wrote: post #10

When I want to write something over multiple tweets, I use a simple syntax to make it clear that each individual tweet is meant to be read in context with the others: I simply suffix all tweets except the last one with ">" and prefix all tweets except the first one with " Additionally, I make sure each tweet is a reply to its predecessor. Here's an example: https://twitter.com/epaga/status/510316379833393152

Isn't it a bit silly in this day and age to use that kind of ad hoc hack in order to express a more complex point?

I mean I understand that's how twitter works and probably part of what made it successful, but it baffles me that it's seemingly becoming a "serious" way of communications. Politicians are expected to have a twitter account, serious news organisations often quote twits directly in the body of their articles etc...

I don't understand why so many people chose to de-facto standardize on such a poor medium for communication, especially since you have a billion alternatives without such limitations.

Re: Why I can't have conversations using Twitter

#66

Post by Beltiras »

jimktrains2 wrote: post #47
Beltiras wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are not wedded to an SQL vendor. You actually can migrate your data, as long as your code is farily vendor-agnostic. I write Django apps and use the ORM for everything. That frees my customers from any sort of raw sql specific to one DB server.

If everything you do is CRUD, sure. Often there are non-CRUD, more advanced queries that need to be run. These, and other issues, are normally what gets you. For instance, pgsql will error if you attempt to write 5 chars to a 2 chat field, mysql will silently truncate.

Which is why I never use MySQL ;)

I'm trying for the life of me to think of queries I could make that are non-CRUD. Maybe I am just stuck in my current tools to think flexibly about it.

Re: Why I can't have conversations using Twitter

#67

Post by davidw »

Beltiras wrote: post #66
jimktrains2 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If everything you do is CRUD, sure. Often there are non-CRUD, more advanced queries that need to be run. These, and other issues, are normally what gets you. For instance, pgsql will error if you attempt to write 5 chars to a 2 chat field, mysql will silently truncate.

Which is why I never use MySQL ;) I'm trying for the life of me to think of queries I could make that are non-CRUD. Maybe I am just stuck in my current tools to think flexibly about it.

Here's an one that I use with Postgres all the time for groupwise max kinds of things: DISTINCT ON - http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.0/static/sql-select.html#SQ...

Re: Why I can't have conversations using Twitter

#68

Post by chton »

Jedd wrote: post #63
chton wrote: post #6

There are conversations that work on twitter, and ones that don't. In general, twitter conversations are quick back-and-forth affairs. If you need more than 2 tweets to express your thought, you're either using the wrong medium or thinking too far. If that conversation model doesn't fit you, that's perfectly fine, but that's not the fault of twitter. It's just a bad match-up. In that case, it's perfectly fine to resp…

> In general, twitter conversations are quick back-and-forth affairs. If you need more than 2 tweets to express your thought, you're either using the wrong medium or thinking too far. Hmmm. I'm not sure how to respond to the suggestion that people who can't fully express their thoughts in around 300 characters are thinking too far ... or the subtly implied pejorative of 'too-far-thinking'. Aside: I note you used 1386…

No pejorative was meant at all. My point about 'thinking too far' was about the singular thought you're trying to express. It's easy to want to say too much, 'walking the chain too far' if you will. Twitter is a far more iterative medium than most, and expressing a complicated thought isn't a case of writing it out in whole. Usually, you will develop the thought together with the other party. Conversations are closer to a form of collective thinking than a long-form debate. Thought patterns are more on display.

Aside: this conversation would have taken a very different form if we had had it on twitter. The medium defines the form. So I don't mind being verbose here :)

Re: Why I can't have conversations using Twitter

#69

Post by rakoo »

chton wrote: post #6

There are conversations that work on twitter, and ones that don't. In general, twitter conversations are quick back-and-forth affairs. If you need more than 2 tweets to express your thought, you're either using the wrong medium or thinking too far. If that conversation model doesn't fit you, that's perfectly fine, but that's not the fault of twitter. It's just a bad match-up. In that case, it's perfectly fine to resp…

As a Twitter non-user, my recommendation would be:

- Write a post explaining your views, and tweet the link to it.

Re: Why I can't have conversations using Twitter

#70

Post by VLM »

phaer wrote: post #18
mischanix wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's much simpler to publish on Twitter than via RSS.

How exactly? In the time it takes you to register an account on twitter.com you could as well register an account on wordpress.com and publish via RSS. The main difference is that longer content is possible, that you could find even easier/faster/whatever alternatives because its federated and that your communications are not dependent on the policies of a single private company - which for non-us-citizens like me is…

I don't watch much TV, but what little prime time TV I've seen recently, seems to pimp their twitter acct and semi-relevant hashtags constantly both intro and exit to the program and even believe it or not, during the program they pop hashtags on the screen. Only about 1/30th the population watches survivor so this is probably news to most HN readers.
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