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Just Simply – Stop saying how simple things are in our docs

justsimply.dev

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Re: Just Simply – Stop saying how simple things are in our docs

#181

Post by sametmax »

KMnO4 wrote: post #152
sametmax wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is a lot of it is not publicly available. E.G: I asked chat gpt to help me install Python on Ubuntu 22.04, and it failed miserably. Why? Because 22.04 is recent and many pitfalls it comes with haven't been much documented yet. And it also don't know what is never written, but implicitly known if you deal with a lot of beginners. E.G: people get utterly confused with *args and **kwargs in Python, because i…

GPT != Chat GPT, GPT-4, etc. It’s possibly to [“just simply”] train a GPT on whatever corpus you want.

You can train GPT 2 on whatever you want, it will give you the wrong answer for everything.

The real magic arrived with GPT3, which is proprietary, so it's fair to assume your audience understands this and imply it.

Re: Just Simply – Stop saying how simple things are in our docs

#182

Post by ho_schi »

Germans here?

     Klicken sie einfach auf “Ausführen”.
     Click simply on “Execute”.
The writers of manuals love the word “simply”. There is just one problem:

If you need instructions it is NOT simple for your users.

The word doesn’t add info. The text to comprehend becomes longer. And the task even harder for readers. I started using “einfach” too much and now delete it whenever appropriate.

Re: Just Simply – Stop saying how simple things are in our docs

#183

Post by lowercased »

zabzonk wrote: post #117
codeflo wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The post is about removing some unnecessary wording from technical documentation that doesn't add anything, and as an aside can sometimes imply complex tasks are simpler than they are to the detriment of the app/library/service it's documenting. I'm not sure that's a fair summary of the article. I just reread it: at no point does it suggest removing superfluous words in general , it's specifically about "words such…

john lennon once said "never use 'just' in a lyric - it's lazy" (i paraphrase) and i think he might have had simmilar opinions on such things as "trivial". sadly, we will never know.

* He used 'trivialities' in a song (When I Get Home)

* She was "just" seventeen (arguably that was Paul's line, but John didn't override it, and kept his name on it)

* "(Just like) Starting Over" has 'just' in the title and lyrics.

* "Just" gimme some truth.

* "I'm just a jealous guy"

Rules are meant to be broken, perhaps? Or maybe he would just cop to being lazy?

Re: Just Simply – Stop saying how simple things are in our docs

#184

Post by [deleted] »

lowercased wrote: post #183
zabzonk wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

john lennon once said "never use 'just' in a lyric - it's lazy" (i paraphrase) and i think he might have had simmilar opinions on such things as "trivial". sadly, we will never know.

* He used 'trivialities' in a song (When I Get Home) * She was "just" seventeen (arguably that was Paul's line, but John didn't override it, and kept his name on it) * "(Just like) Starting Over" has 'just' in the title and lyrics. * "Just" gimme some truth. * "I'm just a jealous guy" Rules are meant to be broken, perhaps? Or maybe he would just cop to being lazy?

[deleted]

Re: Just Simply – Stop saying how simple things are in our docs

#186

Post by intalentive »

I think people say “just simply” because they’re proud of having reduced a boatload of complexity to a couple steps. It says implicitly, “If only you knew how much work I’ve saved you!”

Maybe there’s also an aspect of “customer service”, where the writer adopts the tone of a smiling amusement park tour guide. I can see a cheerful female intern writing docs like this. A no-nonsense Richard Stallman type, not so much.

Re: Just Simply – Stop saying how simple things are in our docs

#187

Post by zabzonk »

lowercased wrote: post #183
zabzonk wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

john lennon once said "never use 'just' in a lyric - it's lazy" (i paraphrase) and i think he might have had simmilar opinions on such things as "trivial". sadly, we will never know.

* He used 'trivialities' in a song (When I Get Home) * She was "just" seventeen (arguably that was Paul's line, but John didn't override it, and kept his name on it) * "(Just like) Starting Over" has 'just' in the title and lyrics. * "Just" gimme some truth. * "I'm just a jealous guy" Rules are meant to be broken, perhaps? Or maybe he would just cop to being lazy?

> Rules are meant to be broken, perhaps? Or maybe he would just cop to being lazy?

both?

the quote i paraphrased was from hunter davies' authorised biog of the beatles

but i still think it is a good rule

Re: Just Simply – Stop saying how simple things are in our docs

#189

Post by newswasboring »

shri_krishna wrote: post #143
codeflo wrote: post #70

Or maybe -- controversial opinion here -- people shouldn't be such babies. I'm looking around the HN discussion here and can't quite believe how personally offended people are by these words. Yes, at the beginning of the first semester at university, hearing a math professor say a step is "trivial", when it was quite hard, was a bit grating. One month in, I realised that the intended meaning of the word was that no s…

[flagged]

Classifying anything which is mental health related as "snowflakes" has lead us to many toxic traits in the current society. I would encourage you to take a harder look at what you are advocating here. To me it looks like to you taking anyone else's feelings into consideration is wasteful. I am sorry, I would rather work with snowflakes than bricks.

Re: Just Simply – Stop saying how simple things are in our docs

#190

Post by thunky »

ianbutler wrote: post #179
thunky wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was trying to compare equivalent professions across time periods, not to suggest that welders are any different than developers. I would not be surprised if modern day welders get offended by their equipment manual as well.

I A. Don't see significant similarity between welding and programming B. Think that you would be wrong about people being annoyed about things that make their work harder across any time period. The difference is how people expressed those emotions or not, not whether they had them.

> The difference is how people expressed those emotions or not

That's a change in behavior.

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