Stop trying to engineer your way out of listening to people • Hacker News Board

Re: Stop trying to engineer your way out of listening to people

#211

Post by plumbees » Mon, Apr 20, 2026, 3:41 PM UTC

plumbees wrote: post #207

cthor wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an insane response to someone having their carefully written work casually bastardized by an LLM that rewrote the entire design spec without even being informed. The amount of institutional noise generated by such carelessness far exceeds whatever improvement in readability you could possibly imagine. Any criticism you could aim at the original text that you don't even have on hand (i.e. are completely specul…

I thought the reply was generally helpful. Something to consider about in my equally exacting wording as I share the same frustration as the original comment and this give me a framework to view possible issues with my own writing. I.E. You can't change what others will do, you can only change what you yourself do. In this case: Carefully crafted exacting documentation is being ignored = frustrating to me = can't cha…

Based on other comments in the thread but not any direct reply to mine. I would also express that I was surprised when a coworker of mine complained that nobody read message boxes we put up to help the user. It was my first corporate job and I had already learned and ingrained from my experience at a small office that nobody reads technical instructions either. That alas also requires training. Usually by having the documentation open and doing exactly what is written with them watching, or with them doing (better). (Helps reveal gaps in documentation such as, Oh most users don't know how to traverse a file system, let alone what one is... how?, It's an analogy to office filings which they did everyday? why??? I never understood but, alas I've never been able to teach somebody who doesn't understand the file system, the file system.... my weakness)

Re: Stop trying to engineer your way out of listening to people

#212

Post by crispyambulance » Mon, Apr 20, 2026, 3:41 PM UTC

sjsdaiuasgdia wrote: post #158

mjburgess wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're assuming malign motivations, I'm assuming misplaced ones. It seems more likely to me the manager tried to read it and struggled, then generated something of equivalent size or larger. I'm taking it the generated document passed around was actually at least as large as the one-pager, and hence entirely pointless to rephrase even with the malign motivations you're assuming. Since the poster here wears his person…

When I read documentation, I'm not there to enjoy the experience. I'm there to find out how the documented thing works and how to use it. It's not a novel. I'm not there for entertainment. Chasing readability without maintaining accuracy is a failure in the context of documentation no matter the motivations involved. I'm not saying that readability can't be a consideration when making documentation. I am saying that…

> I'm not saying that readability can't be a consideration when making documentation. I am saying that if you discard accuracy in the process, you've fucked up quite badly.

You're right to elevate accuracy to a high level of importance, but that is NOT ENOUGH if the thing is has poor readability. The audience has to be able to understand the document if the document is to be useable.

There's only a certain amount of effort anyone can deliver in producing a document. But if the author can't deliver readability, they need to follow up the document with a lot of support and/or get some help to make it useable.

Re: Stop trying to engineer your way out of listening to people

#213

Post by walterbell » Mon, Apr 20, 2026, 3:44 PM UTC

mjburgess wrote: post #193

yyy3 wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Writing has always been a great burden. It should not be elevated to, nor equivocated with, some great utility or intellectual practice. That was for an era where sound was harder to record and transmit than words; and where meetings required moving around the world. Okay Socrates[1]. Obviously writing has not been a "great burden" because it's 5000 years later and we're still all doing it. It hasn't been enough of…

So you prefer writing. Either way, writing is dying. It's dying because speaking and meeting can now be transmitted as easily. This itself should, empirically, demonstrate the point. The podcast killed the book, the meeting killed the memo. All around us writing is dying, and writing no one wants to read even more quickly. Soon, in my view, writing will be seen as an instrumental intermediate artefact for technical o…

> the meeting killed the memo

Some AWS meetings require the memo.

> writing and reading was, and is, a great burden to many

Re: Stop trying to engineer your way out of listening to people

#214

Post by watwut » Mon, Apr 20, 2026, 3:47 PM UTC

mjburgess wrote: post #147

cthor wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an insane response to someone having their carefully written work casually bastardized by an LLM that rewrote the entire design spec without even being informed. The amount of institutional noise generated by such carelessness far exceeds whatever improvement in readability you could possibly imagine. Any criticism you could aim at the original text that you don't even have on hand (i.e. are completely specul…

You're assuming malign motivations, I'm assuming misplaced ones. It seems more likely to me the manager tried to read it and struggled, then generated something of equivalent size or larger. I'm taking it the generated document passed around was actually at least as large as the one-pager, and hence entirely pointless to rephrase even with the malign motivations you're assuming. Since the poster here wears his person…

> You're assuming malign motivations, I'm assuming misplaced ones.

And in the process, you give zero benefit of the doubt to OP. You just assume he wrote it badly.

Re: Stop trying to engineer your way out of listening to people

#215

Post by plumbees » Mon, Apr 20, 2026, 3:48 PM UTC

estimator7292 wrote: post #152

mjburgess wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps you should ask the manager why he passed it through AI. It might be that with precision, readability is lost. It's a tradeoff: the more compressed your language is, and hence the more precise, the more cognitive effort you require the reader to expend on each word. Reading is a translation from your mental model, as expressed in words, to the readers mental model. Words alone don't perform this translation, t…

No. Someone replaced well thought out documentation with AI fabrications and let GP take the fall for it. That is malicious and inexcusable. It's not on GP, the fault lies with the idiot that ran gold documentation through the bullshit machine. Don't blame someone who was wronged, that makes you a malicious asshole.

Without context of who these people are, yes perhaps malicious but perhaps not consciously so. Merits a frank conversation of indicating that the action of AI reinterpretation introduced errors that poorly reflect on OP's reputation and THAT deserves rectification. My worldy observation is that people in all industries lack training. It's all been offloaded to automated systems. And nobody is there to ask questions or think logically. The hospital staff doesn't understand why I'm angry when they call me using an AI to give me information and the AI is asking for so much PII. (You called me! You already have that information! How do I know you aren't a scammer?) They are not the users of their garbage. They aren't trained to serve the customers, they are trained to serve their managers and that disconnect is occuring everywhere. Why do the grocery baggers put heavy objects with the bread. This was never a think in the 90s and 00s, and now baggers are just not being trained properly. Like, wtf...

But yes do be on the lookout for malicous people, document, log and look for patterns... don't write it off, document.

Re: Stop trying to engineer your way out of listening to people

#216

Post by plumbees » Mon, Apr 20, 2026, 3:49 PM UTC

antisthenes wrote: post #191

harvey9 wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can still see a path where the manager was stupid but not malicious. The manager sent on a document which he was too lazy to check at least had the right endpoints but left the GP's contact details on. I could also imagine intentional harm to GP's reputation was the goal, with really clumsy execution.

Either way, that person should not be managing anything. And if it was an honest mistake, they need to come out and apologize both to the IC and to the team that is using the documentation.

Many mangers shouldn't be managing anything.

Re: Stop trying to engineer your way out of listening to people

#217

Post by nradov » Mon, Apr 20, 2026, 3:51 PM UTC

mjburgess wrote: post #193

yyy3 wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Writing has always been a great burden. It should not be elevated to, nor equivocated with, some great utility or intellectual practice. That was for an era where sound was harder to record and transmit than words; and where meetings required moving around the world. Okay Socrates[1]. Obviously writing has not been a "great burden" because it's 5000 years later and we're still all doing it. It hasn't been enough of…

So you prefer writing. Either way, writing is dying. It's dying because speaking and meeting can now be transmitted as easily. This itself should, empirically, demonstrate the point. The podcast killed the book, the meeting killed the memo. All around us writing is dying, and writing no one wants to read even more quickly. Soon, in my view, writing will be seen as an instrumental intermediate artefact for technical o…

Another way of looking at that is that if writing is dying then doing it well will become a key competitive advantage. Organizations with culture, processes, and hiring standards focused on effective written communication will be faster and more economically efficient than competitors that rely on meetings (or recordings of meetings). Really crisp writing is especially helpful when prompting an LLM.

Re: Stop trying to engineer your way out of listening to people

#218

Post by walterbell » Mon, Apr 20, 2026, 3:52 PM UTC

donatj wrote: post #127

I tend to be very exacting in my word choice. If I used a specific word, I meant it. Many people I find speak in what I would describe as tone poems. They circle around an idea using whatever word is within reach, and expect you to understand the meaning based on shared connotations. These people are tiring to interpret. When I write something, each and every word was chosen specifically and with intention. The numbe…

> the death of rigorous language

Or the birth of rigorous feedback loops.

Any message can be corrupted during transmission.

Feedback forms can diff received text against transmitted text.

Re: Stop trying to engineer your way out of listening to people

#219

Post by JumpCrisscross » Mon, Apr 20, 2026, 3:53 PM UTC

digi59404 wrote: post #54

Even here in the comments you see people who have read this article and fall victim to the very things it’s pointing out. It’s ironic. Let me add a couple to this list. 1. No amount of knowledge or discussion will make a person accept something they don’t want to accept. 2. To truly listen means to place yourself mentally and physically in a vulnerable state. Because you will likely hear things that run contrary to y…

> 1. No amount of knowledge or discussion will make a person accept something they don’t want to accept

Discussion, probably not. Modifying incentive structures, absolutely.

Re: Stop trying to engineer your way out of listening to people

#220

Post by mjburgess » Mon, Apr 20, 2026, 3:55 PM UTC

nradov wrote: post #217

mjburgess wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you prefer writing. Either way, writing is dying. It's dying because speaking and meeting can now be transmitted as easily. This itself should, empirically, demonstrate the point. The podcast killed the book, the meeting killed the memo. All around us writing is dying, and writing no one wants to read even more quickly. Soon, in my view, writing will be seen as an instrumental intermediate artefact for technical o…

Another way of looking at that is that if writing is dying then doing it well will become a key competitive advantage. Organizations with culture, processes, and hiring standards focused on effective written communication will be faster and more economically efficient than competitors that rely on meetings (or recordings of meetings). Really crisp writing is especially helpful when prompting an LLM.

Sure, it will become a more elite creative and technical skill.