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“Considered Harmful” Essays Considered Harmful

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Re: “Considered Harmful” Essays Considered Harmful

#51

Post by dimino »

pjscott wrote: post #25
FreakyT wrote: post #15

The thing that always bothered me about "Considered harmful" titles is that, when you title your own article that, you're just pompously referring to yourself in the third person. The reason they are in the passive voice is that the original "considered harmful" essay was a letter to the editor, and therefore was titled not by the author, but by the editor[1]. Therefore, to expand out the subject of the sentence, the…

A traditional alternative to considered-harmful titles is titles of the form "Why X is not my favorite thing-that-X-is". The classic example is Brian Kernighan's article "Why Pascal is not my favorite programming language", but it works for just about anything. "Why git flow is not my favorite versioning method" works fine. "Why considered-harmful essays are not my favorite method of critique" is less cute, but quite…

Yeah, I think "I don't like this" should be different from "this is actually bad in tangible and measurable ways".

"Stuck Accelerator Pedals in Toyotas Considered Harmful" makes sense, but "Why stuck accelerator pedals in Toyotas are not my favorite accelerator pedals" isn't really descriptive of the issue, although is kind of funny as a title.

To put it another way, there is a place for both titles, but "Considered Harmful" should be reserved for dispassionate analysis.

Re: “Considered Harmful” Essays Considered Harmful

#52

Post by aoeuasdf1 »

peterkelly wrote: post #30

I've always seen the inclusion "considered harmful" in a title as sort of a comedic device, not to be taken as seriously as the author does. It's a signal that "I'm about to say something opinionated; if you're easily offended, you probably don't want to read this". The article itself is such an example. I'd much rather read a forceful, strong argument that contains some controversial claims than a piss-weak "perceiv…

So, tl;dr, you consider "'Considered Harmful' Essays Considered Harmful" harmful?

:)

Re: “Considered Harmful” Essays Considered Harmful

#53

Post by peterkelly »

aoeuasdf1 wrote: post #52
peterkelly wrote: post #30

I've always seen the inclusion "considered harmful" in a title as sort of a comedic device, not to be taken as seriously as the author does. It's a signal that "I'm about to say something opinionated; if you're easily offended, you probably don't want to read this". The article itself is such an example. I'd much rather read a forceful, strong argument that contains some controversial claims than a piss-weak "perceiv…

So, tl;dr, you consider "'Considered Harmful' Essays Considered Harmful" harmful? :)

Almost to the extent of goto statements :)

Re: “Considered Harmful” Essays Considered Harmful

#54

Post by 0xdeadbeefbabe »

chris_wot wrote: post #18
jessaustin wrote: post #2

For example, a piece titled "'Considered Harmful' Essays Considered Harmful" would very likely be a case of using the "considered harmful" format to draw attention for its own sake. We will ignore such essays in this commentary. Now I'm just confused.

He ignored his own essay, so even the actual substance of the essay could be considered an existential threat to the essay. I have to wonder though if he ignored his own argument whilst in the process of writing his article, because if he truly did so then it probably should have been a dissertation on modalities which I'm sure we all could have readily ignored without doing ourselves much harm. Thus defeating the po…

I literally can't read another word of this essay because of the logical burden.

Re: “Considered Harmful” Essays Considered Harmful

#55

Post by amyjess »

lectrick wrote: post #19
FreakyT wrote: post #15

The thing that always bothered me about "Considered harmful" titles is that, when you title your own article that, you're just pompously referring to yourself in the third person. The reason they are in the passive voice is that the original "considered harmful" essay was a letter to the editor, and therefore was titled not by the author, but by the editor[1]. Therefore, to expand out the subject of the sentence, the…

Glad to see this, as I was surprised that there was an entire post about the harm that "considered harmful" essays caused without even citing the original reference that started the whole hoopla, the very-opinionated, very-brilliant and very-legendary Edsger Dijkstra.

Funny thing is, he didn't even call it that. His title was "A Case against the GO TO Statement". His editor Niklaus Wirth (yes, the guy who created Pascal and a ton of other languages) renamed it because he wanted to get people's attention and rustle some jimmies.

Re: “Considered Harmful” Essays Considered Harmful

#56

Post by vonmoltke »

dragonwriter wrote: post #42
normloman wrote: post #41

Everyone says we should write essays because it will get us noticed, make us more employable, and sharpen our writing skills. But few of us have anything important to say. So we get this glut of self important "considered harmful" essays. And we're all guilty.

> Everyone says we should write essays because it will get us noticed, make us more employable, and sharpen our writing skills. But few of us have anything important to say. The advice needs to be updated slightly, then, to clarify the apparent confusion: you should , if you can, write essays for all those reasons, but step one of writing an essay for those purposes is find something meaningful to say .

So only people with meaningful things to say or build should get noticed and hired?

Re: “Considered Harmful” Essays Considered Harmful

#57

Post by knieveltech »

techiferous wrote: post #50
knieveltech wrote: post #46

No. I'm getting pretty tired of the notion that the only valuable discourse is pleasant, up-beat, and optimistic. This notion attempts to stifle entire swaths of the emotional spectrum and has at it's heart censorship based on a mainstream aversion to anything that smacks of confrontation or conflict. Up with opinionated, confrontational speech.

I disagree. If you look at what happens to the brain when it gets angry, nuance is lost in favor of over-simplified black-and-white thinking. I do agree with you that sharing conflicting points of view is good. Too much passion, however, can cloud reason.

To clarify I'm not advocating for rage-filled screeds as a viable method of communicating nuanced information, or even as a viable method of communication. As you said sharing conflicting viewpoints is valuable. I take issue with the suggestion that this is only valuable if the conflict is framed in appealing language or "toned down" to "acceptable" levels, whatever those are. Conflict is ok. Resolving it is how we get shit done.

Re: “Considered Harmful” Essays Considered Harmful

#58

Post by Thrymr »

"They’ve become boring clichés. Nobody really wants to read “considered harmful” essays any more, because we’ve seen them a thousand times before and didn’t really learn anything from them, since we were too busy being annoyed to really listen to the arguments presented."

It's a boring and pompous cliché. In 1968, it was original. Now, write your own title.

Re: “Considered Harmful” Essays Considered Harmful

#59

Post by normloman »

vonmoltke wrote: post #56
dragonwriter wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Everyone says we should write essays because it will get us noticed, make us more employable, and sharpen our writing skills. But few of us have anything important to say. The advice needs to be updated slightly, then, to clarify the apparent confusion: you should , if you can, write essays for all those reasons, but step one of writing an essay for those purposes is find something meaningful to say .

So only people with meaningful things to say or build should get noticed and hired?

No. Employers need to realize they don't need to fill every damn position with a "rockstar." But until then, we'll keep playing the game.

Re: “Considered Harmful” Essays Considered Harmful

#60

Post by AdieuToLogic »

joshrotenberg wrote: post #27
jessaustin wrote: post #2

For example, a piece titled "'Considered Harmful' Essays Considered Harmful" would very likely be a case of using the "considered harmful" format to draw attention for its own sake. We will ignore such essays in this commentary. Now I'm just confused.

I consider your confusion harmful.

Considering your consideration of GP's confusion harming the considerateness of your considered position has led me to considerately classify this confusion to be considered harmful as well.

Ouch. Brain freeze!

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