How to write about code and give zero fucks (2013)
garann.com
garann.com
Summed up the article for you.
Not saying it's a bad article, but it's kind of lost in itself. I agree that, syntactically, blog posts about code don't have to be as correct wrt. syntax as the code itself. But something that is very necessary (that this blog post ironically does a good job of showing) is making sure the flow of your words is unobstructed.
"Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts."
I agree with the author. Type whatever you feel explains what you're trying to say! But maybe don't "fuck quality control". Maybe, if just to make the reader's life a little easier, remove some of the things that aren't 100% necessary after your first round of writing.
I have found it valuable to separate “generating” from “filtering,” and I understand this is a standard piece of advice from people peddling “creativity” seminars.
> Save it as a draft and come back and reread it in the morning. [...] If you can amuse yourself when you just woke up and you heard all the jokes about the text selection API last night, you have done a good job. And if you can't, fuck it, leave it in the drafts and don't worry about rewriting it. [emphasis mine]
The author doesn't mention any sort of copy-editing process and instead leaves a misleading dichotomy between "rewriting" and "leaving it in the drafts".
Blog posts should be written with an awareness to the audience, but not necessarily catering to them. Just enough awareness to say "y'know, someone else is going to read this, so maybe I should cut out a few paragraphs and get to my point a teensy bit quicker." Otherwise, comments are about the style of writing rather than the content, or about adjacent points that don't concern the main topic. And not being able to interact meaningfully with your audience is lame.
I explicitly refuse to have comments on my blog, so I certainly am not a poster-child for interacting meaningfully--or at all-with my audience.
But I do agree that rewriting does serve your audience.
http://braythwayt.com/2015/01/16/write-for-yourself-rewrite-...
Your blog post was far more effective at showing the differences between writing and editing, which is definitely far more nuanced than "fuck quality control." I agreed with her to a degree, and I definitely agree with you.
Looking at the reddit thread of your article, though, you're incorrect about not interacting with your audience. You absolutely did that. And suddenly, once you linked your article, I have become part of your audience. And you're interacting with me. (Good work.)
I don't advocate editing just to serve some imagined audience, either. You are your own audience, like it or not. And if your text is unclean, your thoughts incomprehensible, then what use is your blog post, even to yourself?
Well-written blogs are far more useful than stream of consciousness ones. I took far more out of your blog post than from the OP. I agree that "giving zero fucks is totally fine", as OP mentions, but polished posts are many times more useful.