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Comment by zoya99 | Hacker News Reader

Hello everyone! This is my post! I'm flattered and honored that it resonated with many of you. Since I wrote that post, I followed my curiosity to become a software engineer myself. After doing that work for a few years, I've found myself missing working in a more writing-heavy role. If you're looking for an excellent technical writer, developer advocate, or another role that blends communication expertise and technical skills, let me know! You can contact me through the form on my website (https://evaparish.com/contact) or via LinkedIn.

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I really got a lot out of the article. I think it will help my write more succinctly and clearly and to be better understood.

One question: after writing the sentence “I really got a lot out of the article.”, I wondered: is this extraneous? Is this clear? Am I saying precisely what I mean? And I think, yes, I meant exactly what I said, and I went into detail in the following sentence. I am just curious what you think.

Your first paragraph is clear, indeed the first sentence is the gist, the second explains it in more detail. The second paragraph -- the question and own answer -- seems a bit superfluous to me.

I am not the author, and am sharing feedback because you asked with honest curiosity.

Your writing is not clear to me. Using the word “really” is extraneous. Using “I think” is also extraneous; I assumed these are your thoughts.

As the author notes, replace “it” with “the article”, or better yet a specific quote or idea distilled from the article.

Helped “my write” should be helped “me write”. You use two -ly adverbs, which could be avoided by restructuring the sentence.

You also have a list of two (succinct and clear) and then a single item (better understood). Consider breaking these two thoughts into separate sentences.

I really (err, vehemently) disagree with this feedback.

> Your writing is not clear to me. Using the word “really” is extraneous.

What's not clear? He said the article helped him, it seems pretty clear to me. The "really" was for emphasis, which is fine.

> Using “I think” is also extraneous; I assumed these are your thoughts.

"I think" indicates the degree of certainty. The author is uncertain but deems it likely.

> As the author notes, replace “it” with “the article”, or better yet a specific quote or idea distilled from the article.

The previous sentence says "the article", and the next one says "it" to avoid repetition. Saying "the article" twice would be awkward.

Very odd feedback, given how obviously out of place the corrected sentence would look.

This reminds me a lot of the writing advice from Jean-luc Doumont’s lecture/workshop 'Clear, accurate, concise writing'.

You using HTTP in the example without explaining it, was really funny. Was that joke on purpose?

This feels like a passive aggressive dig, and I don't think it's an insightful critique of the article.

When you write anything, you have to assume your audience is at some baseline of understanding the topic. Otherwise, every software article would have to begin by explaining what a computer is.

In an article about optimizing web performance, it seems like a reasonable assumption that the reader would would already understand what "HTTP" means even if they don't recognize the abbreviation "TTFB."

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