Hacker News Reader

Comment by jboggan | Hacker News Reader

"These women and men have come together to do brutal violence to the English language, to leave the spoken and written word bloodied and victimized on a cold cement floor, wishing for the sweet relief of death."

I will read anything this author writes. Thanks for spotlighting this blog.

Tip: if you want your blog READ instead of skimmed for buzzwords and facts, make sweet love to the English language. Then worry about your content.

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I'm sorry but I completely disagree with that. I got a distinct feeling that the author of this blog is in deep passionate love with himself and his writing, and the topic he is writing about is remote secondary to the flourish of his expression. I personally don't care too much about this flourish, when I get craving for it, I can read classic authors that tell real stories about fascinating things in great language and not a bit of snobbery about some geeks naming their companies wrong. When I read technical or around-technical article, I expect a decent command of English, but I expect the author to worry about delivering his point and not about loving his own voice so much that he can't stop embellishing and loses he sight of why he's doing it. Reporting and opera aria are different genres.

In this article, what is the point of it? That all startup ideas suck because they think too small? And the author instead thinks they should be doing... well, he doesn't. He just thinks they are named wrong, think wrong, dress wrong, speak wrong, live wrong and their future is wrong. Everything is wrong except for the one shining light that is the author of the article and his perfect whimsical metaphor-filled style. Bleh.

I get both of those impressions (your's and one up). Just because someone is an egocentric narcissist doesn't mean that they aren't on to something. In fact, as they say, it takes one to know one.

"...smart people I consider to be excellent writers—are unironically using the word “SPOTLIGHT” as a verb in an Hacker News thread."

I think you should figure out what content you want to convey first; throwing pretty descriptive words at a page with no content is a good way to get garbage.

I understand this sentiment. e e cummings and James Joyce might be interesting counter-examples, but then again they were not tech writers. I suppose that I mean incisive and beautiful prose will keep me coming back and paying attention to what you say (because it is a pleasure to read) rather than being lost in the flotsam and jetsam of articles bobbing to the surface of HN every day.

Anything worth writing is worth writing well.

But not everything is worth writing.

I would not even begin to disagree with you about the merits of beautiful prose, but would the article have been anything more than a collection of entertaining images and vitriol if the author hadn't been skewering a very real and obvious and silly trend?

Most of us have probably shaken our heads at some startup name or another, or rolled our eyes at a particularly unbearable lump of marketing-speak. So underneath all those pretty words and images lies a sentiment we understand and can sympathize with.

If you want your blog READ instead of skimmed for buzzwords and facts, write things worth writing.

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