Comment by mtlynch | Hacker News Reader

Comment by mtlynch | Hacker News Reader

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I agree that education is not storytelling, but I think that storytelling can be a useful tool for education.

A lot of Paul Graham and Joel Spolsky posts don't get straight to the point and usually do not follow an intro -> body -> conclusion format. A lot of them start with a story that makes the direction of the post unclear[0] or include long digressions whose value isn't immediately obvious.[1]

For a while, I struggled with this contradiction because I think good writing should quickly demonstrate the value a reader can expect, but I think Graham and Spolsky are excellent writers that frequently take their time in getting to their point.

The easy answer is that Graham and Spolsky are famous, so they can do whatever they want, and people will still read. I've come to think it's actually that writers like Graham and Spolsky are so good that the quality of the writing itself is the thing of value that keeps you interested even if you don't know what point they're going to make.

[0] https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/04/06/things-you-should-...

[1] https://paulgraham.com/worked.html

I would argue that Joel and Paul's blogs are not education, they are opinion pieces. The fact that many of these opinions have become widely accepted over time doesn't change the format, which is that they are argumentative writing rather than purely informative (as you'd find in a textbook or scientific paper).

And this is exactly what the article fails to account for... they make several blanket assertions that may well make sense for certain types of posts but may not for others.

My 2c is that rule #0 of writing advice should be to take all writing advice with a grain of salt and an eye towards context and audience.

Over the years, readers learned what to expect from Joel and Paul, which gave them freedom to continue writing in their own style. I'm curious how the same writing would be received today in a very different environment - much more crowded and driven more by social media than the open web, not to mention the shift of attention towards video. I just don't think writers today have access to the attention that tech bloggers of an earlier era built up.

I think you are getting confused with the format for the reader. Someone looking for a light read would prefer a entertaining read with the twist of learning something, someone looking to learn something will be annoyed at your prose and narration style. What you write is aimed, whenever you like it or not, to a person in a particular state of mind. The motivated to learn will want you to not tell them about your grandma when they are reading the stupid recipe.

I think that's a factor as well. If the reader has a specific goal in mind, and your blog post presents itself as a way for the reader to satisfy their goal, then the reader will probably have less patience for stories.

But to take Spolsky's "Things You Should Never Do" as an example, obviously nobody's Googling, "things to never do," clicking Joel's article, and then getting annoyed at Joel for not telling them immediately. They're finding the post on HN, RSS readers, forums, etc., where they didn't have a specific goal in mind beyond learning/entertainment, so the author has more room to take their time.

I found Joel Spolsky's blog through tons of snarky StackOverflow non-answers. I can't be alone in that.

To a certain demographic coming of age in the 2000s, yes all of this writing was considered pretentious garbage getting in the way of sincere attempts at learning. They laughed at us from the high ground.

I didn't really enjoy Joel's writing until years later into my career.

There is a balance. A short story can help understand. However you can go too far with stories. Joel strikes a good balance because it isn't long before you realize why the story is relevant and he cuts out a lot of details that are not relevant. He also is telling non-fiction stories, which adds additional credibility (unlike many blogs that are making up fiction stories)

For older readers, see also "Programming Pearls" by Jon Bentley (originally published the ACM journal, later reprinted as books).

With all due respect, PG and JS were titans of an era where attention spans were not short. I am not sure if that strategy would work in the LLM-era.

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