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Comment by pavs | Hacker News Reader

I dunno about others, but I am a slow reader, and this will probably take me about 20 minutes to finish reading. I have a general rule on sites like HN and Reddit, if it takes more than 10 minutes to read something I will probably not going to read it (unless it's extremely interesting, important or relevant to present time based on comments).

I spend about an hour on HN a day, in small bouts. Most of the time I will skim over titles to see if there is anything interesting, if there is and its a long read (like this one) I will save it to "Pocket" to read it later. I will probably get around to reading this few weeks or even a month from now.

I suspect, very few people will read it on the spot, which is why even interesting submissions like this doesn't get a lot of discussions.

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Ditto. This sounds like a great article, but it looks immensely dense. It's most definitely on my "To-read" list, but that rarely gets actually read through...

Also, although the author carries immense weight, and I'm sure the ideas put forth in the article are fantastic, what benefit will I get out of the article other than "hmmm, well that was interesting"? It's not a tutorial on a tool I can put into practice, or necessarily any sort of technique I can use in my day-to-day life (at least before reading, it seems this way). It looks like a philosophical article about the art of programming and being a programmer.

I love these kinds of articles, but their return on the large time investment required is ultimately not very large. This is in my relatively limited experience, of course.

These are two of the most depressing comment I've ever read, not just on Hackernews, but on the whole internet. So much so that I wonder if they were written with sarcasm that escapes me.

They represent a philosophy that is referenced often but always before as an unintentional consequence of our internal laziness -- a laziness that should be fought against. However here it is being presented as a conscious choice. Indeed a right, proper, and good, choice.

The commenters seem to be arguing that reading is only worth the time if the content has been distilled to its basic facts, and further that that facts need to be immediately actionable. Have we no room for soul? Do we lack the energy to take general concepts and apply them to new areas in new ways?

When we break a larger writing down and extract just the main theses, we make it easier and quicker to under understand, but we also neuter and even change the meaning. Sometimes what we learn or what we experience is subtle. Sometimes writing doesn't give us a todo list, but instead it ever-so-gently shades and nudges all our todo lists.

> The commenters seem to be arguing that reading is only worth the time if the content has been distilled to its basic facts, and further that that facts need to be immediately actionable. Have we no room for soul? Do we lack the energy to take general concepts and apply them to new areas in new ways?

You are reading too much into it. I (and probably the person you replied to) have nothing against long-form articles, as a matter of fact I prefer them.

On a typical day, I will spend 1-2 hours on a book, I will read many smaller articles here on HN and on Reddit, I will also check out my RSS reader, I will read work-related email, I will do actual work, I will train for my marathon (alternate day running and weights) which takes about 2 hours, spend time with my family, socialize, and hopefully get some sleep too. Its all about how you manage your time, not about distilling long-forms into bite-size chunks.

If given a choice between reading a long-form article online or reading a book, I will read a book.

There is only so much time in a day. There is so much to do. I save long article like this for my lazy or slow days to read.

Fair enough. Obviously I don't know your situation and I directed my rant too much at your specific comment and not the general issue that I really wanted to speak to.

The first comment suggests that the reason there aren't a lot of comments is because people save the article to read later. That really has nothing to do with the philosophy you're talking about.

As for the second, there's nothing wrong coming to HN for a certain kind of article, and overlooking others kinds. Do I have to read every article, on the chance that it affects me in a positive way, in order to avoid criticism?

> I suspect, very few people will read it on the spot, which is why even interesting submissions like this doesn't get a lot of discussions.

Unfortunate, but true. I prefer to batch up my online reading time so that I can get through the denser articles and still have time to read the five minute blog posts.

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