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Comment by onion2k | Hacker News Reader

You might not be able to force people to write well, but you can help them not write badly. That's the point of apps like this one - mediocre is better than bad. Once someone has improved their writing to the point where this app is no longer useful they can easily switch to something else.

Writing is a skill that few people have really learnt to do well. For them, following some "random rules" will improve what they write.

Regarding writing 500 line functions in code: very occasionally you need that, but there's nothing wrong with an IDE that points it out and asks if it's really a good idea, and for new developers who would do that sort of thing all the damn time it'd be very useful in improving what they come up with.

Learn the rules first, then learn when they don't apply.

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Forcing somebody to write short sentences wouldn't improve his writing.

Yeah it does. Long sentences are harder to read. Bad writers write too many long sentences, and it makes their writing difficult to parse. So just forcing them to write shorter sentences will improve their writing a great deal.

That said, a good writer will know when using a long sentence is the right choice for emphasis. And there's no way this program could ever develop that level of good judgement. This program isn't good for writers. It's good for non writers who want to quickly improve their shitty writing without effort.

> Bad writers write too many long sentences, and it makes their writing difficult to parse. So just forcing them to write shorter sentences will improve their writing a great deal.

See, I don't think the above is any better as two sentences, and I think it works better as one. Perhaps I just don't like starting sentences with "So".

You can't force someone to write well by any means.

Good writing is sensitive to multiple contexts and multiple rules. Essentially, one has to be able to shift-gears and notice the results of your writing, how your audience will receive it.

The only way a person becomes a good writer is through self-direct study. A bad writer who writes long sentences without noticing the results will remain a bad writer if someone forces them to divide their sentences, because they are still not being aware of the results of their writing.

All that said, a lot of people learning to write create long sentences because they don't yet have the skill to communicate with shorter sentences. Demanding that a person break up their sentences into smaller chunks can help them become more skillful - if they put in the effort to learn this.

Unless I missed something, this app doesn't force edits, it merely highlights things that writers should take a second look at.

Showing someone overly long and complex sentences, and pointing out examples of passive voice could only improve an editing process. Once you manually point out problems, the burden to change/leave as is falls onto the writer.

I find on average that it does, especially with less skilled writers.

Take Twitter for example. It didn't take me long to realise just how fluffy and useless my writing was...

You couldn't be more wrong.

I know people already pointed this out, but I'll add my 2 cents: Every single teacher I've had told me to shorten my sentences.

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