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Software development topics I've changed my mind on

(chriskiehl.com)
873 points belter | 1 comments | 05 Feb 25 09:50 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source
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latexr ◴[05 Feb 25 11:39 UTC] No.42947128[source]▶
> Most won't care about the craft. Cherish the ones that do, meet the rest where they are

> (…)

> People who stress over code style, linting rules, or other minutia remain insane weirdos to me. Focus on more important things.

What you call “stressing over minutiae” others might call “caring for the craft”. Revered artisans are precisely the ones who care for the details. “Stressing” is your value judgement, not necessarily the ground truth.

What you’re essentially saying is “cherish the people who care up to the level I personally and subjectively think is right, and dismiss everyone who cares more as insane weirdos who cannot prioritise”.

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ghc ◴[05 Feb 25 14:36 UTC] No.42949006[source]▶
To reduce your argument to its essence, you're saying typesetting is part of the craft of writing. I've yet to meet an author who believes this (other than enjoying editing their own work as output from a typewriter), and I think the same broadly applies to code. It's not that everyone thinks these things are unimportant, it's that caring deeply about doing them a particular way is orthogonal to the craft. It's something that has long been lampooned (tabs vs. spaces, braces, etc.) as weird behavior.
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stonemetal12 ◴[05 Feb 25 14:55 UTC] No.42949278[source]▶
More than one writer refuses to use a computer, preferring typewriters. Harlan Ellison learned how to repair typewriters after he could no longer find anyone to fix his. Stephen King wrote Dreamcatcher with a fountain pen.

Authors totally obsess over details that seem irrelevant to people outside that craft.

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1. ghc ◴[06 Feb 25 14:05 UTC] No.42962423[source]▶
Those are tools you use to write, not typesetting. It's equivalent to wanting to code on paper or use a specific editor. Cognitive connection to tools is a real thing, and I know a number of authors who really can't form a mental connection with their writing if not using their tool of choice.

That doesn't mean it's normal for them only use a certain typewriter because of its typeface, insist a publisher use Garamond to typeset their book for publication, or refuse to write without a certain margin.

To bring it closer to programming, in collaborative writing especially (think manual writing at large corporations), nobody is insisting that everyone indents paragraphs their way because it's better. As long as there's consistency those matters are best left to the printer. When I was younger I knew a lot of technical writers who in fact really disliked the move to Word from traditional word processors, because they didn't want to be distracted by those things.