I prefer «reduces uncertainty» to «reduces ambiguity». The problem isn't ambiguous specifications, it's simply that there are too many unknowns to just do the work at this point.
The author talks about the shaping of the work, so I guess this is implicit.
(author here) Apologies, I've (maybe mistakenly) put dead links for various essays that are works-in-progress, in order to figure out what to prioritize. I know it's annoying, but it does give me very good signal about what people want to read. For example, 2% of people clicked the essay `/hard`, but only 1% of people have clicked on the essay for `/expert_aesthetics`. So I'm frantically trying to finish `/hard` before a streamer reads the main essay tomorrow.
If I can ask for constructive critique, how annoyed are you? The metrics are really useful to me, but I don't want to be an arsehole <3
I agree that mentoring is hard, and I want to read your take.
I wonder if we agree on expert aesthetics or not. You write:
> Experts tend to have an aesthetic preference towards technically challenging work rather than simple-but-interesting work, and I’ve written more about this phenomenon here: expert aesthetics.
When I read the passage the first time, I thought you meant "experts prefer to work on hard problems in order to arrive at simple solutions". But that's not what you're saying!
> I agree that mentoring is hard, and I want to read your take.
Thanks for the vote of confidence (: I'm kicking myself for not figuring out a mailing list before this essay went viral, but I'll cross-post the essay on my substack (https://beyarkay.substack.com/) when it comes out, so you can sign up there to get an email.
> I wonder if we agree on expert aesthetics or not. You write:
So I'm coining "expert aesthetics" as a relatively unused phrase that I can put my own connotations onto. There'll be more in the essay (; but at a high level, I've observed that, as someone becomes an expert in a field, their sense for what's "beautiful" in that field changes, and _generally_ it starts to focus on things that are technically challenging. That is, experts (IME) tend to find technically difficult things _aesthetically_ beautiful, even though novices might not care one bit about the technical skill required.
Examples might help: Wine connoisseurs preferring wine from specific regions or made using specific techniques, while casual drinkers just want something that tastes good. Fashion designers preferring something that's different from last year and riffs off of the current styles, while the general public just want the same old same old. Painters taking delight in still lifes that perfectly capture the reflection of light through a wine glass, while most people just want a pretty sunset or portrait for their wall.
This is all still in flux, but that's the gist of what I'm calling "expert aesthetics".
I think it would be a lot politer if the target page was clearer. As it is, I could be 'voting' on a draft or it could just be plain broken and the intended page somewhere else.
Personally, I think it would make more sense to just put up what you have explicitly noted as drafts etc, and count the 'votes' that way.
Thanks for the feedback, I'm just using a static site generator so have limited flexibility, but I'll see what I can do to make it clear that something is a WIP vs a true 404.
PS: I love your writing, thank you so much for putting it out there (:
> I would love a language that has this gradual evolutional abstracting as a core concern. That makes it easy. Where you can start from simplest imperative code and easily abstract it as the need for this arises.
This is about how I write Clojure.
I start out with some code that does the thing I want. Either effectfull code that "does the thing" or functions from data to data.
After a while, I feel like I'm missing a domain operation or two. At that point I've got an idea about what kind of abstraction I'm missing.
Rafael Dittwald describes the process of looking for domain operations and domain entities nicely here:
Consider sending him an E-mail, he responded when I thanked him for exactly this book a few years ago! There's an "E-mail me" link on the left sidebar at http://www.catb.org/~esr/.
No, don't summarize. Remix! Write about your own ideas!
Your mind is a living collection of your own ideas, and a history of their significance to your prior life. Not a dead library of pointers to other dead libraries.
Books are great. But you shoudn't outsource your brain. The learning happens when you think for yourself. Reading is good. Thinking about what you've read is even better. But don't stop with the summary! Go further. Apply it to your context. Try it, it's fun.
I don’t disagree. I think this article isn’t written for people like me.
What I mean is I f someone is already remixing, they’re already writing about what they read and probably don’t need advices from articles like this because they already read differently from what the author imagined.
On the other hand, the article encourages people to write about what they read outside a formal academic context, and most people don’t have that habit.
To put it another way, writers don’t need rationale to write. But writers are not the target audience.
IMHO realistically for most people the ratio between "your own ideas" and everything else should be like 5% or so. If you're exceptionally gifted maybe up to 20%.. (unless you're writing fiction)
If you mash together two ideas, is the new composite idea yours?
I'd say it's yours. In that frame, there are lots of ideas.
Lets assume there are 10 000 known ideas. Then there's 10^8 combinations of two ideas, and 10^12 combinations of three ideas. That's a lot of ideas, even for the internet! I bet not all of them are named. And different people are going to frame ideas differently.
I also believe trying to form your ideas in reference to existing knowledge is a great way to learn existing knowledge.
The author talks about the shaping of the work, so I guess this is implicit.