[HN Gopher] You can watch how much I rewrite here
___________________________________________________________________
You can watch how much I rewrite here
Author : tchalla
Score : 298 points
Date : 2022-09-19 08:20 UTC (14 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (twitter.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (twitter.com)
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| Impressed by the "blocky" typing style, it is as if he has
| keyboard shortcuts for common words or syllables.
| ryanianian wrote:
| I don't know what software this is using, but that could be the
| history software considering entire edits as single deltas.
| Editors using CRDT or OT will commonly compress deltas like
| this.
| lantry wrote:
| could be a byproduct of the algo that's recording what he
| types. Instead of saving the timestamp of each keystroke, it
| does "every 500ms, save all the characters that have been typed
| in the last 500ms" or something like that.
|
| To be clear, this is speculation. I haven't actually looked at
| the code that creates the recording. Just pointing out that the
| process of recording often alters the recording itself.
| mattjaynes wrote:
| Link to the resulting essay (for those that quickly got
| distracted by the great content, like I did):
| http://www.paulgraham.com/13sentences.html
| ecmascript wrote:
| Twitter doesn't even let me click the link unless I signup or
| login. Great website.
| azangru wrote:
| Replace twitter.com with nitter.net in the url.
| kleiba wrote:
| That does not seem to be any different from how most people write
| I suppose?
| james-bcn wrote:
| It looks like a fairly inefficient way to write to me. What
| I've learnt is that writing and editing are two different
| things, and you shouldn't edit as you write. So you write a
| first draft quickly, without worrying about the exact words too
| much, and then edit. The reason this is better is because
| writing and editing use two different brain "modes" - writing
| is best done in diffuse mode because it is creative, whereas
| editing is best done in focused mode.
| tempestn wrote:
| It's certainly different from how I write. I do most of the
| repeated rewriting of each sentence in my head before typing it
| out, rather than after it's down. I'll go back and make edits,
| but generally only once a logical block is finished and I can
| read it all together.
|
| That's the cool thing about this; there's normally not much way
| to know how other people go about the process of writing.
| rpastuszak wrote:
| I built a tool for separating writing from editing:
| https://enso.sonnet.io
|
| It's the complete opposite of the site shared in the post, but
| people seem to like it.
| Reflecticon wrote:
| Hey,
|
| I'm a hobby writer and like your idea a lot! I love that you
| also make the text downloadable in a txt file.
|
| I always feel overwhelmed seeing the text I have written, being
| aware of what will await me when editing. I would love to have
| a program on my computer like yours (I'm using windows).
| Nothing special just an IDE that works exactly the way your
| website works (I'm not a programmer and love HN for content and
| comments like yours) I would even happily pay for it.
|
| Let me know if you're planning on doing an app and need a beta
| tester.
| OhHiMarkos wrote:
| Good idea! Will definitely try out Enso. Also, I was almost
| tempted to reach out for a quick talk and say hi! Maybe some
| other time I will schedule a 1-on-1! Kudos for being easily
| approachable. You seem like a fun and interesting person
| kieckerjan wrote:
| Excellent idea! I will give it a try.
| khobragade wrote:
| This is excellent. Thank you so much!
| debesyla wrote:
| Great idea, will try it out later today, but I have to share a
| cheap version hack of the same principle:
|
| I write with font size setting of 8pt. It's too small to read
| comfortably (thus I don't edit), but it still lets me see the
| overall structure and what I wrote.
| rpastuszak wrote:
| Hehe, love it, let me know if you liked it.
|
| I remember a blogger who used to dim her screen as much as
| possible when writing, which was one of the ideas that
| inspired me to build this thing. This helps with maintaining
| flow, but doesn't really touch the overall structure of the
| text.
| [deleted]
| fastball wrote:
| Direct link to the content[1] if you don't want to load twitter.
| Context is that this is a live view of Paul Graham writing his
| "Startups in 13 Sentences"[2] article in real(ish?) time.
|
| [1] https://byronm.com/13sentences.html
|
| [2] http://www.paulgraham.com/13sentences.html
| motohagiography wrote:
| Writing is also souding ideas out, so typically the first thing a
| reader of mine reads was the last thing I wrote, since part of
| the service of writing is having done that work for them.
|
| The addition I would make to this process is that I sometimes let
| comments sit, go do something else, and if I don't feel awesome
| about reading them when I've forgotten them, I delete them.
| Usually on controversial topics that I know I've been provoked
| into responding to, but also on other things. The key is to write
| something I don't cringe at reading after. Write in the voice of
| the person you would like to become, and then read it to reflect
| on whether you aimed high enough.
| fhe wrote:
| tip to anyone following the link: you can drag the progress bar
| at the top, and make the playback much faster.
|
| one observation: PG does plenty of local edits (reworking over
| and over one sentence), but not so much changing the order of
| sentences, or moving paragraphs around -- these are the things
| that I have always been told (such as in college writing
| workshops) I should be doing. maybe such "macro" edits are not
| needed in such a short piece. and truth be told I never found
| much need for them either, even for pieces that are quite long.
| SyneRyder wrote:
| I'm surprised to find that I actually laughed out loud, midway
| through watching the edits. I didn't expect to find humor in the
| rewriting process.
|
| And a lesson I got from the edit that made me laugh: don't tell
| people what you're _not_ saying, just tell them what you 're
| saying.
|
| (Or, more succinctly: Don't equivocate.)
| uberux wrote:
| What is this tool you've used to record the writing? Reminds me
| of Procreate record feature
| rroot wrote:
| EtherPad, see this comment:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32896112
| m_ke wrote:
| I prefer the bullet point list that he started with to the long
| form essay that buries the message.
| dcchambers wrote:
| First - I LOVE this. Very few people outside of prolific writers
| understand just how much "writing" is actually "editing" and "re-
| writing" over and over again. It's awesome to see the process of
| a prolific tech writer like Paul Graham.
|
| Second - I have used asciinema to record various writing and/or
| coding sessions in Vim, but does anyone know if there's a native
| vim plugin for recording "replays"/playback sessions like this?
| Closest I found is https://github.com/chrisbra/Replay but it
| hasn't been updated in some time.
| ohgodplsno wrote:
| [deleted]
| _def wrote:
| Not helpful
| Ensorceled wrote:
| Their "About" says "stay mad" ... which is all you need to
| know.
| ohgodplsno wrote:
| Ensorceled wrote:
| I check on profiles before I flag to see if someone is 1)
| a troll or 2) a contributor having a bad day or 3) maybe
| I'm misreading their comment.
|
| Saying "stay mad" is VERY common troll behaviour.
| somehnacct3757 wrote:
| While we're on the topic of writing styles, has anyone
| ever told you your writing style is very similar to
| Ignatius J. Reilly from A Confederacy of Dunces?
| closewith wrote:
| I guess you don't see the irony of your comment?
| ohgodplsno wrote:
| aaaaaaaaaaab wrote:
| Ok, but do you do Lisp like Paul????
|
| That's what I thought!
| ohgodplsno wrote:
| BurningFrog wrote:
| The thing that has improved my writing the most, both code and
| text, is training my "Inner Rubber Duck".
|
| While writing, I constantly let my IRD read what I have, as if
| it's a stranger reading for the first time. Then I adjust until
| it's out of complaints.
|
| I don't know if this is a common technique, but it's really
| worked for me.
| jalino23 wrote:
| could you tell us more about this ird
| ryanianian wrote:
| Debug aloud like you're explaining the situation to an
| engineer sitting right next to you. Replace that engineer
| with a rubber duck. Write as though you're talking to your
| reader sitting right next to you. Replace that reader with a
| rubber duck.
| dang wrote:
| This was done in EtherPad and there were a couple HN threads at
| the time:
|
| _The most surprising thing I 've seen in 2009, courtesy of
| Etherpad_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=495336 - Feb
| 2009 (126 comments)
|
| _Watch Paul Graham write his latest essay_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=557191 - April 2009 (22
| comments)
| Phemist wrote:
| It's a great shame that these links now only show the etherpad
| landing page!
| 867-5309 wrote:
| unfortunately not this gem
|
| https://etherpad.fileplanet.com
| 6stringmerc wrote:
| Wait, so he doesn't print a draft, go outside with a pen and have
| a smoke or vape and read through it that way for flow and
| coherence?
|
| Hmm, okay.
|
| If people wonder what I'm referring to, think about it in music
| terms: you don't listen to a song in just one environment
| usually. There are speakers, headphones, your car, etc. so it's a
| good idea to mix a track and test it on a couple.
|
| It is my perspective that coming up in a print culture the best
| way to slow down and be critical of self produced work is to
| change the medium slightly. Thus the print out. It's the same
| content but you are digesting it a different way. In this regard
| I would consider my approach superior to Paul's and suggest you
| give it a try for your next important email, letter, or essay.
| twobitshifter wrote:
| A similar trick is to use the read aloud feature, to read you
| what you wrote back. Hearing it out loud changes the medium and
| makes spotting mistakes really easy.
| samatman wrote:
| I used to edit books with fanfold printouts and WordPerfect, so
| I'm familiar with the act.
|
| I find it quite sufficient to compile the text to HTML and read
| it in the browser, while editing the source. It gives the same
| shift of context from writing to editing, and it's more closely
| equivalent to hand-proofing galley prints, since it's in the
| form the audience ultimately sees.
|
| I would love an iPad app designed around the old-fashioned
| proof editing flow, using the stylus. I've never seen one and
| don't know if there's a market for it, but I'd use it every
| week.
| SMAAART wrote:
| The making of the sausage is long, messy, and a lot of hard work.
| dang wrote:
| I was in the room when he started typing this - I walked into YC
| that day to be met by PG bubbling with delight about how Etherpad
| had implemented playback and he was about to try it out. He was
| like a little kid about to get a birthday present. IIRC, he
| wanted it so _he_ could see how he actually writes.
|
| I watched over his shoulder for a little while, but it feels
| intrusive to be standing there breathing down someone's neck
| while they think and write, and hey, I could just play it back
| later, so I left.
|
| Memory is fallible after so much time but I think he told me
| later that he wouldn't keep using it because he was so used to
| vi. I want to add that he was going to try to get the Etherpad
| guys to implement vi shortcuts but that feels suspiciously like
| the sort of embellishment that creeps into a story years later.
| giansegato wrote:
| in replit we just implemented playback mode, it's called
| history mode, and we do happen to have vi shortcuts (couldn't
| live without them)
|
| (I'd expect pg to know this already, but hey, here it is)
| yuan43 wrote:
| > ... He was like a little kid about to get a birthday present.
| IIRC, he wanted it so he could see how he actually writes.
|
| Was that the intent of the feature, or something else?
|
| It seems like this might be coupled to some kind of teaching
| program that helps you become a more efficient writer. Maybe
| something that could recap your session and offer a focused
| lesson on, say writing a paragraph from a prompt.
| dang wrote:
| I'm sure it wasn't the entire rationale for the feature but I
| think it's why pg himself wanted it.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=495348
| Agentlien wrote:
| > Memory is fallible after all this time but I think he
|
| Waiting with bated breath for the continuation. Not often you
| see dang write about things which aren't moderation.
|
| _edit: After seeing the continuation I 'm just nodding along.
| Very few things could make me abandon Vim._
| mattmaroon wrote:
| Ha! I once saw PG writing an essay at his home and he told me
| what it was about, then when it came out it was so radically
| different that it felt like not much must have remained. But I
| didn't watch long because it does feel intrusive watching
| someone write. It's like you're reading their mind.
| Izkata wrote:
| > Memory is fallible after so much time but I think he told me
| later that he wouldn't keep using it because he was so used to
| vi.
|
| Now I'm wondering if there's a length limit to vim macros...
| an_ko wrote:
| If you mean recorded commands, those are stored in registers,
| which from a quick look at the source [1] seem to just
| contain strings. So I would imagine their length is only
| bounded by memory.
|
| So I suppose you could just qq, write your entire thing, then
| "qp to get the whole history. I wonder if there's a tool that
| replays commands in slow motion, or some neat way to add
| sleeps to a command sequence.
|
| [1]: https://github.com/vim/vim/blob/master/src/register.c
| bumblebritches5 wrote:
| deckard1 wrote:
| I've always found it odd that people want to share this sort of
| thing. Such as live coding videos or live editing.
|
| People change behavior when they are being watched. Even when I
| know I'm being recorded and no one is watching, I feel a bit of
| the spotlight effect going on. I don't know that I could actually
| record my honest self without being performative. I wouldn't be
| free to do anything that might be embarrassing. Even in pair
| programming or coding interviews. It's an incredibly intimate
| thing, to watch someone take their brain noise and broadcast it,
| raw.
| whateveracct wrote:
| It's Sartre's "The Look"
| stronglikedan wrote:
| > people want to share this sort of thing
|
| > People change behavior when they are being watched
|
| Maybe they want to share this sort of thing, so they can
| practice _not_ changing behavior while they 're watched.
| seizethecheese wrote:
| I don't find it odd at all. I think it's illuminating.
|
| Sure there's an observation effect, but this is 1000x more
| informational than if Paul were to write an essay: "how I write
| essays".
| solarmist wrote:
| Which he's done, if I'm remembering correctly.
| [deleted]
| babyshake wrote:
| Especially for someone you've never met before, right after
| getting through a 30 second "getting to know you" introduction
| where you don't say anything of substance.
| kieckerjan wrote:
| I am a little surprised by the crazy amount of editing going on
| during writing. It is obvious that this way of writing is not
| possible (or at least practical) if the medium is pen and paper.
| Is that a good thing or not? I personally try to resist the urge
| to rewrite during the writing proper and postpone editing until
| after I am done putting down the main ideas. At least on a
| paragraph by paragraph basis.
|
| But each to his own. PG is obviously a prolific and successful
| writer, so for him this works.
| mattmaroon wrote:
| When I wrote frequently, I was the exact opposite. I couldn't
| make myself keep going down a road once I knew it wasn't
| leading where I wanted to end up. It was like I'd get halfway
| to where I wanted to go and then realize I wanted to go
| somewhere better.
|
| If I tried to just write it all and edit it after, it would
| feel like I forced myself to a conclusion. I wrote not just to
| express what I thought but to figure out what I thought.
| Putting the words on the page just has this way of clarifying
| my thinking, and I never end up where I thought I was going to
| when I started.
| breck wrote:
| > When I wrote frequently
|
| Why'd you stop? I always enjoyed your thinking.
| codingdave wrote:
| Being old enough to have gotten through college writing papers
| on pen and paper, you can still do some editing along the way.
| Use index cards, as an example - you write an outline in a
| notebook, you write out sentences and paragraphs for each point
| on an index card, and then you can shuffle the cards around
| until you nail down the order in which you want to present the
| content. Once you have it down, you re-write it all onto paper.
| And often, then mark up your draft and re-write it again with
| corrections.
|
| I would never go back to that process, of course. It was
| painful then, and would feel even worse now. But it was
| possible.
| sicp-enjoyer wrote:
| Are there any advantageous to that process that you think you
| lost?
| Ensorceled wrote:
| Not the OC, but for me what I lost was the identification
| of a set of clear, discrete points (with references) that I
| initially thought contributed to the essay/document.
|
| Sometimes I discarded the nuggets as better ones came
| along. Sometimes the thesis subtly changed as I gathered
| these nuggets. Sometimes the layout changed drastically as
| I shuffled my index cards. All before I even committed to
| my essay structure.
| userulluipeste wrote:
| Not OP, but having some similar experience I'd say being
| more grueling, it forced the writer to accumulate
| experience faster. I'd add that besides the management of
| the aforementioned snippets that could be copied in at same
| point, part of the snippet-level editing, that nowadays
| goes on the computer, before it was just done mentally.
| brudgers wrote:
| It might of been Vonnegut who divided writers into bashers and
| swoopers...this is bashing -- swoopers tend to free write and
| edit later. But bashers can also edit later, too.
|
| For a writer, the computer (or not) is simply a matter of
| process just like bashing or swooping. And the world is
| entirely different for a full time professional writer than for
| ordinary people who write (I have made the statistical
| assumption that you are not a full time professional writer).
|
| I mean the waste basket full of the morning's failed pages is a
| real thing, and if your goal is 500 good words a day, you're
| potentially in the novel-a-year range.
|
| For what it's worth, the main ideas can go into an outline -- a
| step the computer encourages skipping. Here it looks like
| Graham was working from an outline via the ten idea structure.
| Maybe all first drafts are not equal?
| nico wrote:
| > divided writers into bashers and swoopers...this is bashing
| -- swoopers tend to free write and edit later
|
| It's fascinating to see such a similar structure in so many
| things.
|
| For example, in programming: breadth-first vs depth-first
| when navigating a tree structure, or in nature: the cycles of
| the slime mold looking for food.
| solveit wrote:
| Or in programming, the people who first swoop out a more-
| or-less complete program that's closer to pseudocode than
| something that's meant to compile, and then fix things
| until hopefully the program works, versus the bashers who
| only write mostly correct code.
| splatzone wrote:
| Learning to separate the writer from the editor is the single
| best piece of writing advice I ever got.
|
| For me, if I edit while I'm writing, self doubt gets in the way
| and I can't get a draft finished.
| amelius wrote:
| GPT-3 will probably soon fix this. Write once -> auto rewrite ->
| proof read -> done.
| hagbarth wrote:
| Is it a thing that needs fixed though? I find that rewriting
| helps me think and solidify my ideas.
| mdonahoe wrote:
| AI will fix human thinking the same way I fixed my cats.
| tempodox wrote:
| Actual site:
|
| https://byronm.com/13sentences.html
|
| Avoids the senseless friction of the twitter link.
| darkerside wrote:
| It would be really interesting to have this slowed down and
| annotated, like DVD commentary. I saw a few things that were like
| little flashes of insight into PG's mind, and it would be really
| cool to hear them elaborated. Simple example: changing a word to
| "claiming" instead of just "saying". I think he rightly assumed
| that people would feel he was less invested in what he was saying
| with the original term.
|
| Multiply insights like that by every edit he makes, and assume
| most edits are significantly less obvious, and you end up with
| some seriously interesting content.
|
| Reminds me a bit of Hunter S Thompson famously typing out a The
| Great Gatsby in full, just so he could feel what it was like to
| write a masterpiece.
| itsmemattchung wrote:
| 2 minutes in, Paul types out [xfs] and then later [xtc] -- what
| do you think these symbols are for?
|
| My best guess from watching the video is that they are temporary
| place holders, breadcrumbs he leaves himself to return to,
| allowing him not to break his flow/train of thought. If that's
| the case, then the technique reminds me of Neil Strauss's "Power
| of the TK":
|
| When you get suck on a word, or cant' think of the right fact,
| what shouldn't you do?
|
| Don't stop. Just type, TK.
| justinlloyd wrote:
| Have been using TK for about four decades of writing, not sure
| where I picked it up from. An editor who was working with me in
| my teens I think. More so recently (the past 20+ years) [todo]
| and [info] and [note] when I have a tangential thought that I
| need to return to. Interestingly, during an interview with some
| of the writer's of Star Trek: The Next Generation, or perhaps
| even Levar Burton, they mentioned that many of the scripts
| would simply have "TECH" in them for inserting random,
| technically plausible sounding gibberish that didn't advance
| the story but could be set aside as a decision point whilst
| working on the script.
| svnpenn wrote:
| I find the UL is actually better for this use case
| kosievdmerwe wrote:
| Finding `tk` is much easier than `ul`, since the latter is
| very often part of words, whereas the former very rarely is.
| dang wrote:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=495397
| alaaalawi wrote:
| Sometimes FORTH shines here. Space is the delimiter. and
| consequently you can mumble the name on the keyboard without
| stopping at the moment. you have mix of all digits alphabet and
| symbols into one token. |alpha| x^y ~x #items [a-b] however
| YMMV
| jhchen wrote:
| IIRC they were random letters that do not occur naturally in
| English words, in order to serve as easily searchable
| annotation/footnote identifiers. He somewhat already knew they
| were extra details that would not make it to the main body.
| Later these get changed [1], [2], etc but you don't want to use
| these at the outset due to possible reordering/deleting.
|
| Source: I was one of the founders of Stypi and we asked him
| when porting the data from Etherpad to Stypi.
|
| https://techcrunch.com/2011/08/09/yc-funded-stypi-is-etherpa...
| keyle wrote:
| What's interesting is I thought people write entire paragraphs
| and then rewrite entire paragraphs.
|
| Here the case is, from the first sentence, it gets rewritten
| 20,000 times.
|
| I should rewrite the last paragraph it's a bit wonky but I'm on
| mobile and I got kids to put to bed. Such is life.
| whiddershins wrote:
| The only bummer about this is it is such an atypical essay for
| Paul Graham. He rarely writes lists, and is pretty outspoken
| about why outlines can be harmful.
|
| I would love to see a playback of him writing a more exploratory
| essay, where perhaps the information wasn't as concrete in his
| mind before hand.
| _emacsomancer_ wrote:
| Seeing the demo (and the vi(m) comments) made me wonder if
| someone had implemented this sort of editing playback
| functionality in Emacs.
|
| It's not clear that anyone has exactly, but it's certainly
| something that's been talked about [1], [2], including on HN
| itself 13 years ago when pg's etherpad writing session was
| discussed [3]. (Though I can't find any evidence of the
| threatened minor mode.)
|
| [1]: https://emacs.stackexchange.com/questions/47495/how-to-
| play-... [2]:
| https://www.reddit.com/r/emacs/comments/tnhvs7/replay_macro_...
| [3]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=495751
| carlsborg wrote:
| Time to figure out the 13 core insights: decades. Time to flesh
| them out in an essay: 15 minutes. Thanks for sharing.
|
| Idea: animated documents. It starts with the core points. and if
| you have more reading time you move the slider and more detail
| appears, highlighted.
| perihelions wrote:
| - _" It starts with the core points. and if you have more
| reading time you move the slider and more detail appears,"_
|
| That sounds like visibility cycling in org-mode (?)
| atoav wrote:
| This is one of those things when freelancing in creative
| professions. There is a particular (business) type of customer
| who will always be like: "Why should I pay you so much? It only
| took you 4 hours!"
|
| The thing is in certain fields it takes dekades to be able to
| do it in just 4 hours -- or it takes dekades to do it at all.
| If you don't like that, go to your nephew and let him do it as
| an exercise.
|
| It is worse the more people think "they could do it themselves"
| -- e.g. graphic design is one of those fields where customer
| interaction can become absolutely exhausting if you have the
| bad luck of gaining the wrong customer base.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| There's the old story I've heard about the retired engineer
| (apocryphal, I'm sure):
|
| This engineer worked for a corporation for 40 years, and
| retired.
|
| A few months into his retirement, his old company frantically
| calls him, begging him to come in, and help fix an issue with
| the system he worked on. Apparently, the new team had managed
| to hose it, and couldn't figure out how to fix it.
|
| He comes in, sits down at a terminal, looks at it for five
| minutes, and says "Here's the issue. If you do this, it
| should be fixed..."
|
| He then presents an invoice for $10,000.
|
| The beancounters go "There's no way we can pay $10,000 for
| five minutes work! Itemize it!"
|
| He sits down, scribbles a bit, and presents an invoice that
| says: Time to fix bug: 5 minutes. $20
| Six years of college, and forty years of experience, so I can
| fix a bug in five minutes: $9,980
| tempodox wrote:
| If anything, the 6 years of college and 40 years of
| experience are way underpriced at $9,980 :)
| loloquwowndueo wrote:
| Totally apocryphal since there are variants for everything
| from automotive engineers to plumbers. But it's fantastic
| if that's the point you need to make after someone can't
| believe you did something so quickly and refuses to pay.
| cosmodisk wrote:
| I did something for my ceo a few months ago. He was surprised
| I managed to do it so fast. I did tell him it's rather
| easy...with 7 years of experience.
| silvestrov wrote:
| Database schema design is the same: the best design often
| looks very obvious when presenting it, but the road to it can
| be long and difficult.
|
| Except that in this case your clients are other developers.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| Same with well factored code.
|
| The longer I work on a piece of code, the simpler, more
| easy to read, and less error prone it becomes. None of that
| work is visible in the end product.
|
| It probably looked more impressive and complex half way
| through.
| jbverschoor wrote:
| Well, they can. But that means we'd still be on geocities, or
| everyone is using the same Wordpress theme
| stavros wrote:
| I made something like what you describe, except you click on
| topics rather than use a slider:
|
| https://skorokithakis.github.io/expounder/
| jboynyc wrote:
| Nicky Case's Nutshell works similarly -- and can even be
| recursive!
|
| https://ncase.me/nutshell/
| FerociousTimes wrote:
| Thanks for the self-esteem boost in this early morning, PG. I
| totally needed it.
|
| I always beat myself up that I am not a quick, efficient and
| articulate enough as a writer and I always to take some time to
| organize and reorganize my thoughts and sentences but when I see
| I am not alone in this and there are even native speakers who
| struggle with this aspect of communications despite being domain
| experts, I feel good about myself.
| pugshrug wrote:
| spoiler wrote:
| I agree with the "don't just upvote cause they're famous"
| sentiment, just because PG is well known here. Ignoring that,
| he is a good essayist (regardless of whether people do or don't
| agree with his opinions).
|
| I think it's good that people can see how "messy" and human his
| process is, though.
|
| It's also a humbling reminder that if you don't get it right
| the first time, you shouldn't get discouraged and try again!
| Ensorceled wrote:
| > There's nothing particularly outstanding or intriguing about
| this. Most people will rewrite and rewrite while working on an
| essay.
|
| I found it fascinating and insightful, I probably also edit my
| own writing as much as this author does but this is the first
| real visualization of that process I've seen that drives home
| just how MUCH editing goes on.
|
| > Just because it's His Lord Majesty Paul Graham doing
| something mundane, doesn't mean you have to post it here. Or
| upvote it.
|
| Conversely, just because Graham is the subject doesn't make it
| unworthy of discussion and also doesn't require derision
| directed at the people who found it interesting.
| rroot wrote:
| One could say similar things (albeit stronger) about your
| comment.
|
| Nowhere does it say it's outstanding. It's definitely
| intriguing to watch, according to me and the HN people who
| voted it to the front page.
|
| Why do you title him His Lord Majesty?
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