Comment by kevinpet
5 years ago
That's still lazy writing. Every blog should be written with the assumption it will be encountered by a non-specialist. Expanding abbreviations on first use and offering a brief explanation of jargon is enough to let these readers know if the article is something they are interested in.
Every blog? That's silly. People are allowed to have conversations about niche topics that you are not familiar with. You aren't the audience of every blog.
People are allowed and encouraged to speak freely about anything on the internet, but people seem to forget that this is the world wide web, and writers can't control who in the world shows up to their blog or site. With a little help, someone who might not be in the core audience, might actually enjoy or learn something. If everything is written with jargon and abbreviations with no context, it's really just lazy inconsiderate writing.
It never ceases to amaze me how many websites for restaurants or whatever neglect to mention basic things like what state (and country) they're in. Even newspaper web sites assume that we know that the "Chronicle" or the "Ledger" or whatever generic name is the local paper for East Bumblefuck.
> With a little help, someone who might not be in the core audience [...]
Which they can easily provide themselves.
> If everything is written with jargon and abbreviations with no context [...]
It is not, for the intended audience.
That's true, but most people underestimate how opaque their writing can be even to other experts. It doesn't mean you have to explain every piece of jargon, but you can often greatly improve the clarity of your writing, including for expert readers, by targeting at least a few levels of expertise below where you think your audience is. We all have gaps in our knowledge that will seem basic or obvious to others, no matter how expert we are in a topic.
Yep. Its the paradox that the more you understand something, the harder it is to teach it because its more work to empathise with people who don't know the concept.
Anyway, blog author here - sorry I didn't explain CRDTs earlier in the piece. It didn't occur to me that people would be confused.
https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Inferential_distance
But also, the blog post should be able to focus on it's own business logic so to speak.
The same arguments for and against using libraries apply here, and it's up to the author which works best for their piece.
This is what introductory paragraphs/sections/chapters are for. Someone already well acquainted with the subject matter can quickly skim through them, while others less familiar with it get a quick catch-up.
I agree. But that's not always the best solution.
Just like libraries, sometimes it is and sometimes it isn't the best approach.
For example, in a "How to do $BASIC_THING in python" article, putting an intro of "This is what a variable is" may not be a bad idea. Meanwhile, in a "Writing an operating system from scratch in an esolang I wrote" article, maybe you'd be better off linking to previous blog posts or other resources.
Obviously these are both extreme examples, but I think it's still a valid view.