Comment by paulcole
5 years ago
I hate to break it to you, but you’re not writing Moby Dick at your office job. You’re trying to communicate a (possibly complex) idea in a way that another person can understand it and make a decision.
> Running what I've written, the codification of my thoughts, through a statistical homogenization machine is dystopian in a way I had never imagined.
This is why Grammarly exists.
And if you can't do it without Grammarly, maybe you shouldn't have that job.
My dude. I have worked with quite a few really smart engineers whose grasp on the English language was imperfect, though quite capable of communicating most points well enough. I would prefer it if I could take a little less time in my code reviews on copy editing, doing things like fixing plurality disagreements and false cognates.
An algorithm is isn't going to be able to clear up miscommunication more accurately than the person who receives the message.
6 replies →
Miscommunication destroys productivity and in the worst cases ruins end products by corrupting the development cycle.
Ultimately an organizational problem but I gotta say it gets very peeving to write 5 different solutions to the same ask because the other person is careless with their words.
Odd, I thought I responded elsewhere with this point -- but yes, I'd refine my point by saying Grammarly is probably a bad idea for internal communication, but perhaps fine where writing is the product.
And if you can’t code without Google, maybe you shouldn’t have that job.
Tools exist to help us. Use them.
> I hate to break it to you, but you’re not writing Moby Dick at your office job.
What if he does? Do you like generalization?
Read his writing. Moby Dick isn’t coming out of his keyboard unless he’s retyping it.