
Black and White - llambda
http://raganwald.posterous.com/black-and-white
======
jerf
It's an educational exercise to take something like Joel's essay, try to
understand it in the way raganwald advocates here, and then go and edit it
such that all the caveats, simplifications, etc are all explicitly enumerated.
After you're done doubling the length, ask yourself if anybody would actually
have read the end result.

Having gone through a phase where I tried to write like that, I can tell you
two things: First, "no". Second, it's _a complete waste of time_. Add in the
caveat that you don't literally mean that there are 0 software packages sold
in that price range, and you will _still get flamed_ for the claim you just
disclaimed. A lot of people are sloppy readers and putting in that level of
detail is like putting fine detail in your painting for a farsighted person
without their glasses.

I've come to view this sort of misunderstanding as an unavoidable tax for
trying to communicate with humans. I say "humans" because it's not "English's"
fault. Natural language is fuzzy mostly because human ideation is fuzzy.
Noticing when English creates fuzziness is a noteworthy event precisely
because it is an anomaly in the vast sea of fundamentally fuzzy ideas being
expressed in English.

~~~
scott_s
This is why academic writing - even academic writing about cool technical
topics - is often "dry." We _have_ to write like that. And it is tiresome to
read. But it's necessary for two reasons. First, it would never get past peer
review otherwise. But even if we could eke it past, it's still not a good idea
because when someone else goes to replicate or build on what we did, all those
details that drag down the writing become mightily important.

I've often thought that people who publish papers should also have a blog, and
where they should have a more digestible explanation of their work. Of course,
I have not done this. (Yet.)

~~~
praptak
I remember reading an advice piece on how to read scientific papers. The core
of it was that you need to read them breadth first (i.e. skim many times, each
time trying to go deeper into the details.)

What you have written explains why it is such a good piece of advice - if you
read a paer depth first you'll get bogged in the details without a chance to
get the whole picture.

------
SoftwareMaven
I continually have to be on my guard against letting my smug, egocentric
engineer (not saying all engineers are smug and egocentric, but the one in me
sure is) take over. Raganwald is correct that as soon as he does, I learn
nothing. I like learning too much to allow that.

It is also obnoxious to be in discussions with others who do that. Whether
it's the mentioned "I stopped reading when" or the particularly pernicious
"/s/your/you're/g" type of comments (quick, somebody point out if I was
supposed to escape the apostrophe. I'm not a sed/vi wiz), it takes a
discussion away from ideas and focuses them on something less.

 _Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss
people._

I think whomever said this (apparently there is some amount of debate about
whether it was Eleanor Roosevelt or not[1]) was right. When we start talking
about sentence structure or apostrophes, you know we aren't talking about
ideas.

I come to HN because there are a lot of really smart people here. I find it
particularly grating, then, when a thread devolves (or worse, starts) below
the level of ideas. I don't get to learn anything then.

1\. <http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Eleanor_Roosevelt#Disputed>

------
goldscott
There's plenty of software that falls into the 1k to 75k range. Off the top of
my head: any professional embedded C compiler or IDE license, MATLAB, MathCad,
Adobe CS Suite, various CAD packages. These are all used in engineering
environments where maybe a handful of licenses are purchased, at least in the
environment I'm currently working in. We don't get salesmen calling us and
pushing new releases; we maybe purchase every second or third new version.

Joel writes "You need purchasing managers and CEO approval and competitive
bids and paperwork."

I think this is a bit over-reaching. Sure, you need manager approval, but
that's been pretty easy to obtain in any engineering environment I've been in.
Most of the time the software vendors come up with a new file format that's
incompatible with the past, so you're practically forced to upgrade. Never
have I seen bids or CEO/CTO approval on the software I'm discussing.

I think perhaps a more relevant range is 5k-75k or even 10k-75k.

(Sorry if I'm doing it wrong, this is my first post here.)

~~~
tadfisher
You have completely and utterly missed raganwald's point.

------
telemachos
There's a principle in philosophical interpretation that we can learn from
here: the principle of charity[1].

The basic idea is simple:

1) Assume the other person is rational.

2) Give the other person's arguments their _best_ possible interpretation.
Wherever possible give them the benefit of the doubt.

Only after you do that should you try to evaluate the person's argument.

The best short version of this principle I've ever heard came from a good
friend: "The principle of charity just says, 'Don't be an asshole.'"

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_charity>

------
andylei
i stopped reading after

> You don’t want to go through life being one of those smug Internet people
> whose sole contribution ...

smug people on the internet? frankly, i don't appreciate his overgeneralizing
mischaracteristizations of people who use the internet. it's 2012! everyone
and their mom uses the internet! phrases like "Internet people" make it seem
like the only people on the internet are defensive, awkward neckbeards who
can't relate to regular people.

honestly, things like this call into question his entire argument. if this is
what he thinks about people on the internet, he can't possibly know what he's
talking about (which, is presumably, colors or something)

~~~
fogus

        overgeneralizing mischaracteristizations 
        of people who use the internet
    

You could read it like that, but I garnered a different understanding. I read
it as there are some people on the Internet whom are categorized as smug, not
that everyone on the Internet is smug. We've all encountered them before
surely. They tend to jump to conclusions and rush to dismiss others based on
the tiniest perceived slights.

~~~
raganwald
Could Mr. Lei have been engaging in parody? I tried to respond in kind.

;-)

~~~
quackingduck
Pretty sure fogus' response was a parody too :)

~~~
polymatter
Reminds me of [Poe's Law](<http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Poes_Law>) which
states "it is impossible to create a parody of Fundamentalism that SOMEONE
won't mistake for the real thing".

Though I think it should generalise to "there exists no parody which can
unambiguously be identified as such". Doesn't that make parody's great?

------
krig
Just as important as trying not to be one of those people who can't see the
forest for the trees, so to speak, is trying not to care too much about them.
Because there's always going to be someone around to remark on spelling
mistakes or taking hyperbole literally.

It's just inevitable, and to me the best response has always seemed to be to
quietly mock those people behind their backs. ;)

As a programmer, I see this phenomenon as related to bikeshedding [1]. Instead
of taking in and processing a complicated and interconnected argument, the gut
reaction that people have is to find the smallest and simplest mistake they
can and attack that. In a similar way, I try not to get too worked up about
those reactions either. It's just human nature.

[1]: <https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bikeshedding>

------
JoelMcCracken
Before you disagree with someone on something, you need to understand it. Part
of this process is discovering and understanding what is implied, not just
what is explicitly stated.

An the primary problem an author has is the need to explain to the reader.
Often a good way to do this is to make statements, such as those given as
examples in the article. Fully qualifying every statement can get in the way
of the explanation.

Of secondary importance is the need to actually prove it to the reader.
Writing a proof is hard, long, and often unnecessary.

How do we resolve this situation as rational readers? When you notice a
"problem" in something, you must state why that problem is really relevant to
the argument at hand. It may not be relevant to the argument being made.

One of the problems here is that in order to understand the statements
relevance to the argument, you need to actually read the argument. Stating "I
stopped reading at x", it is likely that you do not understand the argument at
hand, since you do not know what it says.

Of course, everyone has limited time, and certain cues in the body of some
writing can show if it is a waste of our time. However, to say "I stopped
reading at x", and then to spend 30 minutes composing a comment on HN is
engaging in intellectual dandyism, not improving the world through
understanding.

------
lurker17
We are on Paul Graham's Hacker News, this is already in the canon:

<http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html>

~~~
RickHull
Interesting, I thought of <http://www.paulgraham.com/microsoft.html>

------
lionhearted
I'm grateful this exists, so that I can link to it.

When you try to point out a trend and give five or six examples, and people
nitpick one but ignore the general point... I don't know, it seems almost
perverse.

The magic of Hacker News (or Reddit, a very long time ago) was that it didn't
have much of that. It's changing. Still the best public discussion on the
internet, but pedanticism is on the rise.

HN used to feel like having a coffee and snacks in the living room of a very
gracious host who created an eclectic mix of people -- just to get a good
discussion going. I liked contributing, and though I'd at times make poorly
thought arguments (I hadn't studied enough history to see the politics I
advocated weren't quite right), I always felt like I had a shot to engage
someone in discussion.

Now, the place feels like you've got to be aware of rhetoric in front of a
potentially hostile crowd, fighting for the payoff of... the crowd's fleeting
ephemeral approval. Which is one reason why I don't comment much here any
more.

------
simplefish
I stopped reading when he discussed Joel's software pricing model, and then
proceeded to make a crack about how Joel's model was more correct than "some
mythical supply and demand model."

If you don't know enough about economics to recognize that Joel's pricing
model _is_ a supply and demand model, you probably shouldn't try writing about
the subject.

(Disclaimer: Yes, of course this post is tongue in cheek. If you had any
doubts, you may need to get your sarcasm detector calibrated.)

------
narag
Most products showed as examples in the previous story have a very consistent
profile: entrenched professional packaged software, basic for the operations
of technical departments in medium to big companies: MS Tools and Office,
Autocad, Photoshop... more than exceptions, it seems as a category in itself.

------
philwelch
> You don’t want to go through life being one of those smug Internet people
> whose sole contribution to every discussion thread is “I stopped reading
> after…”

This is my biggest pet peeve on HN, and usually leads to an immediate
downvote. If you stopped reading, you're not qualified to comment on the post,
so don't.

------
brudgers
I come from an industry (AEC) where software tools all (in the reganwald
sense) fall into that gap and somebody (again in the reganwald sense) uses
them.

Why?

Because the industry leader, Autodesk, bought into $75,000 a pop software
concepts from day one in the early days of PC's. They had a mini-computer
model rather than a scaled up Apple II approach. Timing helped as well, early
versions at $2000 a copy were not driving the total cost when the hardware was
three times as much.

Now their products and those of their serious competitors all fit in the gap
between roughly $2500 and $6000 a license. Those price points are pretty
common among scheduling and project management software for construction
contractors as well.

Not to say that I don't get Reganwald's point.

~~~
raganwald
Let’s have a look at Mr. Braithwaite’s résumé: Hmm, he won a Jolt Programmer
Productivity Award for leading the JProbe team. Fine, let’s see how much
JProbe costs: $3,000 for the multi-OS concurrent version.

Haha, he ought to know better before quoting Mr. Spolsky!

~~~
brudgers
I'm sure he does.

The question is how much does the price of the software drive that purchasing
process?

Autodesk was selling $10k solutions in an industry where the purchasing
process was largely built to buy a dozen concrete blocks, a hollow core door,
a tee square, a lamp and a stool (if the blocks and door could not be acquired
gratis from a friendly contractor) and where $600 for a drafting table and
$100 for a Mayline was seen as outrageously extravagant.

Their pricing model created a whole new tier of purchasing within the industry
- in 1980 no small firm had a recurring five figure equipment expense.
Autodesk's pricing changed the capital requirements of the industry. As they
have shifted to a subscription model over the past twelve years, they have
further changed the financial considerations within it.

I perhaps used "tool" too loosely seeing the comparison it brought. Perhaps, I
ought to know better.

------
seltzered_
To throw a point out there, fogbugz/Jira quickly starts to "grow" into the
1000+ range once it has over 20+ users.

The key though is that they usually start as something used by a small group
of folks and then grows as more folks realize it has some niceities over the
open-source solutions. It also means however that Fog Creek/Atlassian do have
a sales force that will call you over the phone, personally answer your
questions, and sometimes negotiate on price.

