

Hire Good Writers - getp
http://gettingreal.37signals.com/ch08_Wordsmiths.php

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kirse
I will admit, we do see 37Signals blog posts on here just about every other
day on every topic imaginable. Sometimes I wonder if they do more writing than
working on their own products.

So it's no surprise that they'd write a post about liking writers. After all,
it's just human nature to like someone that closely reflects one's self.

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mynameishere
_blog posts_

They aren't blog posts. They're "chapters" in a "book". Your confusion is
completely justified, though. People who would try to pass off blog-style
entries as chapters in books should not discuss "good writers" much less try
to determine what exactly good writing signifies.

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zandorg
I got a BSc, read half of On Lisp and then wrote a screenplay which got
accepted to be read by a Hollywood agent. A good screenwriter is a good
technical person! Compression is important, too, due to the confines of the
screenplay (~100 pages). As opposed to a novelist, who has to write a lot more
than a screenwriter.

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jamesbritt
"As opposed to a novelist, who has to write a lot more than a screenwriter."

They are different art forms.

Otherwise we should be looking for greeting card writers.

LOC comparisons for literature is a goofy idea.

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mynameishere
Bleh. That "book" (notice quotation marks) of 37signals' has more horseshit
per word than the book of Mormon. Okay, let's "get real".

Candidate A doesn't know what a binary tree is--but he knows how to properly
stamp out dangling participles.

Candidate B knows how to code.

The first rule of a good writer isn't clarity, style, correct semicolon
deployment, etc, but is rather saying things that aren't patently false.

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derefr
Who said anything about "style, semicolon placement" &c? I got the impression
that when they said "a good writer", they were more specifically requiring a
good _rhetorician_. (Also, how often do, say, _fiction_ writers say things
that _aren't_ patently false? At least some writers' worths are absolutely
uncorrelated with stating the "patently false", so you can't say it holds for
"good writers" in general.)

The thing about _good_ writers is that they understand communication at a
higher level than most people, because they practice it consciously rather
than subconsciously. Therefore, a good writer is necessarily a good learner
(the read-side of communication), and, assuming no specific mathematical-
related learning difficulties on either side, would probably become a better
programmer than the "actual" programmer.

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mynameishere
Sorry. Re-read the "book's" "chapter" again. He's not making any
qualifications as you are. He's saying, "Hire the best writer," which is utter
namby-pamby rubbish. Between two otherwise identical candidates, sure, hire
the best writer. If you define "good writer" so that it correlates perfectly
(by whatever means) with intelligence and problem-solving, then maybe hire the
best writer.

But if I have to choose between Bill Shakespeare and an MIT grad for a
programming position, guess who I'm hiring, despite 37signals' crappy,
abbreviated, unsupported advice?

