
Blogger Finger - alexkay
http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2010/07/blogger-finger.html
======
edanm
I'm not sure how to express how happy I am that Steve Yegge is back. He's one
of my blogging heroes. One of the few bloggers that I'm planning to reread
entirely one day, because his writing is _just that good_. If you've never had
the pleasure, _don't_ be put off by the long blog posts. Read them, read them
all, they're all amazing.

On the length issue: Honestly, Steve's posts were quite long (much like Paul
Graham's). To me, it doesn't matter, because every one of them was worth
reading all the way through. It sometimes meant I'd have to leave them for
later, but I still read them. He mentions that he believed the length might
have been a reason people read his posts. I can't speak for anyone else, but
if the quality of his writing stays the same, I don't care _how_ long his
posts are, I'm reading them. The day he "retired" was truly a sad day for me.

By the way, I would happily buy a book of his collected writings (ala Hackers
and Painters), so I really wish he would make such a book.

~~~
bitsai
He's one of my blogging heroes as well. He inspired me to get out of my
C/C++/Java comfort zone and embark on a strange and mind-expanding journey
through Ruby, Haskell, Scala, culminating in Clojure. When I got to Clojure, I
immediately thought, "by golly, this looks like the Lisp Steve Yegge was
searching for!" Can't wait to see his thoughts on Clojure.

~~~
thristian
Pretty positive, I expect. From the the end of today's post:

> I used to have lot of open, long-standing concerns about the future of
> programming and productivity, but my sabbatical last year finally brought me
> some clojure.

------
edw519
I know that negative criticism can hurt, no matter how insignificant or
pointless. So to people like Steve Yegge, Joel Spolsky, the 37signal guys, pg,
and many others who put part of themselves out there for the benefit of
others, I suggest putting things into perspective with this handy formula:

Let n = the number of people whose lives your writing has effected.

Let m = the average magnitude of that effect.

Let e = the distribution effect of your medium (for one on one, e = 1,in a
room of others, e = 2, print, e = 3, popular blog or forum, e = 4, etc.)

Let z = the sum of all the negativity of those who don't matter.

Then if the net total effect of your writing is A, we can say:

    
    
      A = (n*m)**e - z
    

So, for almost any value of z, A will remain positive. Keep on writing.
Please.

~~~
tjogin
I don't think any of Steve's critics is imploring him to stop writing
altogether — they're asking him to start writing _well_.

~~~
scotch_drinker
What exactly is it about Steve's writing that is bad? Bad writers almost never
have a following and certainly never have the following that Steve has
acquired. I would argue the contrary, that Steve's writing is quite good in
that it evokes an emotion in the reader almost without exception. The emotion
may be positive or negative but the fact that the emotion exists is evidence
that his writing is not bad.

Maybe you disagree with it or maybe you find it objectionably long but those
things are different from saying he is a bad writer. I think Steve's critics
are typically angry about something he has written about one of their hobby
horses but I strongly doubt too many of them are imploring him to write
better.

~~~
pvg
_Bad writers almost never have a following_

Let's see, the guy who wrote the Da Vinci Code, the lady who writes the
Twilight books, Ayn Rand, oh we could go on. Now, if you're willing to
redefine the meaning of 'good' to mean 'creates a response' then a lot of bad
things can pass for good. But it's the sort of silliness that might evince a
response that is not, you know, good.

~~~
lionhearted
Dude, unsuccessful writers think people want "good writing" - they don't. They
want to be entertained, inspired, informed, distracted, improved, whatever -
you don't need a mastery of language to do that. In fact, if you let your
mastery of language get in the way of entertaining, inspiring, informing, and
otherwise serving people's needs, then that's quite silly.

> But it's the sort of silliness that might evince a response that is not, you
> know, good.

Start by cutting out words most people don't know. I read between 3 and 10
books per week (closer to 10 lately) and I don't know what "evince" means.
Start spending less time looking smart and more time serving people and you'll
go much, much further in life.

Ignore this advice if you're secretly a best-selling multi-millionaire author
who has inspired a lot of people who don't normally read to pick up a book
instead of watch TV. In which case, carry on using the big words to bash other
best-selling multi-millionaire authors who are inspiring a lot of people to
read who normally don't, and entertaining them for doing so.

~~~
pvg
_Dude, unsuccessful writers think people want "good writing" - they don't_

Dude, what does that have to do with anything? The claim was bad writers have
no following. Which is not true. That's all.

 _I read between 3 and 10 books per week (closer to 10 lately) and I don't
know what "evince" means_

Happy to do my little bit broadening someone's vocabulary.

 _Ignore this advice_

Thanks, I will. Mostly because I don't think I or any of the people I was
having a discussion with were asking for advice. But I'll come back and re-
read this during my next advice shortage.

------
fogus
I've had my fair share of code reviews, so I had always assumed that I was
adapted to criticism. However, in the process of writing a book I've
discovered a whole new level of frustration. To be fair, there have been
mistakes put down on the page and I fully expect that they be criticized.
However, as soon as the face-to-face aspect of criticism is eliminated people
lose their damn minds. I imagine 50 years ago there were boundless trolls
writing their screeds to local newspapers. However, thanks to the Internet
those guys have no barrier preventing their vitriol. As much as you try to
avoid letting it bother you, the constant barrage is exhausting. I can't even
imagine what it must be like for someone of Yegge or pg's readership.

As a teen I worked at a record shop. 99% of all customers were nice,
courteous, or at worst disregard my existence. However, a single dickweed was
all it took to ruin your whole day.

~~~
bockris
It's the GIFT.

<http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/3/19/>

------
jakevoytko
I'm thrilled that Yegge has made peace with the pack of wolves that roam the
Internet, seeking to disparage those who... well, who knows their offense? He
referenced them in some of his previous posts [0], so I figured they finally
got the best of him. I loved reading his missives, and was sad to see them go.

[0] In _Story Time,_ for instance, Steve says "If you read the comments with
(Comic Book Guy)'s voice, a lot of them make a whole lot more sense."

~~~
Loy
"Dogs bark but the caravan moves on." -- Arab proverb

~~~
JesseAldridge
"Haters gonna hate." -- Internet proverb

------
presidentender
Steve Yegge is the one person who comes closest to being singlehandedly
responsible for my programming career. Back in high school, I discovered his
game, Wyvern, while looking for a way to play Dungeons and Dragons online. At
the time, the most prominent feature of the game was its extensibility, via
Java and Jython. I made a few game areas and wrote an introductory manual for
the world editor tool. Although I never submitted any of my code, the desire
to create custom items and monster behaviors was my primary motivation for
learning to program.

The inspiration that his blog provides (and the prodding) is much less
effective for me. I started a blog. It may have five posts.

------
JunkDNA
It was so great to read this post. It's a bit like an old friend moving back
home after living far away for a while. I was always a little disappointed
when I would see his blog title dimmed out in my RSS reader as I scrolled on
to read things by less engaging bloggers. I think this is a side effect of
Steve's blogging style: I feel like I know him personally because of the sheer
amount of words he uses to communicate.

This post is a good reminder that these are _people_ you're talking to online
(yes, even the "Internet famous"). They're just ordianry people who have the
same feelings, needs, and wants as you. Things you say have real, tangible,
even powerful effects in the real world. It's easy to forget that with all
this virtual stuff in between.

------
johkra
_I used to have lot of open, long-standing concerns about the future of
programming and productivity, but my sabbatical last year finally brought me
some clojure._

Mh, out of Steve Yegge's mouth, that's interesting to hear. I guess emacs is
his tool of choice now¹ and Clojure's performance is pretty good from what
I've heard.

¹ (Paraphrased: "Dynamic languages need better tools", see [http://steve-
yegge.blogspot.com/2008/05/dynamic-languages-st...](http://steve-
yegge.blogspot.com/2008/05/dynamic-languages-strike-back.html))

~~~
scrame
I've been wondering when he would get to clojure, given how much he has
covered lisp and emacs, even going so far as to promote emacs because as "the
last stronghold for lisp programmers". Given his involvement with foo camp,
and his coverage of other dynamic languages, I thought at times his absence
was partly explained just by finally finding something that seemed like such a
close fit.

------
ananthrk
Steve, in case you are reading this, do consider getting on HN as well. We
don't mind long (and opinionated) rants.

~~~
steveyegge
:-)

~~~
ananthrk
WOW! 800 days old account? ( _feels stupid for the suggestion_ ) That said,
would be glad to see more of you around.

------
fogus
Let me be the first to say it: Welcome back Steve.

~~~
brown9-2
_And now that everyone's completely forgotten who I am..._

Not one bit! I've been eagerly awaiting this day.

~~~
tomjen3
Indeed, now all we need is _why back. Oh and the old Zed Shaw.

~~~
FraaJad
I think he is the same guy because he "still gives a shit". Only, he is
letting more and more of his code do the talk.

------
lliiffee
I thought that Steve's previous analysis that having crazily long posts was
part of why they had such a impact was spot on. I'm surprised and disapointed
that he's considering consciously making posts shorter and more frequent.

------
riprock
I wonder what happened to his Rhino on Rails project...I would love to hear a
follow up on that.

<http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2007/06/rhino-on-rails.html>

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QD9XQm_Jd4> (2008)

------
toadie
If Steve reads this:

Requested blog post please: "What I have learned at Google".

Given your background/experience it would be interesting to read your thoughts
on Google's engineering machine, assuming they let employees blog about it. So
far I've seen quite a few entertaining writeups from Nooglers, but mostly
college graduates. I wonder what Amazon veteran had to re-learn there.

~~~
swah
More chance he'll read if you comment this on his blog.

------
codewall
Good to have you back Steve!

No, not everyone had an issue with the length of your posts, quite the
opposite - it was kind of fun to see a pleasantly small bar in the scrollbar
knowing that the treat isn't ending any time soon.

Big fan, big fan here... I once declined a job offer from a company whose
engineers never heard of you as I figured out during interviews.

------
krugrj
Did anyone else who read this title think "finger" was referring to the unix
command line tool?

~~~
anamax
> Did anyone else who read this title think "finger" was referring to the unix
> command line tool?

Finger predates unix.

------
swah
We should be producing more of this kind of bloggers, just in case he doesn't
come back the next time.

~~~
TomasSedovic
Or maybe, we should behave so that he doesn't leave in frustration the next
time.

~~~
tomjen3
That wouldn't work - the few people who didn't behave then won't have any
incentive to do so now, and the rest of us can't do anything about than.

But we can be nice to him, so that he realize that the great majority like
what he is doing.

------
gahahaha
Somehow I feel that the Google doctor would have a pretty good grasp on
different forms of RSI. Good that he got help relatively quickly and seems
better. But he should really IMNSHO stop playing guitar - typing all day is
enough damage to the fingers.

Personally, tuba playing pushed me over the edge, and the only choice I had
was to stop working with computers and start teaching. RSI should be taken
very, very seriously.

------
jacabado
In case anybody was wondering what was he playing, it's a brazilian classical
music composer:
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAg8VHuXNKU&feature=relat...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAg8VHuXNKU&feature=related)
\- Choros nr1

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDc230BMy8Y&feature=relat...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDc230BMy8Y&feature=related)
\- Choros nr10 (part 1)

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GVWge4q8uc&feature=relat...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GVWge4q8uc&feature=related)
\- Choros nr10 (part 2)

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZnQj9yWTlo> \- Trenzinho Caipira

Well and what could you expect from one of the greatest composers coming from
the Brazilian musical culture? I accidentally started watching the Proms and
was completely obliterated by that performance of Choros nr10, I had never
enjoyed classical music that way.

------
s1rech
I went back to Steve's list of recommended books, and I noticed that when I
first read it I had read one of his recommendations, and now I'm up to eight.
Probably my favorite tech blogger.

------
bdr
Yegge plays Villa-Lobos? That's so cool. For those of you who skipped over
that part of the post... listen to this etude and _tell_ me it's not badass:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxCR0aMeo8g> \-- and don't bail before the
middle tremolo section at 2:00.

------
j_baker
Alright, so Yegge's back[1]. Who wants to take bets on when or if Spolsky will
"un-retire"?

[1] I'm actually excited too!

------
Yaggo
I liked his superlong posts.

------
DanielRibeiro
Glad to hear that. Steve Yegge's post I hold dearest to my heart are: Dynamic
Languages Strike Back, Rhinos and Tigers and Rhino on Rails (for controversial
reasons and the guts to do it more than anything else).

~~~
wglb
Those plus "Kingdom of Nouns".

------
grandalf
Steve is clearly bright and interesting. So it perplexes me that his blog is
adorned with a huge pledge of allegiance to a politician.

*I'd react equally negatively if his blog had a huge Nader or W2004 button on it. I guess I just don't understand the desire people have to idealize authority figures.

~~~
TheSOB88
So, haters...

------
shoover
Hooray, time to carve out some time and brew a second cup!

------
roboneal
I'm being petty - but that's an obnoxiously large Obama '08 button.

I literally thought I was on the wrong site.

------
SkyMarshal
TLDR: _"I'm back after a year's hiatus from blogging... ramble ramble ramble
... And now that I'm rested up, I believe I'm ready to start tech blogging
again... in moderation, anyway. The rest and relaxation and research did
wonders for me. I used to have lot of open, long-standing concerns about the
future of programming and productivity, but my sabbatical last year finally
brought me some clojure[0]."_

[0]
[http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1934356336?ie=UTF8&tag=...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1934356336?ie=UTF8&tag=steveysblogra-20&link_code=wql&camp=212361&creative=380601)

(Nice affiliate link, but hey I'd do the same)

Is anyone else as torn about long blog posts as I am? On the one hand, I do
appreciate good software writing. But I also appreciate concise expressivity,
saying more with less. They shouldn't be, and aren't, mutually exclusive.

These days I feel like I'm forced to choose between sacrificing an hour of
productive coding to read through a bunch of overly long blog posts at HN and
proggit and evaluate whether they were worth reading or not.

~~~
SkyMarshal
Since when do we downmod just for disagreeing with a post? I wasn't trolling.

My concern isn't invalid. Others have also noticed:

Paul Graham: <http://paulgraham.com/selfindulgence.html>

Another good article: <http://fitnr.com/filtering-the-web-of-noise/>

Don't misunderstand, I <3 Yegge and am glad he's back. His writing taught me
stuff that should have been covered in my undergraduate education, and I still
refer new programmers to his 'Tour de Babel' essay.

But am I alone in wishing writers would cut to the chase a little more so as
to help their readers reduce the info overload and the task of filtering
through it quickly?

It's not hard to spend an entire day reading through only the high-quality
tech blogs alone, and find, as Paul mentioned, that you did a lot of 'fake
work' and very little real work.

~~~
kaens
In my opinion, there really aren't too many high-quality tech blogs (or maybe
there are, and I'm just not aware of them).

Steve's stuff is lengthy -- but it's also not posted incredibly often (he's
not a career blogger), and I have yet to read much by him that wasn't
intellectually or creatively satisfying, and afaict that's rather rare for
tech-bloggers.

