
Publish everything you write (pretty much) - KentBeck
https://www.facebook.com/notes/kent-beck/publish-everything-pretty-much/1839078656124990/
======
nonfamous
And if you're going to publish something, for heck's sake don't publish it on
facebook.com. It's a terrible platform for content. To even read this article,
I had to sign into facebook, deny a prompt to provide alerts, close 4
messenger windows, etc. etc. Not a good way to read.

~~~
manigandham
You do not need to sign into facebook to read a public note.

~~~
erikpukinskis
You do need to sign in to continue to read previous notes tho, fwiw

------
groby_b
"Pollute everybody's attention as much as you can, since occasionally you
might say something useful"

It's the ego-centered approach to publishing, maximizing your returns, at a
large cost to the commons. (If everybody follows that advice, the Internet
will be a smouldering garbage heap. Wait, they do, and it is)

I'd much rather all of us focused on publishing something that has an actual
chance of being useful. Be picky. Respect other people's time and attention.

And as a reader, choose authors that have proven to respect your time. (Or,
alternatively, have others pre-filter the garbage stream for the jewels)

------
codingdave
The missing caveat form the title would be: IF and only if your goal in
writing is to get your words in front of as many eyes as possible.

I write as an exercise to clarify my thinking and organize thoughts, and much
of my writing is thereby naive and off-target because my thoughts aren't yet
fully baked. I would not want something accidentally blowing up and getting
300K views unexpectedly. That simply isn't what my writing is for.

~~~
gregknicholson
There can be value in half-baked writing. Blog posts by people stumbling to
learn stuff can be really encouraging to people suffering from Imposter
Syndrome.

At worst, someone wastes 4 minutes and discovers you're imperfect.

------
sixhobbits
Most comments are already contrary to the article, but to add to the
sentiment, my English professor memorably said, "Free writing is like going to
the bathroom. Very important, but you don't need to show the results to the
world" (I think his wording was more eloquent, but the theme is correct).

------
hyperpape
This needs to be read with the mindset that it's for people who've decided to
publish opinions, and care about having more people read them.

There are lots of reasons you might not want to do that: you're the kind of
person who picks stupid fights[0], your opinions are deeply hated by most
people, etc.

For the people it's aimed at, I think it's close to being right. For many
others, writing is a tangential part of what they do, and they ought to be a
lot more careful. But that probably also means giving up on having a lot of
people read their opinions. You can't spread your ideas with one hand tied
behind your back.

[0] Not being judgmental here...I've picked too many stupid fights in my time.

~~~
gerdesj
There is nothing wrong with publishing your opinion. There is nothing wrong in
engaging in reasoned, responsible discussion. There is nothing wrong in
displaying passion towards a chosen point of view. You'll notice that I have
very, very carefully chosen my words. I could probably continue in this vein
for ages and not impress anyone.

I'm not sure where the balance is but I find discourse on HN tending towards
saccharine with some excellent but infrequent counter examples.

wrt: [0] - I think that sometimes you have to be seen to tilt at windmills but
you should choose your windmills carefully. Actually, you'd be surprised how
effective a well chosen jab from a lance might be at the sweeps (think branch
in the spokes of a wheel). Perhaps someone should have told that Spanish bloke
or have I completely knackered this analogy?

------
hprotagonist
contrariwise:

 _That is not such a terrible outcome, but neither is it an especially good
outcome. The quality of my e-mails and public speaking is, in my view, nowhere
near that of my novels. So for me it comes down to the following choice: I can
distribute material of bad-to-mediocre quality to a small number of people, or
I can distribute material of higher quality to more people. But I can’t do
both; the first one obliterates the second._

[https://www.nealstephenson.com/why-i-am-a-bad-
correspondent....](https://www.nealstephenson.com/why-i-am-a-bad-
correspondent.html)

(pardon the utterly horrible formatting)

------
olivermarks
The attention merchants soliciting as much free content as you can produce so
they can exploit it. The emails we get saying what is recently posted on FB
and how you are missing out by not participating. It's all increasingly naked
and greed driven...and quickly destroying brand allegiance and credibility...

~~~
trophycase
But haven't you seen the new TV commercials?! They've changed!!!

------
tnolet
I really REALLY hope people will take the opposite approach. Publish well
thought out, well edited, original pieces. Take your time and reflect. Quality
over quantity.

~~~
jasonthevillain
Better yet, I'll only read people who take the opposite approach.

------
azifali
Bad advice: Don't publish anything unless you have something of value.

Don't especially publish it on a walled garden like Facebook.

------
8bitsrule
Bad idea. Maybe for journalists on a deadline (and there's a plethora of that
already).

Instead, publish what you believe is solid, worth the effort to read, and has
lasting value ... for at least a small audience.

You have to be the jaded editor missing from the loop. There's plenty of
verbal clutter in the world.

------
dvfjsdhgfv
And this way of thinking makes the world fill up with garbage. I'm doing the
opposite: I never publish anything unless I'm proud of it and I can defend it
as being of good quality. The world doesn't need another useless piece of
anything.

------
pjm331
Extreme publishing?

~~~
commandlinefan
publish early, publish often.

------
dansanuf
People write for lots of different reasons. For a good many of those people,
“publish everything” is heinous advice.

------
drb91
This is a terrible reading experience. Why is the prompt to log in so
prominant?

At this point I would even prefer medium.

------
creaghpatr
>Publish pretty much everything you write because you can’t predict what is
going to be popular. There is a lower bar for quality, but barring dishonesty
and literally unreadable prose, everything else should go out somewhere.

Extremely reckless advice, so many people have lost their jobs, friends, and
livelihoods due to publishing the 'wrong' thing on facebook. And the
definition of 'wrong' is ever-changing. Bottom line is you need to consider
the downside tail risk if you want the upside tail risk, this post baits you
with the latter.

~~~
billysielu
Publish nothing, unless you absolutely have to.

~~~
qop
So the opposite of a bad idea is not always a good idea.

Some things should be published. Some whistles need to be blown, some problems
need to be brought to attention, people need to be held accountable, etc.

~~~
zentiggr
Those sound exactly like the public good's "have to" topics.

Personal details are the opposite. I share anecdotes with coworkers, and even
those are completely sanitized unless they are specific enough to involve
individuals. It's automatic redaction, I rarely even realize I'm doing it.

------
inteleng
This is definitely not good advice.

------
JustSomeNobody
So, what's with all the Facebook posts lately? John Carmack, Kent Beck, Jim
Black, etc...

Is Facebook pushing this?

~~~
d4l3k
John Carmack and Kent Beck both work/worked for Facebook so they're probably
used to making internal posts in this format.

Kent Beck seems to make a lot of FB notes and this isn't anything new.
[https://www.facebook.com/kentlbeck/notes?lst=1511963732%3A61...](https://www.facebook.com/kentlbeck/notes?lst=1511963732%3A612973674%3A1527281384)

~~~
astrodust
Facebook is the new AOL, so it's kind of sad to see Carmack saddled with that
baggage.

------
reaperducer
This just sounds like Facebook begging for more content so it can profile more
people.

"You just published a blog post on cats? We didn't know you like cats! Here's
15 ads about cats. And we sold your name to a mail-order cats-for-sex company.
But that's OK because you agreed to that by clicking on something at one time
years ago. Or maybe it was when you visited a 'partner' site and didn't click
on anything at all. Still, it's all cool because we're 'friends' and you
'like' us!"

~~~
d4l3k
Not sure how closely you read the article, but it's a personal post talking
about tweet engagement. It doesn't even mention Facebook nor is it an official
Facebook post.

------
killjoywashere
This is right up there with tobacco advertizing.

