297 karma · joined October 25, 2015
It's gotten better, but it still sucks in many scenarios. If you need to support older versions of Android, you can't count on many of the improvements at all to help you. If you've never experienced this, you probably never did any serious performance optimization and things like performance sensitive gamedev on Android.
The browser is a pretty terrible platform for most things to be honest. I say this as someone who is using it to develop their startup as a web app and as someone who has been doing web apps since there wasn't even such a term. When people at work used to tell me how amazing the browser as as a platform, I'd ask them to do simple things that the browser sucks at vs. other platforms. For example, I'd ask people to simply to do various kinds of positioning tasks, alignment, centering, etc. It's amazing how hard at various points in the history of the browser, css, js, etc. it's been to do these seemingly easy tasks. The lengths one has to go to just to get acceptable performance in many scenarios is shocking.
The browser is nice in many ways, but sometimes the ease of printing to the screen is a curse. I am reminded of people writing 20 line BASIC programs way back when and thinking that made them master programmers. The instant gratification and pushing aside of various concerns is great, until you hit those road blocks that are crippling for many types of apps. Somewhere there are old embedded dev colleagues of mine wondering why their new powerful computer is practically on its knees with a bunch of tabs open showing improperly aligned pictures of cats. The browser is great, easy for many things, but that does not always make something good and worth using for every task, or even most tasks. Sadly, a lot of what I see in the browser is cobbled together nonsense that does very little and reminds me of the machine that goes bing.
I know it's an unpopular belief here, but the browser is honestly built on a rotten core from rendering to security to data transport/format. Hindsight is always easier, but the thing is we do have it, and yet we continue to invest in it like there is never going to be another alternative.
I could go on, but suffice to say I wonder sometimes if continuing to build on the browser, and even the web itself is really worth the pain. I wish we'd take a step back and look at the internet itself, and if not that, than at least building other things on the internet like in earlier days. Sometimes I find myself wishing for simple text based menus or something like gopher because at least you found stuff, got things done, and they would be even faster and more efficient now that many of us have decent connections.
Obviously this is anecdotal, but like all things, nothing is 100%. I am not sure what sample size or data was used in these studies, but in just my circle the number of people with peanut allergies that are Israeli is decently large compared to many other people I know. Unfortunately peanut allergies can be pretty annoying, serious, and hard to deal with, so it ends up a big topic of discussion a few times a year in our social circles.
If you want people to understand and consume your writing easily, than these rules are pretty good. They are close to what is taught in journalism school as well. Journalistic writing rules are quite useful for tech articles, blog posts, social media, etc., but less useful sometimes for more exciting creative writing. Sometimes rambling and using huge words is a style and a signature of a writer. The same writer might fail miserably writing like that writing a different story that needs a more to the point, simple style.
If you want more blunt - I speak multiple languages at native or near native level, including two since birth. Spoken English, especially by your average American is rarely to the point, clear, and pleasant. Don't write like you speak, because the average person sucks at it. Instead, know your subject and audience and write to them. Avoid overgeneralizing because it's easy to make an ass of yourself like PG.
Regarding legalese, it is hard to understand and that is intentional. Could it be any clearer for you or will you down-vote again?
Simplifying your writing is an effective technique for certain styles and genres. Moreover, it is indeed true that some people speak more eloquently than they write. Conversely, one must acknowledge that the opposite is true. Advising people to write as they speak is overgeneralizing and even harmful in many cases.
Anecdotally, I find most people do not speak very clearly. I grew up bilingual and I find the average spoken English to be particularly imprecise and sloppy, especially compared to other languages. Written English, on the other hand has many subtleties, rules, structure, and formalities that aid most kinds of writing. On a personal level, written English is far more pleasurable, efficient, and expressive to me.
Again, there are some types of writing that can benefit from disregarding formalities and drawing from spoken English. Dialogue is one obvious example where the benefits of writing as one might speak can be an asset, however Graham's article I suspect is not really trying to make you a better novelist. Ironically, writing dialogue in ways that it might not be spoken often produces more engaging content to anyone with even a passing appreciation for skilled writing. It is precisely because characters might say something we would never that we might find them intelligent, interesting, or find another quality that makes us react strongly and in a polarizing way to a character. The same holds true to other types of writing - we write a certain way to make content clear, but also at times interesting, engaging, and fulfilling.
The problem with a lot of written English is that most people do not know basics, let along actual writing techniques. Notice in Graham's article he manages to commit dozens of mistakes despite revealing that someone else proofread. For instance, Graham uses the same word twice in a row in his first paragraph, writes redundantly in a crafted article about writing, and abuses paragraphs. There are other mistakes as well, but the larger point is that Graham is presenting himself as an authority on writing technique, and yet would have received a poor grade from any of my teachers.
Lowering your writing standards and abusing the English language to address inept or illiterate readers is not quality advice. Every writer must think of their intended audience and indeed write towards them. Insulting your audience by assuming they are stupid is not a solution. Rather, writing clearly by reducing complexity is a well-explored topic that has few direct linkages to spoken English and general vernacular, colloquialisms, and informalities. You can find dozens of books on the subject and even algorithms that will process your writing, searching for complexities.
As a final note, I now live abroad most of the year and encounter many Americans, Brits, Aussies, and other "Anglo" ex-pats. I have fluency in the local language and I often play the role of translator from spoken English to non-Anglos, in English to people with near native level proficiency in English. In other words, I translate English to English because so many people do not speak clear, understandable, and engaging English. I rarely am asked about written English from anyone remotely competent as writer. There is often overlap between the two, such as in the workplace.
Paul Graham should be ashamed for providing such bad advice. I am sorry, but this article comes off as lordly pseudo-academia from someone who may be a decent investor but is surely not a good writer. I have been reading things from Paul Graham for years and while the subjects sometimes are not bad, he is a terrible writer. I can respect certain things about Graham, but his writing and desire to abuse his position to spout nonsense is not one of them. Please stick to investing hoards of cash and stop planting dangerous seeds in your younger audience members in particular.