I think you're right. But I still think the quote from Graham is terrible writing: confusing, brittle, convoluted, almost as if it was designed to hide something from readers and manipulate them into a different understanding than what it actually claims.
The quote is, as you explain, technically correct due to its use of "always". Take this word away and the sentence is correct English, but the meaning now is incorrect (and would match the interpretation of the comment you replied to). Making the correctness hinge so directly in the subtlety of the presence of the quantifier makes the sentence brittle and convoluted.
It feels almost manipulative, as if the writer hopes the reader won't inspect the sentence so closely (and thus will miss this subtlety) and will understand something slightly different ("if you don't write, it's impossible to have clear thoughts"), so that the conclusion sounds much stronger. And readers do get the incorrect interpretation, as evidenced by the comment you replied to, which attacks the misunderstanding of that sentence.
So while I fully agree with you, I still think the sentence quoted is an example of terribly unhelpful and confusing writing. Especially because the full premise "writing down your ideas _always_ makes them more precise and complete" is debatable (you just need to find one counterexample).
(Incidentally, my recollection of Graham's writing is that this type of misleading sentences (that are technically correct but appear to say something else, something that isn't), as if they were deliberately cultivated.)
A much better sentence would be something like:
* "Writing down your ideas is great to make them more precise and more complete. It's hard to have fully formed ideas about a topic without writing about it." This matches the understanding of a quick glance of the sentence.
* "Writing down your ideas always makes them more precise and complete." Closer to the actual meaning, but doesn't do a slight of hand to hide the main point.
The quote is, as you explain, technically correct due to its use of "always". Take this word away and the sentence is correct English, but the meaning now is incorrect (and would match the interpretation of the comment you replied to). Making the correctness hinge so directly in the subtlety of the presence of the quantifier makes the sentence brittle and convoluted.
It feels almost manipulative, as if the writer hopes the reader won't inspect the sentence so closely (and thus will miss this subtlety) and will understand something slightly different ("if you don't write, it's impossible to have clear thoughts"), so that the conclusion sounds much stronger. And readers do get the incorrect interpretation, as evidenced by the comment you replied to, which attacks the misunderstanding of that sentence.
So while I fully agree with you, I still think the sentence quoted is an example of terribly unhelpful and confusing writing. Especially because the full premise "writing down your ideas _always_ makes them more precise and complete" is debatable (you just need to find one counterexample).
(Incidentally, my recollection of Graham's writing is that this type of misleading sentences (that are technically correct but appear to say something else, something that isn't), as if they were deliberately cultivated.)
A much better sentence would be something like:
* "Writing down your ideas is great to make them more precise and more complete. It's hard to have fully formed ideas about a topic without writing about it." This matches the understanding of a quick glance of the sentence.
* "Writing down your ideas always makes them more precise and complete." Closer to the actual meaning, but doesn't do a slight of hand to hide the main point.