> What mattered was to get the idea out and to start the conversation, editing and polish would follow later.
On the other hand, careless writing shows that the author places little value on his thoughts, for if he thought them important he would spend a little more time on their delivery, ensuring the contents don't get destroyed in the process.
You infer from careless writing that the author places little value on his thoughts, because if you were writing them and you thought them important, you would spend a little more time on their delivery.
Indeed that is true, but it is also true that if you are writing things for other people to read, then what value those other people put on your delivery is more important than what value you put on your delivery.
If you are writing only for yourself, then things like grammar and spelling are less important because, presumably, you know what you meant. However, if you want other people to value what you write, grammar and spelling become very important.
First, because poor grammar and spelling sabotage your meaning and delivery. There were several sentences in the article where I had to stop and think "err... what is he trying to say?" It is entirely likely I misinterpreted the meaning of some of these sentences. The fact that the author understood and valued those sentences is of utterly no help to me.
Second, there are people who believe confusing and ungrammatical writing are symptoms of confused and unknowledgeable writers. I understand you may not agree with this but, again, if you are writing for other people then it is the other person's impressions you must consider, not your own.
Defending ungrammatical writing by challenging a reader's inferences and thoughts is not convincing because, if you are writing for other readers, it is precisely those inferences and thoughts you should be addressing.
I think it depends on context and execution. For example Twitter always used them over tweets in their app, and it works quite well, or do you disagree?
I think it's a little unfair to dismiss this design pattern just because it's not immediately discoverable on page load. It really depends on the context in which this is used. Also, while better looks is one thing, having less controls on the page leaves the user with a smaller cognitive load, giving them more attention to focus on and process the content.
> And if your point is that being able to do those projects and ALSO "buy what you want" (e.g. nicer TV and car) will give you much greater satisfaction from your life, you are clueless about human nature. You might get a thrill from these items in the short term, but eventually you'll just want more and better ones. You'll be in the same place (psychologically) as where you started.
You make a mistake in your point. The mistake is that you assume that he wants to achieve happiness by acquiring these material possessions like that new TV, an expensive car, etc. He won't, and he knows that. What he'll achieve is pleasure. Short term pleasure, maybe, but so what? Desire for pleasure is natural, and being in a position to get all the toys you want will satisfy that, and keep satisfying it.
It won't fill any holes in your soul or give you long-term happiness, but it's not supposed to. That burning desire to live better is what drives human progress. Look around and see how comfortable our existence is today compared to a thousand years ago. Cars, electricity, phones, heating, plumbing--so much convenience. None of that is necessary to exist, but it's something that makes living our lives much more pleasant. That new TV or car isn't going to give our lives more meaning, but it will make them more interesting and satisfying.
Yes but how do you use WordPress without installing a bunch of stuff on your computer? You need MySQL and you need a web server to run it, probably Apache. These don't come standard with Windows, so it's not that much easier to get WordPress running locally. It's true that many hosts now offer very easy WordPress installs, but there is no reason why something like this can't be set up for Toto. But as it is right now, Toto is a great WP replacement for hackers.
I think you missed both points. Point 1 was that he doesn't need to install anything on his Windows client to publish to his blog. Point 2 was that Toto is not a WP killer. By naming Toto as a replacement for hackers (solutions for hackers are never killers of solutions for the masses), you are confirming his point.
Unless you're building a site for a client, a user isn't going to install it locally. They're going to pick up some piece of crap commodity webhosting account on Godaddy or Dreamhost, and use the one-click-install.
Looks good. One problem: it was very difficult to actually find a link to each app's website. The little "Go to app" doesn't even look like a link. I suggest making the site link much more prominent, underlined, and perhaps use the URL of the site to make it even easier to see.
I agree. We were playing with different styles earlier. It's in the to-do list on basecamp, but I'm not sure where it is on the queue (ie- next hour or next day).
What's the value in dumping 50 links on your readers? Are we supposed to read all that? Isn't it the function of the editor to go through them and select their picks, thus saving us time by presenting only the best content? I really don't get these long lists.
On the other hand, careless writing shows that the author places little value on his thoughts, for if he thought them important he would spend a little more time on their delivery, ensuring the contents don't get destroyed in the process.