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On Mon, 31 Jan 2011 09:57:53 +0000, Invisible wrote:
>>> ...well, I end up drafting and re-drafting in an endless cycle which
>>> never produces a document of more than a few dozen pages. :-(
>>
>> Surprise, this is the process of writing.
>
> No, a successful writing process eventually involves *solving* the
> ordering problem. I never seem to reach that point. I either spend
> forever writing and rewriting the outline, or I eventually give up and
> try to write the text, and spend forever rewriting that instead. Either
> way, I never get to actually produce a large document.
Then you need practice, with people to help you. With a little practice
and guidance, even YOU could learn how to do this. ;-)
>> It's been my experience, though, that with practice one can learn how
>> to properly organise things so they can be presented effectively. I
>> have created training materials on highly complex technical topics, and
>> my classes always got good feedback and people would walk away
>> understanding what they were taught.
>
> You're obviously way better at this than I am.
I've had practice. Lots of it. And I used to completely suck at it.
>> Hyperbole really doesn't help you make your case, though. It's not NP-
>> complete, it's a matter of breaking the topics down into digestible
>> units, and then organising the units in the most effective manner
>> possible.
>
> There are plenty of problems which *actually are* NP-complete, but it
> doesn't stop people solving them on a regular basis. (Travelling
> salesman, anyone?) To split hairs, most of these problems are only
> NP-complete if you want the "perfect" solution. Sometimes nearly-perfect
> is good enough.
Now you're getting the idea. You don't *have* to be perfect, you don't
even really *have* to be nearly perfect. You have to get to "good
enough" to meet the requirements.
>> Give me an example topic and I'll walk you through it.
>
> I'll have to have a think about that one.
OK, well, I'm not going anywhere.
> I tried drawing a mindmap for Haskell. (When I eventually found a tool
> that can actually draw them!) What I discovered is that everything is a
> prerequisite for everything else! >_< Looking at the dense tangle of
> intimately related topics, it's difficult to see where to start.
Then that's not actually a mindmap. I use View Your Mind (vym), and it
works very well. You don't have to completely map all the
interdependencies. You have to just categorize each item once into the
most logical bucket you've created.
So, for example, I'm working on a project to justify the integration of
an internal system with an external system. In the mindmap I created for
this project, I created 3 top-level "buckets" - Phase 1, Phase 2, and
General. The project is anticipated to be a 2-phase project, so that's
what those two buckets are for. The third bucket is a bucket for things
I need to remember that aren't actually part of either phase - things to
watch out for, that sort of thing.
Then under General (for example), I created buckets for things like
"Customer" and "Partner", and listed the things that would be benefits to
each of those. Is there overlap? Sure, and some of those benefits fall
under specific phases - but in this case, if it fell under Phase 1 or
Phase 2, then it didn't go under General because it was already
classified as an action to be done as part of implementation.
>>> I don't know anybody who is this patient.
>>
>> We're right here.
>
> Most people will only read something once - if you're lucky.
Well, I'm offering. How many iterations of your CV did we look at here
and provide feedback on? But even then, one review with feedback is
nothing to sneeze at.
>> There's a lot more free information out there if you just search for
>> it.
>
> Not if you suck at research...
Then you need to learn to ask for help. Nobody is born knowing how to do
research - everyone has to learn it. It can be learned, and even those
who are experts at it learn more each time they research a topic.
Jim
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