>> Trouble is, I write the outline, start writing the body text, and then
>> discover that this is actually a bad order, due to some dependency I
>> hadn't thought of.
>
> Then you stop writing and you go back and fix the outline. It means your
> outline wasn't detailed enough to start with.

OK. But once you change the outline, you have to rewrite the entire 
document. (Because otherwise you'll have chapter 3 thinking that X has 
already been explained, when now it's actually in chapter 7 instead...)

>> Not really. I mean, if you write something that doesn't completely
>> make sense until two paragraphs later, most people will accept that.
>> If you write something in chapter 2 that doesn't really make sense
>> until chapter 17... not good.
>
> Memento. Inception. Any suspense movie you care to name. ;-)

I don't generally watch that kind of movie. (Although... has anyone seen 
Inception? Is it any good?)

> What you need to learn is what's called "lies to children."

Yeah, Knuth did a lot of this in The TeX Book...

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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On 31/01/2011 07:10 PM, Darren New wrote:

> Traveling Salesman Problem: n. A complex problem that has befuddled
> computers for decades, but which traveling salesmen solve on a daily basis.
>
> :-)

Sure. But think how much money they would save if they could solve it 
exactly! :-D

>> Looking at the dense tangle of
>> intimately related topics, it's difficult to see where to start.
>
> Start with falsehoods.

Isn't that how they write holy scripture?

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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On Mon, 31 Jan 2011 16:48:44 +0000, Invisible wrote:

>> One has to look for opportunities to present and to write, and take
>> advantage of them.  That's how you improve - by doing, and then by
>> evaluating the experience.
> 
> For the most part, it's a case of not having the time or money to
> improve things. For example, I'd like to be able to sing. But I have
> literally no idea how you'd go about that, and I can't afford it anyway.
> You say that writing is all about getting good feedback, but I can't
> think of any way to do that. And so forth.

You ask for feedback from people who have offered to give you feedback on 
your writing.  Several of us here have done so.  So you don't need to 
think of a way to get good feedback, because that's been offered already.

>> So then what would your next step be?
> 
> Beats me!

To start by asking for assistance would be good. ;-)

>> Which is why you would use something like Google (remember Google? ;-)
>> ) to learn more about a topic.
> 
> I guess it's a case of not bothering to even search for it under the
> assumption that I won't find anything of use. Usually when I search I
> find nothing useful, so over the years I've gradually given up.

You could ask for help.  I might also suggest you start playing with 
language a bit - in particular, word association.  When I was a teenager 
working in a software store/bookstore, I'd have customers ask how to do 
something with a particular piece of software, and if we had any books on 
the topic.

I'd take them back to the books on the subject, point them out, and grab 
what I had determined (through experience of doing this exercise before) 
was most likely to have it.  Usually the customer would peruse the table 
of contents; I'd start doing word association and look in the index.  In 
probably 4 times out of 5, I'd be at a page that would give them detail 
on what they were looking for before they'd gotten past the table of 
contents.

That is a skill that can be learned.

>> For more technical topics (not IT specific, but more detailed topics),
>> learning is an iterative process.  You find a resource, read it, and
>> then evaluate "did I get what I needed?" - and if you didn't, then you
>> find the next resource.
> 
> I spent quite a long time doing that with digital filter design.
> Eventually I gave up due to the sheer intractability of finding anything
> remotely useful. (Fortunately, many years later I finally stumbled upon
> a very good resource by accident...)

The trick is to train yourself to do so intentionally so finding the 
right resource isn't accidental.  Do you have a local library?

>> You need to learn to do this iteration rather than giving up after
>> round 1 so frequently.  You did it with your dancing classes, so apply
>> that to other areas in your life. :)
> 
> Uh, I went to *one* dance school, and I'm still there. Not a great
> analogy. :-P

Actually, it's an excellent analogy, because you determined:

1.  You wanted to learn to dance
2.  You identified someplace that could help you do so
3.  You identified the class(es) that you were most interested in
4.  You went to class and learned
5.  YOU KEPT AT IT
6.  You are continuing to refine your skills by still going to class

It's a perfect example of the iterative process of learning, because 
you've gone through many iterations.

Jim

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On Mon, 31 Jan 2011 16:36:51 +0000, Invisible wrote:

>>>> Surprise, this is the process of writing.
>>>
>>> No, a successful writing process eventually involves *solving* the
>>> ordering problem.
>>
>> Then you need practice, with people to help you.  With a little
>> practice and guidance, even YOU could learn how to do this. ;-)
> 
> Well, here's to hoping.

Don't hope.  Practice.

>>> There are plenty of problems which *actually are* NP-complete, but it
>>> doesn't stop people solving them on a regular basis.
>>
>> 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.
> 
> Perhaps I'm just too much of a perfectionist then.

That is common for people in technical fields - so you're not alone.  I 
still struggle every day with "is it good enough?", made doubly difficult 
as I've transitioned into a management role (albeit for programs rather 
than people currently), and I continuously have to remind myself that 
just because something wasn't done the way I would have done it, doesn't 
make it wrong.

>>> 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.
> 
> Well, OK, I don't know what the precise term is, but I drew a chart of
> all the topics I wanted to talk about and which ones are interrelated.
> You know what? *EVERYTHING* is interrelated! >_<

That's a start.  Problem is that nobody really teaches how to use them 
effectively, certainly not in the US schools.  I would've done much 
better in school if I'd been taught how to use that as a way of taking 
effective notes, for example.

>> 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.
> 
> OK. Well maybe I'll try again with something slightly less insane...

That's the way to do it, start with something simple, and work up to the 
larger projects.  You wouldn't try to play Beethoven's 9th Symphony on 
the violin without first working through Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, so 
don't try to do a symphony your first time out writing.

>>> 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.
> 
> I still remember the "research training" we did at university. This
> consisted of knowing where the library keep the various documents they
> hold. No indication of how you figure out what documents exist or which
> ones might be useful or...

That sounds about as useful as a class my stepson has just audited - he's 
in his 4th year (of 4) at Uni here, and one course he hadn't taken 
because his schedule didn't fit it was "how to use the library" (I'm not 
kidding about this).  His advisor said that as he was in his 4th year and 
had been on the dean's list every term that there was little point to 
making him take the class; if he didn't know how to do research now, it 
wasn't going to help him get his degree any more (since he clearly knows 
how to do research).

For me, though, it comes down to the word association game I mentioned in 
another recent post.  When I want to research, for example, how a testing 
system works (since that's what my job consists of now), my resources are 
mostly people that work on such systems.  But if I have to get into 
psychometrics (which I occasionally do, though I don't need to understand 
the actual statistics that make up psychometrics), then I know I need to 
look at statistics.  I know that because I had to look up what 
psychometrics actually is.

So I guess the other part is learning how to break a complex topic down 
into manageable pieces.  That's also a learnable skill, and not something 
that anyone innately knows how to do.

Jim

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On Mon, 31 Jan 2011 16:45:49 +0000, Stephen wrote:

> On 31/01/2011 4:21 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
>> Then you need practice, with people to help you.  With a little
>> practice and guidance, even YOU could learn how to do this.;-)
> 
> Send only $9.99 for the Jim Henderson "How to improve your life skills"
> tutorial. :-P

LOL

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On Mon, 31 Jan 2011 16:55:28 +0000, Stephen wrote:

> On 31/01/2011 4:51 PM, Invisible wrote:
>> On 31/01/2011 04:45 PM, Stephen wrote:
>>> On 31/01/2011 4:21 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
>>>> Then you need practice, with people to help you. With a little
>>>> practice and guidance, even YOU could learn how to do this.;-)
>>>
>>> Send only $9.99 for the Jim Henderson "How to improve your life
>>> skills" tutorial. :-P
>>
>> Don't even joke about that crap - there's serious money to be made
>> here!
> 
> Not by me! :-(

Nor me, I'm not smart enough to monetize it.  :-)

Jim

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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
>>> Trouble is, I write the outline, start writing the body text, and then
>>> discover that this is actually a bad order, due to some dependency I
>>> hadn't thought of.
>>
>> Then you stop writing and you go back and fix the outline. It means your
>> outline wasn't detailed enough to start with.
> 
> OK. But once you change the outline, you have to rewrite the entire 
> document. (Because otherwise you'll have chapter 3 thinking that X has 
> already been explained, when now it's actually in chapter 7 instead...)

Sometimes. Eventually you learn how to make the outline detailed enough that 
you don't crap all over yourself that way.  Just like programming.

>> What you need to learn is what's called "lies to children."
> Yeah, Knuth did a lot of this in The TeX Book...

I don't think many people accuse Knuth of being unable to organize complex 
interrelated pieces of technical information. :-)

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
  "How did he die?"   "He got shot in the hand."
     "That was fatal?"
          "He was holding a live grenade at the time."

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On Mon, 31 Jan 2011 21:10:02 +0000, Orchid XP v8 wrote:

>> Memento. Inception. Any suspense movie you care to name. ;-)
> 
> I don't generally watch that kind of movie. (Although... has anyone seen
> Inception? Is it any good?)

Yes, and I enjoyed it.  I didn't find it confusing at all.

Jim

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On Mon, 31 Jan 2011 21:11:32 +0000, Orchid XP v8 wrote:

> Sure. But think how much money they would save if they could solve it
> exactly! :-D

Actually, this isn't far off what I was writing about in another post - 
deciding when it's "good enough" - aka "the point of diminishing 
returns". :-)

Jim

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On 31/01/2011 9:30 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Mon, 31 Jan 2011 16:55:28 +0000, Stephen wrote:

>>>> Send only $9.99 for the Jim Henderson "How to improve your life
>>>> skills" tutorial. :-P
>>>
>>> Don't even joke about that crap - there's serious money to be made
>>> here!
>>

Those that do, do.
Those that can't, joke ;-)

>> Not by me! :-(
>
> Nor me, I'm not smart enough to monetize it.  :-)
>

You mean that you can't make money from it?
<gd&rvvf>

-- 
Regards
     Stephen

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