Orchid XP v8 wrote:
>>> I'm good at writing short, unstructured things. When trying to 
>>> explain big concepts, I have trouble figuring out where to start and 
>>> what order to say things in. 
>>
>> My way of looking at a text or presentation: Look at it as if it is a 
>> program. The conclusions are the main routine. The lines in the 
>> conclusions call various subroutines (aka the previous sections and 
>> slides) that can in turn call other subroutines (paragraphs). You 
>> should therefore be able to draw a flowchart of the concepts in your 
>> text. A text is good if 1) no external subroutines are called (i.e. 
>> everything is defined within the text or common knowledge to the 
>> audience) 2) there are no dead branches. 3) all subroutines are define 
>> before use or explicitly declared as something to fill in later.
>> When I said that a programmer should be able to write a decent report 
>> (or give a good presentation for that matter) because the skills 
>> required are the same, the above is what I meant.
> 
> My God... this is genius. Genius, I say! 0_0

Oh come on, pull the other one.

> I have never, ever thought about writing stuff that way... 

I am not really surprised :( IMHO it should have been a recurring theme 
in your CS education. The fact that it wasn't confirms any prejudice 
that they still mainly teach technical subjects but fail to teach what 
*programming* is about.

> Damn, so *this* is what being intelligent must feel like? 

I think it has more to do with finding the right metaphor for a specific 
  person than with intelligence. But if it helps you to look at texts in 
a new way and helps you to write even*) better structured texts I will 
be a very happy man indeed.

> Heh. I gotta try writing something now...
Yes, do so.


*) 'even', because you knew it instinctively at a certain level and were 
writing good stuff already **)

**) footnote aka an inline function.

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