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>> I'm pretty sure that Andy is perfectly able to write a decent report.
>
> He said he isn't. So who am I going to believe.
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 writing tends to lack high-level order - much like
my thought processes.
["So you see, the derivative of a Nth order polynomial is a polynomial
of order N-1. And that means - ooo, I wonder if dolphins can hear in
stereo?"]
> In the same vain, I'm
> pretty sure that Andy is perfectly able to find a decent girlfriend.
> Yet, here the current facts seem to point another way.
As a matter of fact, I'm going to meet a friend in a pub this very
afternoon. And I'm *hoping* he's convinced a certain lady he knows to
tag along... ;-)
Now, if only I knew the magical incantation. [You know, the one that
makes her go from "ok, I'm sitting here with a bunch of people chatting"
to "hey, that boy is cute. I should make out with him..."]
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Nicolas Alvarez wrote:
> That's why he's our mascot, isn't it? :)
You know, a few minutes after I posted "Phrases", I did wonder if maybe
I might have accidentally created another bukkakke moment. :-S
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Darren New wrote:
> Yah, plus your technical writing isn't bad either, from the few snippets
> you've posted here when you write about things you enjoy.
Ooo... really?
> You might need some instruction on how to (say) write a report for
> management, or something like that, but that's a skill that's relatively
> easy to learn with a bit of practice. It *does* take instruction, so you
> can't just keep trying an expect to get better without feedback. (Not
> unlike resumes, really.)
Interestingly, my experience with the disaster recovery procedure
document suggests otherwise...
[It used to be 3 pages of whaffle about "hey, um, if X fails we could
maybe do Y, unless Z and then... uh... that's quite unlikely?" The sort
of thing a student might dash off half an our before the hand-in date.
Full of unecessary technical jargon, most of it used incorrectly.
That document is now 25 pages long, and consists of a high-level
non-technical explanation of what systems we have in the first place,
the fault tolerance measures it has, the emergency contracts he hold,
etc etc before it even goes *into* disaster recovery steps. And then,
for each disaster, it explains (in non-technical language) exactly what
impact such a fault would have, and lists various recovery options.
Apparently "external auditors love it". Make of that what you will...]
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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
>>> I'm pretty sure that Andy is perfectly able to write a decent report.
>>
>> He said he isn't. So who am I going to believe.
>
> 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 writing tends to lack high-level order - much like
> my thought processes.
>
> ["So you see, the derivative of a Nth order polynomial is a polynomial
> of order N-1. And that means - ooo, I wonder if dolphins can hear in
> stereo?"]
Well, can they?
>> In the same vain, I'm pretty sure that Andy is perfectly able to find
>> a decent girlfriend. Yet, here the current facts seem to point another
>> way.
>
> As a matter of fact, I'm going to meet a friend in a pub this very
> afternoon. And I'm *hoping* he's convinced a certain lady he knows to
> tag along... ;-)
>
> Now, if only I knew the magical incantation. [You know, the one that
> makes her go from "ok, I'm sitting here with a bunch of people chatting"
> to "hey, that boy is cute. I should make out with him..."]
What does 'make out' mean in this context?
BTW I am not sure if you have already past your 'cute' date (because of
being of the wrong sex to judge). You might try to go for 'interesting'.
I think that is much safer. You can do that for many years to come, even
outside of the context of chatting up ladies in bars. And you do have
some unique features.
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> Now, if only I knew the magical incantation. [You know, the one that
> makes her go from "ok, I'm sitting here with a bunch of people chatting"
> to "hey, that boy is cute. I should make out with him..."]
Some pages from a software development wiki:
http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?DatingIsHarderThanProgramming
http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?DatingPatterns
http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?ExtremeDating ("Dating in the mode of Extreme
Programming")
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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> Darren New wrote:
>
>> Yah, plus your technical writing isn't bad either, from the few
>> snippets you've posted here when you write about things you enjoy.
>
> Ooo... really?
Really. You could write informal white-papers that other geeks would
read, methinks. (At least, I read what you write and find it interesting.)
The part others seem to think you lack is the knowledge of how to
structure a document that's bigger. You need to be able to say (a) why
would the reader want to read this document, and (b) present it in an
order and form that makes it easiest to understand.
> Interestingly, my experience with the disaster recovery procedure
> document suggests otherwise...
Oh. OK. Well, I haven't seen that. :-) I'm not saying you can't, I'm
saying that earlier in this thread, you said
> I have no idea how to write a report...
Based on that...
> That document is now 25 pages long, and consists of a high-level
> non-technical explanation of what systems we have in the first place,
> the fault tolerance measures it has, the emergency contracts he hold,
> etc etc before it even goes *into* disaster recovery steps. And then,
> for each disaster, it explains (in non-technical language) exactly what
> impact such a fault would have, and lists various recovery options.
> Apparently "external auditors love it". Make of that what you will...]
It means that "I have no idea how to write a report" is incorrect. It
sounds like exactly what you ought to be writing.
Why do you say you don't know how to write a report, when you're
getting praise for the quality of your report from people whose job is
to *judge the quality of your report*. :-)
--
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
"That's pretty. Where's that?"
"It's the Age of Channelwood."
"We should go there on vacation some time."
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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 writing tends to lack high-level order - much like
> my thought processes.
Yeah, that's a hard thing to get over. The trick I've found is you need
to be able to hold the whole thing in your head at once. The only way
to do that is to abstract it repeatedly until it all fits.
In other words, write an outline, and then rearrange the outline. Make
sure what you want to say is all in the outline. Expand parts of the
outline, concentrating on only those sections, until the outline
includes enough detail that you know where everything you want to say goes.
I bet if you were to go back and generate an outline of your disaster
recovery report, it would look great. Then you just have to get in the
habit of doing that for every document.
> Now, if only I knew the magical incantation. [You know, the one that
> makes her go from "ok, I'm sitting here with a bunch of people chatting"
> to "hey, that boy is cute. I should make out with him..."]
Heh. It's not magic. Just be your witty charming self.
--
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
"That's pretty. Where's that?"
"It's the Age of Channelwood."
"We should go there on vacation some time."
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Nicolas Alvarez wrote:
> http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?DatingIsHarderThanProgramming
Thanks for that. That's way funny.
--
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
"That's pretty. Where's that?"
"It's the Age of Channelwood."
"We should go there on vacation some time."
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>>> Yah, plus your technical writing isn't bad either, from the few
>>> snippets you've posted here when you write about things you enjoy.
>>
>> Ooo... really?
>
> Really. You could write informal white-papers that other geeks would
> read, methinks. (At least, I read what you write and find it interesting.)
Heh. I've still failed to convert even one single person to Haskell yet.
>:-)
> The part others seem to think you lack is the knowledge of how to
> structure a document that's bigger. You need to be able to say (a) why
> would the reader want to read this document, and (b) present it in an
> order and form that makes it easiest to understand.
Yeah, I'm not too good at that. I know that you're supposed to say
everything thrice and all that, I'm just not good at ordering my
thoughts in a coherant way.
> Why do you say you don't know how to write a report, when you're
> getting praise for the quality of your report from people whose job is
> to *judge the quality of your report*. :-)
It's not a report, it's a policy document. Different set of rules...
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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> I'm just not good at ordering my thoughts in a coherant way.
Almost nobody is. It takes practice and discipline.
> It's not a report, it's a policy document. Different set of rules...
You organized it the same way as a "report." Probably because you really
know that whole bit inside-out, so you didn't have to organize it in
your own head.
Seriously, try building an outline first next time you have to write
something, even if it's only a page or two long.
--
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
"That's pretty. Where's that?"
"It's the Age of Channelwood."
"We should go there on vacation some time."
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