> Aren’t you kinda telling someone how they should write a post?
Well, it is not my intent, but I take your meaning (:
I suppose I do draw some fuzzy line between presenting someone with information or perspective, which they may or may not choose to internalize, and telling someone what to do. It's a struggle: I want to share and try to be helpful, but I don't want to be evangelical about it. Likewise, there's challenging people, and there's used-car-salesman-ing them (or so).
Certainly, there are lots of different personalities banging around in the world, and anyone trying to learn has to develop some resilience to the various ways people communicate. But I guess for my part, I do gently advocate for a more gentle approach. I respect if you find "strong" (forceful?) points to be better, though. In my mind, not everyone I talk to is fully an adult (hell, myself included).
I'm reminded a little bit of some East/West cultural differences that come up, sometimes. In the West, we say "the squeaky wheel gets the oil" (i.e. being loud/pushy is rewarded) and in the East it's "the tallest blade of grass gets cut down first." In the West, argumentation follows a "I'm right, you're wrong; here's why..." adversarial approach, while in the East, it's "You're right, but I am right in an even broader sense..." Obviously I'm grossly generalizing, but you get the idea.
But anyway, thank you for your counterpoints. It's a topic that interests me.
(Aside: I don't mean to imply that you or the OP are being used-car-salesman-y; just staking out some points of reference in this many-dimensional space we're discussing :)
With you on finding balance and considered points. That’s my instinct in general. However (and feel free to see if this lands with you) I think I’ve found that the ones that work are super direct. For example, Joel Spolsky had absolutely confident articles that might or might not be perfectly correct for all situations (eg “Things you should never do, part 1”), but the confidence means there is one message in one article. I consider that article a principle to balance against other principles. But it’s not written as if it should be balanced and that probably made it more successful.
Well, it is not my intent, but I take your meaning (:
I suppose I do draw some fuzzy line between presenting someone with information or perspective, which they may or may not choose to internalize, and telling someone what to do. It's a struggle: I want to share and try to be helpful, but I don't want to be evangelical about it. Likewise, there's challenging people, and there's used-car-salesman-ing them (or so).
Certainly, there are lots of different personalities banging around in the world, and anyone trying to learn has to develop some resilience to the various ways people communicate. But I guess for my part, I do gently advocate for a more gentle approach. I respect if you find "strong" (forceful?) points to be better, though. In my mind, not everyone I talk to is fully an adult (hell, myself included).
I'm reminded a little bit of some East/West cultural differences that come up, sometimes. In the West, we say "the squeaky wheel gets the oil" (i.e. being loud/pushy is rewarded) and in the East it's "the tallest blade of grass gets cut down first." In the West, argumentation follows a "I'm right, you're wrong; here's why..." adversarial approach, while in the East, it's "You're right, but I am right in an even broader sense..." Obviously I'm grossly generalizing, but you get the idea.
But anyway, thank you for your counterpoints. It's a topic that interests me.
(Aside: I don't mean to imply that you or the OP are being used-car-salesman-y; just staking out some points of reference in this many-dimensional space we're discussing :)