David BissetInteresting. Someone didn't like it when documentation uses the term "simply" and "it's easy" so much they made a site out of it:
It's actually a GOOD site too, and if you write docs or marketing it might be worth a look.
Derick Rethans@davidbisset My vim config highlights these words.
PastaThief@davidbisset I've frequently heard that implying something is easy as a way to soothe people who you feel might balk at a task is actually one of the biggest ways to sabotage learning, because it primes them to feel like a failure when they encounter any difficulty with the task at all. I've started trying to eliminate, "It's easy," from my board game teaching and I think it's been helping.
Kelly Guimont@PastaThief @davidbisset @jeffy I'm a data set of one but I can tell you this has certainly sabotaged me in all kinds of ways. Neurominority brains don't "simply" do things either.
JJ Celery@davidbisset this drives me *nuts* in documentation because it assumes a level of knowledge on par with the person who wrote the docs, which is rarely the case.
What I love when I read docs is absence of justs and simplies, but instead something like "this doc assumes that you have some x knowledge and if you don't you may want to start at (link to x knowledge)"
I try to do same when writing docs myself.
SarahATX@jjcelery @davidbisset
Mark Baker calls this "qualifying" the reader, which I love and reference this concept often with the writers on my team. 😊
Mark Baker calls this "qualifying" the reader, which I love and reference this concept often with the writers on my team. 😊
@purplelotus13 @davidbisset Source please? I love collecting the goods.
JW prince of CPH@jjcelery @davidbisset Also in the same category: Using technical terms - or God help us, technical abbreviations! - when it isn't strictly necessary, without explaining what they mean.
Kevin Teljeur ❄️@jjcelery @davidbisset @whalecoiner For what it’s worth, this makes technical books unreadable too, especially when it comes with a jaunty conversational style. Just give the facts, don’t tell me how easy it really is and that I’ll hopefully ‘get it’ later on.
Seth Goldstein@davidbisset That's pretty and simple!
David Artiss@davidbisset I've often thought of doing something similar for those who use the expression "the proof is in the pudding".
Shauna GM@davidbisset For some reason I thought the site was going to be "input your docs url here and we'll show you ever time you've used the words 'just' 'simple' 'easy' and their variants" and now I'm sad it doesn't
Mark Needham@shauna @davidbisset you can try alexjs for that in case you've not seen it before https://alexjs.com/
Greg@davidbisset a documentation writer after my own heart!
joel b@davidbisset I only use those terms in documentation ironically. Nonetheless it's time to drop them.
Josh Bruce
Akseli 
@davidbisset the fixed version was way easier to read for me who doesnt speak english as native language :)
@aks that makes sense in a good reason to avoid that language, even though I am sure often, it’s well intended to make the user feel relaxed.
@davidbisset yeah, i prefer simple and to the point language when solving a problem. Its way easier for me when im already bothered by the problem itself
Jim Spath@davidbisset <Strunk and White enter the chat.>
Henri@davidbisset
Curl calls a big part of its API “easy”
Curl calls a big part of its API “easy”
䷰ Xīn Jīn Mèng 新金梦I'm not sure what "painfully easy" is, but if it persists for more than four hours, you should see a physician.
Baltasar Cevc@davidbisset @daniel very good. Indeed these are superfluous words that make text lengthy.
Mirjam Aulbach@davidbisset That's great resource, thanks for sharing! I use the alexJS linter to flag that kind of language when I wrote documentation since I heard a talk about accessible documentation where that was mentioned! It was a big 💡moment for me - I worked hard on removing these phrases from my vocabulary when I still did dog training, but until the talk it didn't really click for me that it's also a good idea to do that in documentation and things like that 🤦♀️
Neven Falica@davidbisset Ahh, that reminds me of the days when I had to use SBT - Simple Build Tool.
Yeah, "simple", sure. 😑
Yeah, "simple", sure. 😑