Don’t be rash with your mouth, and don’t let your heart be hasty to utter anything before God; for God is in heaven, and you on earth. Therefore let your words be few. For as a dream comes with a multitude of cares, so a fool’s speech with a multitude of words. — Ecclesiastes 5:2-3
I would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have the time. — Pascal
I’ve had some ideas going around in my head for a few weeks now for 2 or more blog posts, on subject matters completely unrelated
to programming, finance, or any of the other few topics I have written about in the last year. Although I have been somewhat aware of it for a
while, the problem finally hit me right in the face – I am too verbose.
In a perfect world, I woud love to write a lengthly, descriptive programming article like Jeff Atwood, or some off-the-wall
analysis of a hypothetical queston like Randall Munroe, but neither are my style, nor do I have time to write such things with 3 kids. After reading some of the blogs where I work or by friends of the team, I finally realize that brevity is where it is at.
When trying to write, I have too many ideas. When I do actually write, I still worry too much about the details. I find 10 source to quote,
try to narrow it down to just one, and end up using none. I write 1000 words down, and then throw it away because surely everyone is like
me and just skims whatever they see on the Internet.
With that out of the way, I do have a few things I want to write about in coming weeks. If I can keep reminding myself to be brief and to not
worry about quoting tons of sources, I might actually get them up on the blog.