My English teacher used to say “when you have to write an essay, write a first version. Then throw away everything but your conclusion and use that as the introduction of your real essay”
In other words, start writing and don’t be afraid to throw away. If your issue is structure, writing a first version will help you clarify your arguments, how they fit together and how to present them effectively.
If your issue is formulation (i.e. the idea you want to convey is clear in your head but you can’t manage to express it clearly) I find that an iterative writing / waiting a few hours / re-reading what I wrote / reformulating approach gradually makes my writing better: less grammatical errors, clearer phrases, and usually a more concise result.
Edit: one of my favorite quotes when it comes to writing is “Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.” Antoine de Saint-Exupery
>My English teacher used to say “when you have to write an essay, write a first version. Then throw away everything but your conclusion and use that as the introduction of your real essay”
When you replace "conclusion" with "top level functions", this seems to work equally well, at least for myself, when writing (new) code.
All code could be constructed as a Perl one-liner. Or minified.
There is a point where reduction = obfuscation.
AFAIK, it's harder to hit that point using IRL organic languages, but TBH people abuse acronyms while coding. IANAL and YMMV, but just my 2 cents FYI - TMYK!
Doesn’t even need to be a full essay. Just write down every thought about the topic in an unstructured list. The key is to just start getting stuff down and out of your head, and it doesn’t need to come out of your head as fully structured perfect paragraphs, and it doesn’t even need to start from the beginning. Get the ideas out so you don’t forget the points you want to make, then you can wordsmith them later.
My anthropology professor in college had the following advice: write a first version. Then cut down the first and last paragraph since they were only there to help you.
In other words, start writing and don’t be afraid to throw away. If your issue is structure, writing a first version will help you clarify your arguments, how they fit together and how to present them effectively.
If your issue is formulation (i.e. the idea you want to convey is clear in your head but you can’t manage to express it clearly) I find that an iterative writing / waiting a few hours / re-reading what I wrote / reformulating approach gradually makes my writing better: less grammatical errors, clearer phrases, and usually a more concise result.
Edit: one of my favorite quotes when it comes to writing is “Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.” Antoine de Saint-Exupery