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by jessriedel 1979 days ago
Academic writing uses abstracts, and it is not because they are so accustomed to instant gratification. It is because it makes for clearer reading and a more efficient allocation of effort.
1 comments

This is not academic writing though. This is an interesting story posted on somebody's blog. If I tell my friends a cool story, I would need to walk them through the story and drop the punch line/conclusion at the end. I also enjoy it very much when somebody tell me a story that way. Not everything, even technical teardown, needs more efficient allocation of effort.

Interestingly, this is the second time I see this kind of comment recently and turns out it's from the same person. Maybe I'm on HN too much.

I brought up the academic example specifically to rebut DWakefield's argument that the main reason the reader would want abstracts/summaries is because they cannot delay gratification; I wasn't arguing that blogs should have it because academics use it.

Clearly, this is my axe to grind