[halhod]

we do. all letters sent in by emailed in get the following autoreply:

"The Economist thanks you for your letter, which has been passed to the author of the article. All letters are edited if selected for publication either in print or online.

We will need to know where you are writing from, so please ensure you have supplied the name of the city, town or village and the country if that is not obvious.

If you do not wish your letter to be published send an e-mail promptly to [e-mail]."

[nindalf]

I'm surprised GP didn't expect that the letter would be edited.

One of my letters was published. I fully expected that it would be edited and was pleased with the result. You can see both versions here - https://gist.github.com/nindalf/12a533f6ff64d7f146845f289acd.... I thought the edited version conveys the intent well.

[munchbunny]

Thanks for sharing the comparison!

I think I agree, the edited version conveys the meaning and intent well. I assume the links were removed as a matter of form factor/medium.

[rusteh1]

That's really interesting. Thanks for sharing.

[iainmerrick]

Seconded!

I agree that this is smart editing that preserves the original meaning well. The one decision I question is simplifying your nicely-phrased “Most programmers spend most of their time attaching these disparate blocks together” to just “most programmers spend their time [...]”

[specialist]

If I was King: Default assumption that statements are generalizations, unless explicitly stated otherwise. To preempt pedantry.

eg

Programmers => Programmers in general, with many obvious exceptions, too numerous to list in a brief reply.

All Programmers => All Programmers

PS- Hmmm. Now I wonder if any style guides cover this? Surely some do.

[pessimizer]

Disclosed to the reader, not to the letter writer.

[bambax]

Yes, that was my point and I should have made it better.

(Also, there's a difference between editing and rewriting.)