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by jonnycomputer
1336 days ago
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I'm not sure their example of "improved" short-form messaging improves things much. In some ways its worse. We're all being overwhelmed with information, and often the thing we want to know is: is this relevant to me, and what is the gist. The terser the better. For what it's worth, I sometimes go with something like: Update on foobar.py bug: - Script was not updating last-name column in person table - Notified Sarah, and Sarah will push fix soon Details: Blah blah blah, if you aren't interested in all these details, don't read this. But super useful if you need it. |
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The bad short form message is bad because 1) it's ambiguous and 2) it has a short lifespan. By lifespan, I mean the time that a message can be read and can be useful.
Using terms such as "it" and "she" leave a lot of ambiguity. If you read the message 7 days later, 1 day later, maybe even an hour later, all context of what "it" is and who "her" is could be lost.
Using names instead of "it"/"her" means you can read the message 24 hours later, maybe even a week later and still understand what it was, or at least it gives you more information to figure out what the context was.
In short: I think the improved message is significantly better than the first.
> The terser the better.
In general I agree with this. I have no evidence but I'd bet some people prefer the conversational message over the status update. Again, it depends on the context. If it's a status update, make it a status update. If it's a conversation, let it be one.