| > Shishir Mehrotra (of Coda) wrote about the importance of “Eigenquestions” when framing problems, a term he coined, inspired from his math background: > the eigenquestion is the question where, if answered, it likely answers the subsequent questions as well. > This inspired me to name a symmetrical concept I’ve been pondering for a while: Eigensolutions. The eigensolution is a solution that addresses several key use cases, that previously appeared unrelated. The original article is a complete muddle. It misdescribes framing, and then adds in a misdescription of eigenvectors. It's spending a lot of time and effort on misuse of language to no benefit -- plausibly the motivations were pseudo-intellectual, or at least, intellectually lazy. The reason it has to do this is obvious: describing breaking problems down, framing problems, and asking fundamental questions isnt new; and no person discussing that seems impressive or a genius. Throw in a few half-baked borrowed notions from rhetoric and mathematics, however, then it all seems so much more vital. The whole thing is an exercise in writing 5x as much to say 1/2 of what's needed and playing to a dumb audience ready to lap it up. The dumb audience in both cases are non-tech manager types, who're endlessly desperate to acquire technical language to seem in-the-know. |
That thing right there is what I despise most in non-fiction/non-recreational reading!
A good text says what it wants to say in as few words as possible while remaining easily intelligible to the intended audience.
Clarity & conciseness are the central virtues!