[chartpath]

We should pivot the culture to one that is pro-liberal arts again. These people know how to read and write better than STEMs in general.

CS as the only path to programming was always too narrow, and often people with a broader education are better at creative solutions. With AI-assisted programming I'd argue they have an even clearer advantage now.

[mp05]

I’ve always noticed that truly excellent programmers with strong lexical instincts also tend to be formidable with their native language. Not necessarily verbose, but capable of clear and structured writing.

I’d even go so far as to argue that if someone has poor writing skills in their native language, they’re probably not a very good programmer.

[fzeindl]

> These people know how to read and write better than STEMs in general

That is completely untrue. Efficient, creative writing is a skill that can be learned by anyone by following a handful of rules.

[creesch]

In theory, it isn't that difficult, in practice writing _accessible_ text takes a lot of practice and feedback. Letting go of your own biases towards base levels (curse of knowledge) is something that already trips most people and what people find really difficult to overcome.

Which is why the statement you are responding to is often more true than you might realize. Because these people have had a lot more practice in that specific area. Although not all of them, that would be a generalization in itself.

[GarnetFloride]

I help run a writer's symposium, and let me tell you it's really hard to write a good novel.

We get editors all the time talking about things they commonly see done badly in submissions.

Slush pile readers (the people reading unsolicited submitted manuscripts) have so many war stories about awful writing.

The books you see on the shelves are less than 1% of what's created and even then there are ones that get through that are bad.

Now we have amazon inundated with AI generated books that are just incoherent.

And that is creative writing that strives only to be entertaining. Tech writing tries to teach you how to do something, which is much harder.

I like watching maker videos, and even the ones trying to explain how they are doing something always skip over important steps.

[SketchySeaBeast]

I have a liberal arts degree and I don't want to do technical writing. It's so much harder than dev work and it's utterly mind numbing.