On Afternoon with Designers and Writers

A large chunk of my afternoon was spent reading A List Apart and links originating from there. The site was filled with inspiring and motivating articles about writing, web standards, and web design. Some articles criticized the current state of web design; Others were introductory solutions to how to fix some common problems. I picked up some unfamiliar jargon like 'vertical rhythm', and 'web copy'.

My favorite part of reading these articles was simply the act of reading them. It's been a long long time since I've read technical stuff for fun. Ars and Wired are useful, but they're more for keeping up to date in tech news than for fun. I tend to skim through those articles, with the exception of the luddite and 'Sex Drive Daily'. What I read today was different though. What made it fun was the good writing and foreign material.

Any writing reads like a psychological triller after staring all day at API. Something in your brain just snaps after you've seen a certain number of keywords like algorithm, module, or method. Jumping over to a page where you read from top to bottom and left to right was just fantastic. There were no prerequisites that I had to read to follow the story, so I could click on links at my leisure. The headers were engaging, there were pictures, and not everything was taken literally.

On top of the writing fit for general purpose reading, most of the articles I read were about subjects I knew little about. Previously, I only saw technologies like XHTML and CSS as specifications. I never would've imagined them to be as exciting and ever-changing. Many articles were even tied to specific technologies, but instead focused on people.

All of this reminded me that conciseness and entertainment aren't mutually exclusive. I'm not suggesting that all APIs should be rewritten to be non-fiction bestsellers, but it sure wouldn't hurt to throw us poor saps a few beautifully written words once in a while.