Lost Among Notes

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Opinions matter

Opinions and feelings matter. Even in technical fields.

I live overwhelmed by all the things I should be learning, by the incessant din of new fads in my industry. To help me make choices, I often look for personal opinions or experiences.

Say I’m thinking of learning a new programming language; I want to know, How does it feel? Is it easy to read? Easy to modify? Does it feel heavy? Does it clutter your thinking?
I care about these issues. When discussing with colleagues at work, this is the type of conversation I may well have.

Yet in the net, there seem to be mainly two types of post one hits when looking for context (excluding the troll-posts, I mean):

  • The shootout. You’re offered a comparison of a few technologies according to a some pre-defined metrics. A champion is named, but you are reminded that “it all depends on your use case.”

  • The more nuanced think-piece by some developer, in platforms such as Quora (ugh) or a personal blog. Explaining to you that “it all depends on your use case”, while giving you moderate depth.
    I imagine the authors rewarding themselves for their effort with a glass of merlot and a chard frittata.

Opinion matters. Point of view matters.
No need to make yours un-impeachable.