DaveWalk

Interesting phenomenon. It's eerily similar to r/Boston.

We could have been twins, when I was in graduate school :)

At times I had (still have?) a cynical look at scientific publishing, that it was a symptom of a larger problem: the Peter Principle writ large. Professors and researchers are selected for one thing (their scientific ability), but their major job duties are for something else (here, writing; but also teaching and leadership). Select for one trait, but the job description is for another, and the output is dismal.

To further extend my cynicism: why would a PI follow Cormac McCarthy's advice? Do we have evidence that better-written papers are more "successful," with more citations and shares? My argument (based only on my experiences) is for the opposite: the language is secondary. "Skip to the figures," as I have heard.

Yes -- good on them changing, and bravo to them for calling it out and saying why. In my opinion they put a lot of effort into making this post, and it shows.

Upvoted for being pithy and beautiful. Where's our manifesto? Can I suggest you write it?

Amen to this: once you get your feelings in a better place, be part of the solution.

From a business side of things, the advantage of Salesforce is that it can very easily be managed by non-devs. It has straightforward sales functions baked in: reporting, forecasting contact management. For sure, Airtable can be used as a lightweight CRM. Depending on your business, it might be all you need -- it might even be preferred if you're bootstrapping and constantly iterating early on! But Airtable falls down when your sales/marketing needs grow -- those hires probably won't have the patience to develop tools that tie into Airtable. To reference the old Jim Barksdale line, Salesforce is the "bundle" option, and Airtable is the "unbundle" one.

+1 to developers on HN: if your dream is to have a company with a sales team, it's great practice to get to know CRM softwares early and in-depth. Every seasoned salesperson will need a functioning CRM to do good work...and the best salespeople will get held back by a malfunctioning/nonexistent CRM.

This is nearly a universal law in the sales world: products/services pitched to salespeople always 1) are expensive and 2) come with their own sales team who are slick and/or aggressive. I've seen it from sales training, to software and everything in-between.

Thank you for this point (and book recommendation). It has clarified my thinking on dark patterns, something I've long suspected. We need to (re)educate designers about the mistakes they're making, in service of what I assume are data- hungry marketing employees.

I also enjoyed and support the phrase from the article: "confirmshaming."

You raise very good points. The shortcuts thing has made me miserable for years. Surely the coders of Mozilla appreciate a good set of shortcuts, like in whatever IDE they write their code in!