Make Music Not Noise

Authors:Christopher Kelleher Time:10:00 - 10:20 Session:http://docs.writethedocs.org/2014/na/talks/#christopher-kelleher-make-music-not-noise Link:

Making sound is not the same as making sense.

Information is not the same as communication.

And the standards of music can guide us torward communication.

So what is noise? We usually think of it as “what I don’t like to hear”. But more formally, it’s “sound without structure”. The structure is patterns and frameworks, and the search for structure appears to be hard-wired into our brains. Listening to unfamiliar music in an MRI, we see both the most ancient and most modern parts of the brain lighting up as the subject begins identifying patterns and structure. Even infants respond to pitch and harmony: sound with structure.

And while we reject “noise” as “not songs” almost instinctively, we don’t have the same hard-wired detection for poor documentation.

Most noise is inadvertant, but sometimes it’s intentional. [Shows the iTunes TOS.] It’s tempting to think that the TOS is a failed document, because it’s so long and inscrutable. But it’s not, because it’s not an attempt to communicate: its goal is to beat you into submission an acquiesence.

By neglect, we have the expectation that documentation is supposed to hurt. But we can do better. Music-like satisfaction is achievable and desirable. And we can get there.