Wabi-Sabi WritingΒΆ

Authors:Scot Marvin
Time:11:40 - 12:00
Session:http://docs.writethedocs.org/2014/na/talks/#scot-marvin-wabi-sabi-writing
Link:

So what is Wabi-Sabi? It turns out that the only people really talking about it are westeners. It comes from Japanese Zen Buddhism, where there’s an appreciation for syntactic ambiguity, something we don’t have much of in the west.

The tenets go something like this:

  • Beauty in the impermanent
  • Beauty in the imperfect
  • Beauty in the incomplete

Now as strict Helenists, this idea of imperanence and imperfection doesn’t always sit well. But when have we written software that was even complete, let along perfect?

Wabi-sabi is sometimes described as rustic or primitive, but that doesn’t mean it’s the same as Luddism.

And just because it embraces imperfection doesn’t mean that it’s complacent. You still iterate, you still work on your product, but you don’t expect that an iteration will be perfect.

Agile is also about incremental betterment.

  1. Less Faulkner, more Hemingway; or, clear writing.

    Faulkner and Hemingway represent two extremes of 20th century American writing. You can lose yourself in Faulkner’s sentences, but it makes for a poor paradigm for technical writing and documentation. Hemingway is the king of the short sentence, and that’s something to aim for in technical writing.

  2. Less Coltrane, more Davis; or, tranquil writing.

    Coltrane was known for his controlled chaos: he put so many notes into a measure, it was sometimes known as “sheets of sound”. Davis, on the other hand, was the king of calm and cool, demonstrating economical restraint in his compositions. When readers come to documentation, it’s unfortunately usually as a last resort. They need calm and cool, not controlled chaos.

  3. Less Versailles, more Ryoan-ji; or, simple writing

    Marvin talks about loving things that are like the Gardens of Versailles: magnificent, elaborate, and intricate. But most of our readers usually want something closer to a zen sand garden.

  4. “Done is beautiful.”

    We can’t complete anything, but we can get something done. And done is always beautiful.

Embrace the crack and crevices of your work.