Bad writing choices

Topics/tas: Writing, short

The other night, I was putting the finishing touches on a paper on the language and code camp. While that camp had some successes, it was clear that we had tried to cram too much content into the camp and that the campers did not necessarily have the background to reflect on all of the things we were doing, such as the knowledge of syntax appropriate for language generation. So I wanted to say that we were trying to do too much, too soon. But, well, my brain is damaged [1]. Hence, the first thing I wrote was,

This approach, like the New York Dolls’ second album, was too much, too soon.

It took me a bit of reflection to realize that that phrase, while amusing [2], certainly doesn’t belong in a professional paper. I’m not even sure anyone would appreciate it. I expect that only a small fraction of the people who read CS education papers would have any clue about the mid-1970’s New York punk scene. The odds that one who did would read the paper is slim. And, to be fair, very few people appreciate my sense of humor in any situation.

[1] It did not help that it was about 2 a.m. local time.

[2] At least to me.

Version 1.0 of 2018-09-01.