Writing article
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I am wondering seeing the quality of authors here in CP. It would be great if you can share the steps you guys do before writing an article. Do you write it first on a paper ? etc..
Here's my standard MO: 1) Write the code/app/demo. 2) Decide what is interesting, tricky, relevant enough in the code that merits explanation in an article. 3) Identify the exact snippets of code to highlight. 4) Take screenshots of the demo app in particular states, if appropriate. 5) Open MS Word. 6) Think of a meaningful title that is not too long. 7) Think of a meaningful subtitle that is not too long. 8) Determine the clearest way to present the material, based on increasing code complexity, dependencies, etc. 9) Write out all of the section headers, such as Introduction, Background, etc. 10) Write the article. 11) Pour a big glass of booze. 12) Battle with the WYSIWYG editor and coerce it to accept my article. (Sorry Chris!) 13) Spend the next two days obsessively editing and tweaking the article until it is as close to perfect as I can make it. 14) Lose faith in humanity when people vote my article down without ever explaining why. 15) Repeat. ;)
:josh: My WPF Blog[^] Sleep is overrated.
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Here's my standard MO: 1) Write the code/app/demo. 2) Decide what is interesting, tricky, relevant enough in the code that merits explanation in an article. 3) Identify the exact snippets of code to highlight. 4) Take screenshots of the demo app in particular states, if appropriate. 5) Open MS Word. 6) Think of a meaningful title that is not too long. 7) Think of a meaningful subtitle that is not too long. 8) Determine the clearest way to present the material, based on increasing code complexity, dependencies, etc. 9) Write out all of the section headers, such as Introduction, Background, etc. 10) Write the article. 11) Pour a big glass of booze. 12) Battle with the WYSIWYG editor and coerce it to accept my article. (Sorry Chris!) 13) Spend the next two days obsessively editing and tweaking the article until it is as close to perfect as I can make it. 14) Lose faith in humanity when people vote my article down without ever explaining why. 15) Repeat. ;)
:josh: My WPF Blog[^] Sleep is overrated.
Man!!!!! :omg: I've been skipping about ten of those steps! No wonder I can write article so fast! And what kind of booze do you use?
Best wishes, Hans
[CodeProject Forum Guidelines] [How To Ask A Question] [My Articles]
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Here's my standard MO: 1) Write the code/app/demo. 2) Decide what is interesting, tricky, relevant enough in the code that merits explanation in an article. 3) Identify the exact snippets of code to highlight. 4) Take screenshots of the demo app in particular states, if appropriate. 5) Open MS Word. 6) Think of a meaningful title that is not too long. 7) Think of a meaningful subtitle that is not too long. 8) Determine the clearest way to present the material, based on increasing code complexity, dependencies, etc. 9) Write out all of the section headers, such as Introduction, Background, etc. 10) Write the article. 11) Pour a big glass of booze. 12) Battle with the WYSIWYG editor and coerce it to accept my article. (Sorry Chris!) 13) Spend the next two days obsessively editing and tweaking the article until it is as close to perfect as I can make it. 14) Lose faith in humanity when people vote my article down without ever explaining why. 15) Repeat. ;)
:josh: My WPF Blog[^] Sleep is overrated.
Josh Smith wrote:
- Open MS Word.
Seriously? I tried that once and was just frustrated to no end once I had to get it into an html format, and then re-edit bits of the article. At this point I just type it in plain text and then manually add the html tags, since there are so few.
Josh Smith wrote:
- Lose faith in humanity when people vote my article down without ever explaining why.
So sad, so true!
¡El diablo está en mis pantalones! ¡Mire, mire! Real Mentats use only 100% pure, unfooled around with Sapho Juice(tm)! SELECT * FROM User WHERE Clue > 0 0 rows returned Save an Orange - Use the VCF! VCF Blog
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Man!!!!! :omg: I've been skipping about ten of those steps! No wonder I can write article so fast! And what kind of booze do you use?
Best wishes, Hans
[CodeProject Forum Guidelines] [How To Ask A Question] [My Articles]
Hans Dietrich wrote:
And what kind of booze do you use?
Whatever helps numb the pain of working with HTML! :laugh:
:josh: My WPF Blog[^] Sleep is overrated.
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Josh Smith wrote:
- Open MS Word.
Seriously? I tried that once and was just frustrated to no end once I had to get it into an html format, and then re-edit bits of the article. At this point I just type it in plain text and then manually add the html tags, since there are so few.
Josh Smith wrote:
- Lose faith in humanity when people vote my article down without ever explaining why.
So sad, so true!
¡El diablo está en mis pantalones! ¡Mire, mire! Real Mentats use only 100% pure, unfooled around with Sapho Juice(tm)! SELECT * FROM User WHERE Clue > 0 0 rows returned Save an Orange - Use the VCF! VCF Blog
Jim Crafton wrote:
Seriously? I tried that once and was just frustrated to no end once I had to get it into an html format, and then re-edit bits of the article. At this point I just type it in plain text and then manually add the html tags, since there are so few.
I find that the extra steps and frustration is worth it. Word has some very good features, which you must enable, that provide things far beyond just spell checking. It can give you very pedantic degrees of grammar checking and writing style analysis. On me own me no write no goods, so me needs da word to make me smarter looker. :)
:josh: My WPF Blog[^] Sleep is overrated.
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Here's my standard MO: 1) Write the code/app/demo. 2) Decide what is interesting, tricky, relevant enough in the code that merits explanation in an article. 3) Identify the exact snippets of code to highlight. 4) Take screenshots of the demo app in particular states, if appropriate. 5) Open MS Word. 6) Think of a meaningful title that is not too long. 7) Think of a meaningful subtitle that is not too long. 8) Determine the clearest way to present the material, based on increasing code complexity, dependencies, etc. 9) Write out all of the section headers, such as Introduction, Background, etc. 10) Write the article. 11) Pour a big glass of booze. 12) Battle with the WYSIWYG editor and coerce it to accept my article. (Sorry Chris!) 13) Spend the next two days obsessively editing and tweaking the article until it is as close to perfect as I can make it. 14) Lose faith in humanity when people vote my article down without ever explaining why. 15) Repeat. ;)
:josh: My WPF Blog[^] Sleep is overrated.
Josh Smith wrote:
- Open MS Word.
Hopefully you can move to Microsoft Expression Web 2 :laugh:
Regards, Thomas Stockwell Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning. Visit my homepage Oracle Studios Discounted or Free Software for Students: DreamSpark - downloads.channel8.msdn.com MSDN Academic Alliance - www.msdnaa.com
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No, I guess we all use some kind of text editor nowadays. There is a guide on posting articles here[^]. Just find something that you would share and start working on it.
Work @ Network integrated solutions | Flickr | A practical use of the MVC pattern
You beat me to Marc's article. It's a great one :)
"The clue train passed his station without stopping." - John Simmons / outlaw programmer "Real programmers just throw a bunch of 1s and 0s at the computer to see what sticks" - Pete O'Hanlon
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Josh Smith wrote:
- Open MS Word.
Seriously? I tried that once and was just frustrated to no end once I had to get it into an html format, and then re-edit bits of the article. At this point I just type it in plain text and then manually add the html tags, since there are so few.
Josh Smith wrote:
- Lose faith in humanity when people vote my article down without ever explaining why.
So sad, so true!
¡El diablo está en mis pantalones! ¡Mire, mire! Real Mentats use only 100% pure, unfooled around with Sapho Juice(tm)! SELECT * FROM User WHERE Clue > 0 0 rows returned Save an Orange - Use the VCF! VCF Blog
Jim Crafton wrote:
At this point I just type it in plain text and then manually add the html tags, since there are so few.
I should have mentioned that before pasting my article from Word into the WYSIWYG editor, I first pass it through Notepad. That removes all the crazy formatting crap that Word introduces.
:josh: My WPF Blog[^] Sleep is overrated.
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Josh Smith wrote:
- Open MS Word.
Hopefully you can move to Microsoft Expression Web 2 :laugh:
Regards, Thomas Stockwell Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning. Visit my homepage Oracle Studios Discounted or Free Software for Students: DreamSpark - downloads.channel8.msdn.com MSDN Academic Alliance - www.msdnaa.com
Would that be the Beta, Alpha, CTP, RC1, RC2, or RTM? Also, what about when it's re-branded and becomes Microsoft Office Windows Live Expression Web 2.0 Online Service Pack 2?
¡El diablo está en mis pantalones! ¡Mire, mire! Real Mentats use only 100% pure, unfooled around with Sapho Juice(tm)! SELECT * FROM User WHERE Clue > 0 0 rows returned Save an Orange - Use the VCF! VCF Blog
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Hans Dietrich wrote:
And what kind of booze do you use?
Whatever helps numb the pain of working with HTML! :laugh:
:josh: My WPF Blog[^] Sleep is overrated.
So straight up moonshine or Everclear[^] then? :)
¡El diablo está en mis pantalones! ¡Mire, mire! Real Mentats use only 100% pure, unfooled around with Sapho Juice(tm)! SELECT * FROM User WHERE Clue > 0 0 rows returned Save an Orange - Use the VCF! VCF Blog
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So straight up moonshine or Everclear[^] then? :)
¡El diablo está en mis pantalones! ¡Mire, mire! Real Mentats use only 100% pure, unfooled around with Sapho Juice(tm)! SELECT * FROM User WHERE Clue > 0 0 rows returned Save an Orange - Use the VCF! VCF Blog
Jim Crafton wrote:
[Smile]
I don't know. I can no longer see the bottle's label! X|
:josh: My WPF Blog[^] Sleep is overrated.
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Would that be the Beta, Alpha, CTP, RC1, RC2, or RTM? Also, what about when it's re-branded and becomes Microsoft Office Windows Live Expression Web 2.0 Online Service Pack 2?
¡El diablo está en mis pantalones! ¡Mire, mire! Real Mentats use only 100% pure, unfooled around with Sapho Juice(tm)! SELECT * FROM User WHERE Clue > 0 0 rows returned Save an Orange - Use the VCF! VCF Blog
Jim Crafton wrote:
Also, what about when it's re-branded and becomes Microsoft Office Windows Live Expression Web 2.0 Online Service Pack 2?
We in the inner-circle refer to it as MOWLEW2SP2
:josh: My WPF Blog[^] Sleep is overrated.
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Jim Crafton wrote:
Also, what about when it's re-branded and becomes Microsoft Office Windows Live Expression Web 2.0 Online Service Pack 2?
We in the inner-circle refer to it as MOWLEW2SP2
:josh: My WPF Blog[^] Sleep is overrated.
Oh that's *much* better... :)
¡El diablo está en mis pantalones! ¡Mire, mire! Real Mentats use only 100% pure, unfooled around with Sapho Juice(tm)! SELECT * FROM User WHERE Clue > 0 0 rows returned Save an Orange - Use the VCF! VCF Blog
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Jim Crafton wrote:
Also, what about when it's re-branded and becomes Microsoft Office Windows Live Expression Web 2.0 Online Service Pack 2?
We in the inner-circle refer to it as MOWLEW2SP2
:josh: My WPF Blog[^] Sleep is overrated.
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Josh Smith wrote:
We in the inner-circle refer to it as MOWLEW2SP2
which can be pronounced moley to spit, too.
Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface
Oakman wrote:
which can be pronounced moley to spit, too.
Don't reveal our secrets, otherwise it will no longer be the "inner" circle! :~
:josh: My WPF Blog[^] Sleep is overrated.