A tutorial on D templates

[Walter Bright]

On 1/14/2012 11:00 AM, Jonathan M Davis wrote:
> There are certainly times when reducing how much "you" is used reduces the
> amount of text at no extra cost, but there are other times, when it's far more
> natural to use "you," and it can become harder to produce sentences without
> completely reworking that section of text if "you" is removed. And honestly,
> it just seems overly picky to me. Sure, it can reduce the word count, but I
> really don't think that it does all that much to improve the quality of the
> text, and it can require quite a bit more work, since it tends to be unnatural
> to avoid "you" in the way that technical writers like to.

You and I are going to disagree on this.

But I will add that excessive use of "you" in technically minded books tends to, 
in my mind, reduce the book a grade in quality. This is not a decision I 
consciously make, it's just that it doesn't read like a professional technical 
book would. In fact, it took me a while to figure out why I didn't find certain 
texts to be professional sounding.

Like I said, it's like wearing jeans to a wedding. It doesn't matter how nice 
the jeans are, or that jeans are appropriate in other contexts. It doesn't 
matter how you feel about it.

Strunk & White's "The Elements of Style" rule 17: Omit Needless Words

 > and it can require quite a bit more work,

This is not an issue. The whole of the document can be fixed in a handful of 
minutes.