Use of first person in a book

[bearophile]

Andrei Alexandrescu:

> How do you feel about 
> moderate use of the first person in a technical book? Do you find it 
> comfortable, neutral, or cringeworthy?

I think it makes the book more like the product of a person, so I like it.

I hate reading 10 research papers where most of them are written by a single person and all of them use "we can see" or "it can be seen". The first person author has become a ghost. Improving a research paper, or science, doesn't imply removing anything human. Using first person isn't synonym of bad science.

Bye,
bearophile