Anti-Patterns in Software Blogging
- ID
- 32778
- Status
- summarized
- Published
- 07 Oct 2026, 10:53 PM
- Fetched
- 07 Oct 2026, 11:46 PM
- Provider
- Simon Willison
- Category
- developer-ai
- Original URL
- https://simonwillison.net/2026/Oct/7/anti-patterns-in-software-blogging/
- Source URL
- https://simonwillison.net/atom/everything/
Summary
- Score
- 4.0
- Created
- 07 Oct 2026, 11:46 PM
- Tags
- Audience
- developersvibe_codersai_ml_learners
What happened
Simon Willison link-posts writing advice from Michael Lynch on anti-patterns in software blogging: meandering intros, misjudging what the reader already knows, assuming they read your earlier posts, excessive formality, and using links as a substitute for explaining terminology. Lynch's rule of thumb, clarified in a Lobste.rs comment, is that an article should still make sense to a reader who clicks none of the links. Willison adds that as more developers delegate writing to AI, software blogging is getting bland and homogenous, and readers want writing with personality.
Why it matters
If you write READMEs, docs, release notes, or launch posts, the one actionable rule here is Lynch's: make the piece stand alone without any link clicks, since Willison says he suspects almost nobody clicks his links. That means inlining the definition of a term instead of linking out, and writing in your own voice rather than formal register. The AI angle is a decision point too: if your team's blog posts are AI-drafted, the differentiator readers are described as hungry for is personality, not polish.
Discussion angle
Apply Lynch's test live to one of your own recent posts or READMEs: read it as if you clicked zero links. Which sentences stop making sense, and how many of those were written by an AI?