I like the idea that arbitrary constraints can actually improve writing. Without a constraint, it's easy to fall back on familiar phrasing, while having to work around something unusual forces you to reconsider each word. I wonder if this applies to programming and other creative work too.
> I wonder if this applies to programming and other creative work too.
It does. It’s a know aphorism that constraints bread creativity. A couple of examples (one of deliberate constraints and another of accidental constraints):
Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt created “Oblique Strategies” as ways to challenge yourself.
The Köln Concert, which is “the best-selling solo album in jazz history and the best-selling piano album” was improvised because there was a mixup and Keith Jarrett was given a terrible piano.
Live is short, required time to market is even shorter. Arbitrary constraints might work if you have nothing better to do, but if you have a goal, or specific ideas you want to train, you'll get more natural constraints.
History is full of half-baked products that were better executed by a competitor later. While I agree that manually balancing the text of manual is probably not the best use of time, it's this obsessive mindset that creates great products. If Super Metroid would have optimized for time-to-market we wouldn't even remember the game.
I would argue that limitations, forced or arbitrary lead to more interesting (and perhaps in the end more useful) products.
In the GDC 2016 talk "8 Bit & '8 Bitish' Graphics-Outside the Box" by Mark Ferrari he mentions something similar.
(paraphrasing) "If you can make anything you like (with modern Photoshop) you won't need to stop to consider the core of your idea."
A lot of our thoughts are not as original as we like to believe and constraints can push your to consider your ideas and designs from another perspective leading to better understanding or design of the core concept. Often because the ideal path to realizing your idea is not available so you will have to reconsider the need or how to creatively implement something that approaches your desired outcome.
Now the GDC talk is about pixel art but the same is true in writing or any creative process (for example painting or coding). Famously some writers limit their selves to typewriters, for example George Orwell or Matty Healy.
This is what I think about grammar. Yes, it’s a little arbitrary but it makes you think a little more about your writing. That’s why I try to use correct grammar in text messages. I don’t push this on anyone because most people don’t like to think about word choice, but I am a writer at heart. Still I have to bite my tongue every time someone sends me a text message “hi am here”
