I think constraints essentially force you to reevaluate the thing from base principles because you add a condition that’s incompatible with the default way of doing things.

I think this is also why hackathons work: You can’t afford the bikeshedding we often do to avoid the hard work because you need to ship something by a deadline 1/500th of most of your normal deadlines, so all of your effort is concentrated into what moves the core work forward.

What gets proven in hackathons often become features, products, or companies later - even if they’re things that would be ruled out in any planning meeting because they seem too hard/laborious.

I'd say a lot of the value in "explain it to me like I'm ten" is just expending more time and effort in explaining something. People of all ages respond to engaging writing and clever analogies, and that tends to accompany the style of writing for a younger or broader audience.

[flagged]

I disagree but respect the reasoning

"fusillades of acronyms"...

Fusillades? No ten year old knows that word.

• rpdillon

  today at 7:16 PM

  The blog post isn't directed at 10-year-olds. In fact, you're pulling a phrase from a paragraph that's describing exactly how you should not speak when talking to a 10-year-old.

  > The simplest constraint for anyone trying to explain a complex topic is to accept the request to “explain it to me like I’m 10 years old”. What’s packed into that request is, vividly exaggerated, the reminder that what seems obvious to an expert is often incomprehensible to the listener. Technical jargon and fusillades of acronyms are often used to convey an explanation that has been denuded of all the foundations and context that might allow it to make sense.

  • 01284a7e

    today at 7:21 PM

    My point stands. The author can't explain explaining it like I'm ten like I'm ten.

    • nemosaltat

      today at 7:44 PM

      It might be helpful to note that this article was written for the FT (as he mentions at the very bottom.) While it aphoristically may make a “pre out of you and me,” I presume neither the author, nor the subscribership of FT _are_ indeed (or wish to be) constrained to the language of a typical 10-year-old. Presumably the same would apply to the readership of HN.

      We don’t know if the author _can_ explain it like we’re ten, but I think we can be reasonably certain they understandably chose not to.

    • kelnos

      today at 9:37 PM

      The author can do that, but didn't for literary effect. And he can do that because his audience is FT readers, not 10-year-olds.

    • AnimalMuppet

      today at 7:27 PM

      Ten-year-olds don't need advice on how to explain something like the listener is ten.

    • atoav

      today at 7:45 PM

      Good thing they never claimed to be writing in that style then. Not sure what you're working yourself up over here. Authors are allowed to write about a method of writing without having to apply it themselves.

    • Chris2048

      today at 7:57 PM

      Is "explaining it like I'm ten" a complex topic?

• rzzzt

  today at 7:19 PM

  It's when multiple soldiers are ordered to fire their guns very quickly, either everyone at once or one after another.

• thaumasiotes

  today at 8:53 PM

  > No ten year old knows that word.

  Why would you think that?

  • esikich

    today at 9:13 PM

    Because they pretty much just learned to read?

• vova_hn2

  today at 8:09 PM

  I think that the author is doing it deliberately, to put the reader in the shoes of someone who has a hard time understanding some of the words, and reinforce his point.

  As a non-native English speaker there are 4 words in this article that I had to look up, which is significantly higher than a typical article from HN frontpage (usually it's 0, occasionally 1).

  If anyone curious, the words are: pellucid, fusillades, pram (idk, why I never heard it. I knew the word "stroller", of course, but I never thought about different kinds of strollers), octogenarian (this one I could have guessed from Latin roots and context, was lazy).

  • hn_go_brrrrr

    today at 8:32 PM

    Pram is common in British English. I'm guessing you learned US English, which doesn't use it.

    • pm215

      today at 9:16 PM

      Though even in the UK I think it has a slightly old fashioned feel -- I feel like parents are more likely to have a pushchair than a pram.

    • KineticLensman

      today at 8:35 PM

      Yes, as slang for ‘perambulator’, which is basically ‘stroller’

    • thaumasiotes

      today at 8:55 PM

      The word pram doesn't exist in American English, true, but you'll learn it anyway if you ever read Peter Pan.

• ranger_danger

  today at 7:16 PM

  I don't think the article itself was intended to be written for a 10-year-old to understand it.

  • nemosaltat

    today at 7:22 PM

    Neither did the author

    > If you are reading this column you definitely aren’t a typical 10-year-old, but the image of the bewildered 10-year-old gives the expert an anchor to help them slow down and simplify [0]

    [0] TFA

• nemosaltat

  today at 7:23 PM

  Indeed, TFA isn’t exactly pellucid