Getting the Spirit
From reading the discussions that crop up on comment threads, you start to recognize that the most vocal commenters on the Internet are the literalists.
Literalists are really good at finding the exceptions. For example, imagine that a recruiter posts an article on their blog saying there are times when you shouldn't practice too much for a job interview, because it will keep you on your toes and you might come across as more sincere.
It's not the most controversial idea in history, but it's not a stretch to imagine people posting comments on this article about edge cases where this advice is a bad idea. "What if it's a technology company? What if it's a big company, like Google, and you really need to be prepared?" And so on. The literalists will come up with all the situations in which the recruiter's advice is bad and happily point those out.
Usually these kinds of comments are friendly. Other times, they have the tone of "I found a single hole in your idea, so that means the whole idea is bunk!" It's a fairly common non sequitur on the Internet; it's usually a fallacy.
Most of us who are reading advice on the Internet understand that any advice is implicitly prefaced with the words "In general..." We're dealing with guidelines, not hard-and-fast rules. In our minds, we absorb the spirit of what a person says, and we're retro-fitting the advice to our own situations where it's applicable.
Quibbling over the letter of the law is a pretty good way of wasting time (unless you're an attorney.) Getting the spirit is a great way to learn and quickly move forward.
Literalists are really good at finding the exceptions. For example, imagine that a recruiter posts an article on their blog saying there are times when you shouldn't practice too much for a job interview, because it will keep you on your toes and you might come across as more sincere.
It's not the most controversial idea in history, but it's not a stretch to imagine people posting comments on this article about edge cases where this advice is a bad idea. "What if it's a technology company? What if it's a big company, like Google, and you really need to be prepared?" And so on. The literalists will come up with all the situations in which the recruiter's advice is bad and happily point those out.
Usually these kinds of comments are friendly. Other times, they have the tone of "I found a single hole in your idea, so that means the whole idea is bunk!" It's a fairly common non sequitur on the Internet; it's usually a fallacy.
Most of us who are reading advice on the Internet understand that any advice is implicitly prefaced with the words "In general..." We're dealing with guidelines, not hard-and-fast rules. In our minds, we absorb the spirit of what a person says, and we're retro-fitting the advice to our own situations where it's applicable.
Quibbling over the letter of the law is a pretty good way of wasting time (unless you're an attorney.) Getting the spirit is a great way to learn and quickly move forward.