I recently listened to the Sound Opinions episode featuring Jamila Woods, who is an amazingly talented poet, singer and songwriter from Chicago.

She mentioned something in the interview that has really stuck with me. While I don’t recall the exact quote, I can paraphrase it to something like this: in poetry classes, Ms. Woods was taught to “trust the audience”.

What I take this to mean is to trust that your audience is knowledgeable, curious, resourceful and paying attention. While I don’t want to compare creating art to writing software, there is definitely a takeaway for me about writing software and also the documentation around that software. It’s ok to trust the audience (aka other developers). Just something to keep in mind.

Meantime…here is Jamila and her excellent band performing live on Sound Opinions: