Other things people say about...
``The two virtues of architecture which we can justly weigh, are, we said, its strength or good construction, and its beauty or good decoration. Consider first, therefore, what you mean when you say a building is well constructed or well built; you do not merely mean that it answers its purpose,---this is much, and many modern buildings fail of this much; but if it be verily well built; it must answer this purpose in the simplest way, and with no over-expenditure of means.''John Ruskin, The Stones of Venice.
``When a novelist writes well, the craft of the writer becomes invisible, and the reader sees the story and characters with a clarity undisturbed by the technique of the writer. Likewise, when a program interacts well with a user, the interaction mechanics precipitate out, leaving the user face-to-face with his objectives, unaware of the intervening software. The poor writer is a visible writer, and a poor user interface designer looms with a visible presence in his software: eyes wild, hair rumpled and Jolt on his breath.''Alan Cooper, About Face: The Essentials of User Interface Design
``Writers of books and articles should not use we in circumstances where the collective anonymity of the editorial of a newspaper is out of place. An author may, taking the reader with him, say we have seen how thus and thus ..., but ought not, meaning I, to say we believe thus and thus; nor is there any sound reason why, even though anonymous, he should say the present writer or your reviewer, expressions which betray his individuality no less and no more than the use of the singular pronoun. Modern writers are showing a disposition to be bolder than was formerly fashionable in the uses of I and me, and the practice deserves encouragement. It might well be imitated by the many scientific writers who, perhaps out of misplaced modesty, are given to describing their experiments in a perpetually passive voice, (such-and-such a thing was done), a trick that becomes wearisome by repetition, and makes the reader long for the author to break the monotony by saying boldly I did such-and-such a thing.''H. W. Fowler, A Dictionary of Modern English Usage.