I wrote a book to help developers to improve their writing
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This is 1 of 59 launches in business and software development guides — see how it stacks up on momentum and crowding →
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Details
- External ID
- 49964837
- Source
- HN
- Company
- —
- Product
- I wrote a book to help developers to improve their writing
- Website domain
- refactoringenglish.com
- Launched
- Oct. 5, 2026
- Cohort
- —
- Upvotes
- 5
- Upvotes percentile
- 0.10
- Tags
- —
Description
I've been writing online about software and entrepreneurship for the last decade. You may remember me as the guy who quit his job at Google to bootstrap my own business (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16483241) or the guy who spent $46k on a website redesign that got out of control (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32179563).Other developers have asked me for help with their writing, and I realized that there are certain techniques and best practices I've picked up over time that most developers don't know. Some of the rules take practice to apply, but a lot of them you can apply as soon as you understand it.I've spent the last two years capturing all the writing techniques I've learned into a book called Refactoring English: Effective Writing for Software Developers (https://refactoringenglish.com/). I'm launching the book today in both print and digital formats.This book would not be possible without HN. I initially funded it with Kickstarter, and sales had plateaued at around 80% of my target with only four days remaining (https://mtlynch.io/book-pre-sale-just-barely-succeeded/). Fortunately, a reader posted one of my sample chapters to HN (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43503872), and the support from HN users pushed me from 80% of my goal to 130% of my goal.
Enrichment
- Niche
- business and software development guides
- Vertical
- Education
- Function
- Communication
- Audience
- Developer
- AI stance
- Not AI
- Project type
- Commercial product
- Normalized one-liner
- technical writing guide for developers
- Manually corrected
- False
Could you build this?
Yes This is a digital book with a landing page and payment processing (Gumroad/Stripe), which is trivial to create.
Discussion
1 comment analyzed.
Competitors
Other products that read as similar to this one — 117 launches clear the similarity bar, closest 8 shown.
Attention rank: #115 of 118 (itself plus its competitors, highest first — normalized so YC and Product Hunt are compared fairly).
Launched 340 days after the earliest competitor.
- Startup sci-fi novel that took me 5 years to write · hn · 2026-06-08 · 27 upvotes · similarity 0.62
- Software Engineer to Novelist: Writing a Book Like Coding · hn · 2026-05-03 · 22 upvotes · similarity 0.54
- Notes from building a startup, shared openly · hn · 2026-01-25 · 11 upvotes · similarity 0.50
- It took 4 years to sell my startup. I wrote a book about it · hn · 2026-02-04 · 208 upvotes · similarity 0.46
- I worked on a sci-fi book for the 2025 · hn · 2026-01-01 · 5 upvotes · similarity 0.43
- Stage · hn · 2026-04-16 · 130 upvotes · similarity 0.42
- LaoTzu Writer Studio · hn · 2026-05-07 · 8 upvotes · similarity 0.42
- ToC Works · ph · 2026-10-01 · 1 upvotes · similarity 0.42
Other launches for this product
- No other launches for this product.