CONCEPT · GROUNDING

“It writes well. How do I know it isn't just writing well?”

A sentence points at what makes it true.

This is where the pages turn from what Preston believes to what it says. An utterance is assembled from claims Preston already holds, and every load-bearing part of it keeps a link back to the claim that supplied its meaning.

BUILT FROM

claimmessagefactutterancestandingcorroborationtensionrevision

Every word above is defined on the vocabulary page, and every concept above is a page before this one.

THE SHAPE

publishable

WHAT PRESTON SAYS, AND WHAT MAKES IT TRUE

user.ts

if (name === "") throw new Error("Name required")

grounds the sentence below

GroundingEmpty names are rejected points at that line and at nothing else. The sentence is disposable; what it points at is not.

WHAT THIS CHANGES

The claim can travel into a review, a page, or a message without losing what makes it true. And a sentence that cannot point at anything does not get written — it gets suppressed, with a reason.

The chain a sentence has to clear

WHAT PRESTON WANTS TO SAY

Empty names are rejected, and the empty string is covered by a test. This has prevented several signup incidents.

  1. FIRST CLAUSE

    The implementation throws before saving when the name is empty. Points at a real fact on the same message.

    src/user.ts:12

  2. SECOND CLAUSE

    A test passes the empty string and expects the error. Also points at a fact on the message.

    src/user.test.ts:24

  3. THIRD CLAUSE

    This has prevented several signup incidents points at nothing. There is no such fact on the message, and the sentence names one that was never handed to it.

    unsupported

  4. THE VERDICT

    The whole sentence fails. Not the third clause — the sentence. If a rewrite still cannot point every part of it at something, nothing is published, and the silence is recorded with a reason.

    a check, never a repair

WHY IT IS NEVER PATCHED

Stripping the offending clause and publishing the rest would be publishing a sentence nobody wrote. The chain either produces something every part of which points at a fact, or it produces nothing.

NEXT

Restraint →

RELATED

Why does it think that? →