Completely agree with your comment. The only thing I am not quite sure of is if it really changed my writing style. Any suggestions how you approached this/how HN helped you on the way?
Sometimes, I have a bad habit of making an argument a little too concise. I forget that not everyone is in my head and knows exactly what I'm thinking, so I gloss over important details. The joy of this site is that everyone is so intelligent that they pick up on this and call me out right away.
As a consequence, I've had to work on being concise enough that people read me, yet detailed enough that people understand me. Learning to balance those two things has made a tremendous difference in my career!
Quick caveat - being concise is something I've always struggled with. Therefore, I think I took inappropriate shortcuts to try and become concise.
Here, i write sentences three or four times searching for a short clear statement. I can't say my writing is good, or even correctly punctuated, but it's far better than some of my direct to email incoherent rambling.
The biggest problem i'm noticing now is verb agreement. I'll rewrite parts of a sentence and fix all the things i break. If only there was a typechecker to warn me of those silly mistakes.
I am more aware of when it's acceptable to wave my hands and when it's not. I find myself looking at my writing more critically. HN has been a conspicuous influence in that.
