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_why: A Tale Of A Post-Modern Genius

smashingmagazine.com

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Re: _why: A Tale Of A Post-Modern Genius

#91

Post by tokipin »

zephyrfalcon wrote: post #89
tokipin wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

INTJs : programming as science, maybe a little art INTPs : programming as equal parts science and art this comes from the fundamental difference between left-brain and right-brain conception. namely, the right-brain folks can handle the tiny little details directly and simultaneously and account for them statistically. because of this, they can often rule out or rule in entire chains of reasoning in vast swaths and h…

Hmm. What about INFPs?

the algorithm to figure out left/right hemisphere dominance from MBTI type is pretty easy... J is left-brain, P is right-brain. there's some potential subtlety but that's the general rule

Re: _why: A Tale Of A Post-Modern Genius

#92

Post by SkyMarshal »

Interesting debate on whether programming is an art or science. Fwiw, programming isn't the first field which has undergone this argument. Even Bobby Fischer complained that chess had lost its artistry to a trend of mechanized memorization:

"Fischer Random was designed to remove the importance of opening book memorization. Fischer complained in a 2006 phoned-in call with a television interviewer that talented celebrity players from long ago, if brought back from the dead to play today, would no longer be competitive, because of the progress in memorization of opening books. 'Some kid of fourteen today, or even younger, could get an opening advantage against Capablanca', he said, merely because of opening-book memorization, which Fischer disdained. 'Now chess is completely dead. It is all just memorization and prearrangement. It's a terrible game now. Very uncreative.'[336]"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobby_Fischer#Fischer_Random_Ch...

Re: _why: A Tale Of A Post-Modern Genius

#93

Post by mceachen »

jgg wrote: post #77
antirez wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Programming as science: not consistent with reality IMHO. My argument is that it's pretty simple to build a good computer scientist: take a guy with good IQ and put it into a good university. But there are zero guarantees that you'll end with a good coder also, as coding is a matter of taste, tradeoffs, design decisions, creativity, ability to think out of the box, and so forth. The problem is that most of our indust…

(Note that this response isn't an attack on you specifically, it's just my feelings towards this argument in general) Where is the magical divide between "art" and "science" in the field? Do the adherents of either side even know what they're defending? If I know what a finite state machine is and how to apply it, does that make me "scientific"? If I hack together a web application in Scheme, instead of some Mathemag…

Here here! After witnessing N software fads with the pendulum of complexity and convention and configuration swinging to and fro, I firmly believe software crafting is much more similar to writing a book than constructing a bridge.

Preferably a book without any surprising twists. Or homicides. But extra chunky bacon.

Re: _why: A Tale Of A Post-Modern Genius

#94

Post by Jun8 »

Being a non-creator, the quote at the end of the article has hit me so hard, I cannot get it off my head for hours now:

"When you don’t create things, you become defined by your tastes rather than ability. Your tastes only narrow and exclude people. so create."

As for the programming is a science or art debate: It is' of course wrong to make such a dichotomy. People who draw a thick boundary between these two, I think, appreciate neither art or science. Programming is a science, it's true, but it also is a thing of beauty, much as a game of Go, or a beautiful mathematical theorem. Any scientific endevour you do passionately is worth to be called an art, I think (and vice versa). Let us not make the mistake that John Keating makes when he says:

"We don't read and write poetry because it's cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for. To quote from Whitman, "O me! O life!... of the questions of these recurring; of the endless trains of the faithless... of cities filled with the foolish; what good amid these, O me, O life?" Answer. That you are here - that life exists, and identity; that the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. That the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. What will your verse be?"

Re: _why: A Tale Of A Post-Modern Genius

#95

Post by jacquesm »

jimbokun wrote: post #90
jacquesm wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Programming is part craft, part science, and occasionally a very small dash of inspiration or art. But for the most part I think that a very large amount of it is very comparable to bricklaying. Especially in the part where most people in the IT world make their money, such as software for the financial and the business world. Rarely does it elevate itself to the level of watchmaking and even rarer do you find art. I…

"Bricklaying has been 'industrialized', and one day programming will be too." This prediction has been made for decades now. I suppose if people keep predicting this indefinitely, someday it will become true. In the meantime, new programming tasks are invented faster than the old tasks are industrialized. "Once you get better at programming it is more like knitting or weaving than puzzling." This is up to you. Was bu…

> This prediction has been made for decades now. I suppose if people keep predicting this indefinitely, someday it will become true.

One day is on purpose very vague, I haven't a clue on what timescale we're talking. But I'm fairly sure what will be the sign that we've reached it, it's when we will remove the term programming from language and use 'teaching' instead.

> This is up to you. Was building Google, Amazon, Linux, Firefox, iPhone OS, etc. etc. etc. more like knitting or weaving than puzzling? Maybe what you are saying is that most programmers aren't good enough to build those kinds of products, or would just rather stick to their knitting and weaving. That I would agree with.

Most of those were huge projects, but if you break them up in to little pieces some of them were artwork, most of them were bricks. The architecture of each of those was likely artwork.

> This is trivially true of any cognitive task.

Yes, but many programmers seem to think there is something 'magical' about the ability to program, as if there is some kind of essential element that differentiates those that can program from those that can not.

And I think that is not the case.

Re: _why: A Tale Of A Post-Modern Genius

#96

Post by phaedrus »

gdp wrote: post #16

Articles about _why on HN seem to always take on a particularly sycophantic quality. As a non-fan of Ruby, his contributions to programming outside of that community seem minimal. The ethic that people appear to ascribe to him ("programming as art") is precisely the opposite to that which I generally advocate ("programming as science"). I (and others) often suggest that the former approach is actually harmful to soft…

I've found his contributions outside of Ruby to be also valuable: he wrote a very interesting minimal webserver in the Io language. Just reading the code to it opened my eyes to a way to solve a problem in some Io code I was working on. And the language he designed, "Potion", is very innovative. The stuff he's created is valuable as art, but if you must insist on programming as science, I'd argue his unique way of thinking has also pushed the boundaries of programming as a science in the way that calculus changed people's ways of thinking about math and physics.

As for his strange charisma, I would say _why is to programming as Ramanujan was to mathematics. There were western mathematicians who were so fascinated by Ramanujan, that even when he was wrong, they suggested that perhaps he was "right" in some higher plane of reasoning.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramanujan

Re: _why: A Tale Of A Post-Modern Genius

#97

Post by steveklabnik »

jacquesm wrote: post #70
starkfist wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, that is what I'm suggesting.

No wonder you're angry then. Ok, that makes me understand your position in this thread a bit better. Thanks for the explanation!

To give you an example of why starkfist would say something like this, you only need to look at @_why's last few tweets:

"programming is rather thankless. you see your works become replaced by superior works in a year. unable to run at all in a few more."

"if you program and want any longevity to your work, make a game. all else recycles, but people rewrite architectures to keep games alive."

"an ascending homage to fish bones. culminating in a delicate canopy of mouse furs."

... Okay, maybe not that last one. Anyway. He was obviously contemplating all of the stuff we've created around software, and was pretty bummed out by it.

Not that anyone will know _exactly_ why he disappeared, but still.

Re: _why: A Tale Of A Post-Modern Genius

#98

Post by steveklabnik »

leif wrote: post #81
leif wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Programming as art is little more than masturbation. Useful programming must be done as a science.

haha, wow nobody wants to challenge me on this?

There's nothing to challenge. You've made a statement of your opinion, and you've stated it in such a confrontational way that nobody wishes to engage you with a response.

Maybe rather than saying 'wow' and laughing, you should consider why the things that you say cause others to want to exclude you from the conversation, rather than reply.

Re: _why: A Tale Of A Post-Modern Genius

#99

Post by [deleted] »

gdp wrote: post #16

Articles about _why on HN seem to always take on a particularly sycophantic quality. As a non-fan of Ruby, his contributions to programming outside of that community seem minimal. The ethic that people appear to ascribe to him ("programming as art") is precisely the opposite to that which I generally advocate ("programming as science"). I (and others) often suggest that the former approach is actually harmful to soft…

[deleted]

Re: _why: A Tale Of A Post-Modern Genius

#100

Post by trop »

davidalln wrote: post #32
jmillikin wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Code can be used to create art. Wood can be used to create art. An HTML parser is not art, any more than disposable chopsticks are. I've never understood _why's fan base; he seems to be no more than somebody who popped up, wrote a few low-quality libraries for an obscure language, and then vanished.

I guess we disagree on the definition of art. Those disposable chopsticks still required the search for a satisfactory length, width, smoothness, etc. Not to mention, the label and the marketing which equally requires a mastery of human psychology in order to get their product to sell. In this way, the designers have added something great and unique to the world which many people enjoy and use every day. This is art.…

Indeed! There can be a joy & delight in writing an HTML (or XML) parser. I love that the libxml still has a quote at the top:

"Programming with libxml2 is like the thrilling embrace of an exotic stranger." Mark Pilgrim

That sort of excitement is not just an engineering one.

And, of course, some artists choose not to even write HTML parsers, but to do things more strange, more beautiful with their code. And that is where things really change, and really get exciting.

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