I stopped reading as soon as I saw "jumped the shark". For me that's an auto-fail.
Paul Graham - from social shyness to patronizing
11–20 of 22 posts
Re: Paul Graham - from social shyness to patronizing
#12Earlier quoted context omitted.
But that essay style, say the most truth with least number of words, also incites people to disagree. The way they do may not always add valuable information, but it is still fun to read. You can not tell me you did not enjoy: Also remark that in painting, many of the women whose pants you are trying to get into aren’t even wearing pants to begin with. Your job as a painter consists of staring at naked women, for as…
Incidentally, believing that live models would be titillating is a classic sign of a noob. That idea is left over from Victorian times, when the mere idea of a naked woman was exciting. In actual fact, live models are generally pretty unattractive. Someone who wanted to stare at women would do way better, nowadays, at any beach.
Congrats, pg, I think you may be the first person to ever have applied 'noob' to painting. :)
Re: Paul Graham - from social shyness to patronizing
#13I have to say, I was partly inspired to attend art school (and study painting) by 'Hackers and Painters'. After all, it's an O'Reilly book. I am an archetypal hacker personality even if my achievements are modest. Computer architecture is as natural to me as breathing, whereas I could barely draw a crude stick figure. I realise MBTI has limitations but I am solidly in the realm of INTP/INTJ. Anecdotes are not data, b…
Sorry, I'm going to have to disagree. It probably depends on the painter, but I know a few who's senses of humor and curiosity perfectly match that of stereotypical hackers.
Re: Paul Graham - from social shyness to patronizing
#14I have to say, I was partly inspired to attend art school (and study painting) by 'Hackers and Painters'. After all, it's an O'Reilly book. I am an archetypal hacker personality even if my achievements are modest. Computer architecture is as natural to me as breathing, whereas I could barely draw a crude stick figure. I realise MBTI has limitations but I am solidly in the realm of INTP/INTJ. Anecdotes are not data, b…
How different my experience has been. I'm an avid drawer and programmer.
I don't know how similar the mental processes of drawing and programming are. But what I do know is that the state I'm in when I'm drawing feels the same as the state I'm in when I'm programming. When I'm deep into either, I often remark to myself how relaxing it feels.
If painting didn't feel like programming to you, maybe it was because you weren't good at it. When comparing hackers to painters, it only makes sense to compare people who are good at hacking to people who are good at painting. Doing something you're not good at involves so many hurdles and complications that are unique to the novice that all you're getting is noise. If you'd been drawing for as long as you've been able to hold a pencil, PG's thesis might not seem so bollocks.
Re: Paul Graham - from social shyness to patronizing
#15The author might have done well to read pg's essay on disagreement since his attacks were mostly vague (I too agree that the characterization of London and Paris could have been better supported), and the attacks were executed merely by bringing up an example point and then not attacking it. On the point of cities, I think that there is good economic evidence (not cited by pg) that Cambridge and Boston are very much an intellectual center because some of the greatest universities of the world and they are leaders in terms of patents and scientific citations (from "Who's Your City" by Richard Florida).
Re: Paul Graham - from social shyness to patronizing
#16I don't mindlessly follow everything pg says or does, but I do think the author is totally off base here. Basically, I don't think you can "get" the hacker/painter parallel unless you really are a hacker. When I am in the right mood and sit down to code something, it is not me typing stuff and watching letters appear on the screen. It is not me transforming the state of the computer's memory. It is ideas flowing from…
exactly. i imagine lots of people, even practitioners, see technical fields as rigid robotic type things. but to me, when i'm working on a program or electrical circuit or whathaveyou... to borrow a line from Eminem, it's like smearing bloodstains with a paintbrush
Re: Paul Graham - from social shyness to patronizing
#17I have to say, I was partly inspired to attend art school (and study painting) by 'Hackers and Painters'. After all, it's an O'Reilly book. I am an archetypal hacker personality even if my achievements are modest. Computer architecture is as natural to me as breathing, whereas I could barely draw a crude stick figure. I realise MBTI has limitations but I am solidly in the realm of INTP/INTJ. Anecdotes are not data, b…
Don't judge painters by art students. They're quite different groups. The link between art students and painters is nothing like the one between, say, medical students and doctors. Most art students (painting majors especially) don't end up as artists, and quite a lot of artists spent little or no time in art school. IIRC, Picasso went for one semester and Van Gogh didn't go to art school at all. Calder studied engineering.
Re: Paul Graham - from social shyness to patronizing
#18I have to say, I was partly inspired to attend art school (and study painting) by 'Hackers and Painters'. After all, it's an O'Reilly book. I am an archetypal hacker personality even if my achievements are modest. Computer architecture is as natural to me as breathing, whereas I could barely draw a crude stick figure. I realise MBTI has limitations but I am solidly in the realm of INTP/INTJ. Anecdotes are not data, b…
Where painters are those who do painting, and hackers are those who hack, I have to say I've noticed much similarity. But if you compare self-appointed 'artistes' to self appointed 'hackers', you'll be disappointed by the similarities, because a cultural touchstones are comparatively random.
Re: Paul Graham - from social shyness to patronizing
#19Wow.
In a world where philosophy was reserved for 'philosophers', art for 'artists', hacking for 'programmers' and business for 'businessmen' the hapless inhabitants would be sleeping the open and picking berries.
Thankfully this ain't 'that' world.
Re: Paul Graham - from social shyness to patronizing
#20I don't mindlessly follow everything pg says or does, but I do think the author is totally off base here. Basically, I don't think you can "get" the hacker/painter parallel unless you really are a hacker. When I am in the right mood and sit down to code something, it is not me typing stuff and watching letters appear on the screen. It is not me transforming the state of the computer's memory. It is ideas flowing from…
I think the hacker / painter connection is a bit overstated, partially due to the entanglement of a couple separate points. One of the major parallels that PG draws between hacking and painting is that some languages (most notably Lisp, though it's just as true of Forth and Smalltalk, as well as newer languages like Python, Ruby, OCaml, Haskell, etc.) are very flexible and well-suited to iterative development, and that this completely changes the character of programming with them. Similarly, he describes the difference between painting with tempera vs. sketching and oil paints, which allow more experimentation and changes in plan. (I'm not a painter, so I'm taking this at face value.)
While this is a useful analogy, it doesn't really say anything specifically unique to hackers and painters, vs. other creative types in general; it's more a statement about how working with malleable mediums affects the creative process. Many of his points about painting could be easily adapted to other creative pursuits: Hacking and cooking * , hacking and composing, hacking and writing, etc. His points fit most strongly when relating hacking to other "maker" fields, in a general sense. Due to his background, he refers to "Hackers and Painters", but the connection seems tenuous in writing. (Also, not many people actually paint, so the examples may not be very accessible.) Consequently, some people have missed his underlying point (that hacking is a creative thing, not something purely theoretical and logical) and, for example, dismissed his references to painting as an attempt to rub off some its glamor on programming. Hackers and Makers would be a better fit for his message.
* For example, consider the difference between making a stir-fry, with all its chopping required in advance, to a stew that can be progressively tasted, maybe have a dash more pepper or tomato added, let it simmer longer, etc.