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On Craft

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Re: On Craft

#21

Post by mikewarot »

I've done guerrilla repairs to things, one time I replaced a missing screw on a revolving door, because I knew otherwise it would never happen. I replaced a ton of missing screws in some seats at a laundromat, I can't stand to see things that only need a minute of attention and a dollar worth of parts just accumulating around me in the world. I refactor things without permission, but only small, easy to undo refactors.

I'm stuck at home now, with nothing but spare time, so I've embarked on a massive refactoring project... if it works, it'll be awesome... if not, I'll have learned a few new things about the problem domain. The itch that triggered it is simple...

  "Almost all of the transistors in a computer, at any given instant, are just waiting"

Re: On Craft

#22

Post by UncleOxidant »

Sounds like my grandfather of the same era. He wired up bomber control panels during WWII and was apparently quite skilled at it. He was a Jack of all trades, but he was primarily an electrician and a locksmith, though he did all kinds of tinkering in his garage and kept his ancient cars running. I stayed with my grandparents one summer when I was in Jr High. He took me out on electrician jobs where he'd have me fetch tools and wire. On one of them the inspector showed up and my grandpa introduced me to him. The inspector told me "I can always tell when Mel has wired up a panel - it's a work of art."

People from that era had to endure a lot of hardship - the depression, WWII. They often grew up on farms. This gave them a lot of experience with fixing and growing things. All around useful skills that most of us don't have anymore.

Re: On Craft

#23

Post by LanternLight83 »

soulofmischief wrote: post #11

Great article! > I have read a lot of long spiels about craft that frequently end in something like, software work isn’t like other work, and we shouldn’t be judged the same way. We are entirely unique. We are the special ones. It might comfort the author to know that even within the realm of software engineering, there are insiders and outsiders. Some of the most important engineering work was made by these outsider…

As a self-taught programmer and resident of a town well under 20k pop (most of whom are well out of my age group), i really identify with this. it's helped a bit to learn deeply and engage with others who have done so, and in some ways is an extension of a broader void in my network (or lack there-of). it't influenced the tochnologies i've chosen and hence made me who i am today, but i hope the "zoom-native" generations broadly engage more in open online spaces and feel less of this

Re: On Craft

#24

Post by yuvalr1 »

This article reminds me of my grandfather as well, who sadly passed away two weeks ago. He was a mechanical engineer, and a real craftsman.

One example we, in our family, like to remember is how he fixed the car during a long vacation trip by his own when the engine suddenly stopped in the middle of the road. He realized the problem and used his constantly at hand pocketknife and a metal can box he found thrown on the sideways to fix the car. The mechanics had hard time to remove the fix in the garage and replace it with an original part!

Re: On Craft

#25

Post by yuvalr1 »

Fluorescence wrote: post #7

I don't like this much - somewhat vague romantic sentimentalism under a heading of "craft". I don't consider recognising trees as craft... or ride-on mowers as blue-collar... or being afraid of someone on the street at night as recognising the "soon to be broken"... or that "cadence" is a safety measure. It's often the reverse, cadence suggests not stopping when safety/quality is often about anyone being able to stop…

I think we're too used to just replace things instead of fixing them. Fixing requires understanding of how things work, and I think it's a shame most of us (I include myself) don't have enough of this understanding regarding our day to day tools and objects. If fixing something requires calling an expert, it makes it much less appealing to fix it, than just throw it away and buy something new.

This relatively new attitude creates motivation to even further divest in quality and prefer creating cheap things that break fast, because we won't invest the time and money needed to fix them anyway.

Re: On Craft

#26

Post by AlbertCory »

UncleOxidant wrote: post #22

Sounds like my grandfather of the same era. He wired up bomber control panels during WWII and was apparently quite skilled at it. He was a Jack of all trades, but he was primarily an electrician and a locksmith, though he did all kinds of tinkering in his garage and kept his ancient cars running. I stayed with my grandparents one summer when I was in Jr High. He took me out on electrician jobs where he'd have me fetc…

The phrase "shade tree mechanic" was invented for people like that.

Re: On Craft

#27

Post by dfee »

Fluorescence wrote: post #7

I don't like this much - somewhat vague romantic sentimentalism under a heading of "craft". I don't consider recognising trees as craft... or ride-on mowers as blue-collar... or being afraid of someone on the street at night as recognising the "soon to be broken"... or that "cadence" is a safety measure. It's often the reverse, cadence suggests not stopping when safety/quality is often about anyone being able to stop…

I concluded that the author is an outsider (to craftsmanship) looking through the glass at an accessible insider (grandfather).

Whether the grandfather was, or would consider himself to be an insider, we can’t glean and don’t know, respectively.

It’s a sort of longing piece, and that’s OK, but not what I expected going into it!

Re: On Craft

#28

Post by avg_dev »

soulofmischief wrote: post #11

Great article! > I have read a lot of long spiels about craft that frequently end in something like, software work isn’t like other work, and we shouldn’t be judged the same way. We are entirely unique. We are the special ones. It might comfort the author to know that even within the realm of software engineering, there are insiders and outsiders. Some of the most important engineering work was made by these outsider…

i remember my third year of coding as a pro, i had just taken a job in palo alto and was settling in after moving. i was at my new job and a bunch of the coders at the company i was working at went out for lunch and i was getting to know them.

one guy who was younger than i was was talking about how he had a degree from a liberal arts college, and had just been coding on his own for a while, and that when he moved out there for work and was interacting with other coders in real-life for the first time (previously it had been only over the internet) he was learning how to pronounce the names of various daemons, libraries, projects, etc., and that he had understood the pronunciations differently when he was physically on his own. in my head i silently said to myself, "this guy is a junior coder and won't amount to too much" and made a note to try to associate with some of the heavy hitters to try and boost my career and status (and i guess if i'm being charitable to myself, also to learn).

that guy left the company maybe a year later. the company he went to, i think he started as a dev, later became CTO, and eventually CEO. while he was CEO, the company sold for over a billion dollars. and even when we were still working together, i did learn quite a few things from him. so yeah, i think it is easy for people to pigeonhole others, or to think that they are in a place of skill that others perhaps can't easily get to, but sometimes that kind of thinking is quite wrong. (also, at his new company he wrote some great blog posts on software development and operations practices that i really enjoyed and learned quite a bit from)

Re: On Craft

#29

Post by epolanski »

avg_dev wrote: post #28
soulofmischief wrote: post #11

Great article! > I have read a lot of long spiels about craft that frequently end in something like, software work isn’t like other work, and we shouldn’t be judged the same way. We are entirely unique. We are the special ones. It might comfort the author to know that even within the realm of software engineering, there are insiders and outsiders. Some of the most important engineering work was made by these outsider…

i remember my third year of coding as a pro, i had just taken a job in palo alto and was settling in after moving. i was at my new job and a bunch of the coders at the company i was working at went out for lunch and i was getting to know them. one guy who was younger than i was was talking about how he had a degree from a liberal arts college, and had just been coding on his own for a while, and that when he moved ou…

I had some similar experiences with few self taught junior devs.

I didn't look down on them, but was heavily surprised to see how much they could teach me about software or work or life.

Re: On Craft

#30

Post by reneherse »

yuvalr1 wrote: post #24

This article reminds me of my grandfather as well, who sadly passed away two weeks ago. He was a mechanical engineer, and a real craftsman. One example we, in our family, like to remember is how he fixed the car during a long vacation trip by his own when the engine suddenly stopped in the middle of the road. He realized the problem and used his constantly at hand pocketknife and a metal can box he found thrown on th…

Sorry for your loss of your beloved grandfather.

Sounds like our grandfathers might have gotten along; mine had much the same spirit and ingenuity you described. Hopefully some of that is passed on to us :)

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