11–20 of 159 posts
Good artists copy, great artists steal? Still hurts to be the one being stolen from though.
Good artists see an idea and use it. Great artists see an idea and _make it their own_.
Stealing in this context might be tad harsh.
Good artists copy, great artists steal? Still hurts to be the one being stolen from though.
If you're being a great artist who steals you may perfectly reproduce something, but in such a different and novel context that it feels fresh, or taking something verbatim and then modifying it with your work, vs say taking an series of ideas from a work and then not really changing or moving from what they were originally expressing
An example of this is from Offworld Trading Company[0], which literally started by copying the market from Age of Empires[1] and then iterated on it as well as the auction mechanics from MULE[2], I vaguely recall them talking about this in their GDC talk[3], though I could be misremembering that(it's a good talk though)
I could be wrong, but I'm not sure if anyone who was stolen from in those cases feels hurt by it
Compare that to stealing, where the parties stolen from were really quite angry at what was stolen, Triple Town vs Yeti Town[4], which very much looked like a lazy clone
-[0]: https://store.steampowered.com/app/271240/Offworld_Trading_C...
-[1]: https://ageofempires.fandom.com/wiki/Market_(Age_of_Empires_...
-[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M.U.L.E.
-[3]: Offworld Trading Company: An RTS Without Guns : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2C4z_apu2I
-[4]: https://www.gamesindustry.biz/spry-fox-and-the-clone-wars
I kind of agree in the sense that stealing a good idea and executing it well is a skill. Copying someones site "pixel by pixel" seems disrispectful though and I don't know what there's to be proud of.
As we reduce 20, somehow that legitimacy erodes and at 1 it's "disrespectful". Where along that line was it wrong?
The "problem" we perceive is not stealing, it's stealing from only 1 place.
I kind of agree in the sense that stealing a good idea and executing it well is a skill. Copying someones site "pixel by pixel" seems disrispectful though and I don't know what there's to be proud of.
Result: https://shawwn.github.io/pg/
If you think it’s easy, it’s not. The closer you want it to be pixel perfect, the exponentially harder it is to get right.
https://www.paulgraham.com/copy.html
I’m very proud of it. I had to dig through decades-old viaweb templates to figure out which one he used.
If you can't put the effort into the face of your product, how can I trust you to put effort into the product itself? Shitty behavior, with a shitty justification self-affirmation blogpost.
If you haven’t done it, it is an extraordinary way to see how the greats work.
It also tends to improve your own writing skills - at least as long as you are copying from your betters.
This seems like the web design version of this.
My favorite quote that expresses this idea is from Mikhail Kalashnikov, designer of the AK-47: “Before attempting to create something new, it is vital to have a good appreciation of everything that already exists in this field.”
I kind of agree in the sense that stealing a good idea and executing it well is a skill. Copying someones site "pixel by pixel" seems disrispectful though and I don't know what there's to be proud of.
I spent about a year copying pg’s site: https://github.com/shawwn/pg Result: https://shawwn.github.io/pg/ If you think it’s easy, it’s not. The closer you want it to be pixel perfect, the exponentially harder it is to get right. https://www.paulgraham.com/copy.html I’m very proud of it. I had to dig through decades-old viaweb templates to figure out which one he used.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I spent about a year copying pg’s site: https://github.com/shawwn/pg Result: https://shawwn.github.io/pg/ If you think it’s easy, it’s not. The closer you want it to be pixel perfect, the exponentially harder it is to get right. https://www.paulgraham.com/copy.html I’m very proud of it. I had to dig through decades-old viaweb templates to figure out which one he used.
In the age on LLMs it's definitely way easier than what you did.
If you think it’s easy, or even possible without investing months, I invite you to try.