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No Skill. No Taste

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Re: No Skill. No Taste

#181

Post by andai »

kmijyiyxfbklao wrote: post #69
altmanaltman wrote: post #9

Kind of meaningless if you let "taste" be a vaguely-defined term. Like, what do you mean by "taste"? How is it a differentiator? Does Apple have taste? Is the reason one open source app is better than the other because the devs of the first one have more "taste"? Seems like a philosophical article, but rather than exploring it deeply, it kind of just abandons it at the "hey man, everyone can create apps, so you bette…

It's purposefully undefined because it's a social concept, not an engineering one. And it's also subjective. You can tell because they use OpenClaw as an example of a tasteful project. I would put OpenClaw in the same category as memecoins in terms of taste. Obviously crypto can be way more harmful, but in terms of taste both are on the "internet meme" category, as helpful as OpenClaw can be.

So, OpenClaw is literally a meme. It existed for months and didn't get much attention until it became a meme. And every day, you see people fell for the meme wholesale: "I bought a Mac Mini for OpenClaw, now how do I run GPT-5 on it locally?"

The technical characteristics appear to be entirely irrelevant. (I'm not sure if taste even enters into the picture.. it appears to be a third category!)

Re: No Skill. No Taste

#182

Post by andai »

altmanaltman wrote: post #9

Kind of meaningless if you let "taste" be a vaguely-defined term. Like, what do you mean by "taste"? How is it a differentiator? Does Apple have taste? Is the reason one open source app is better than the other because the devs of the first one have more "taste"? Seems like a philosophical article, but rather than exploring it deeply, it kind of just abandons it at the "hey man, everyone can create apps, so you bette…

I'd say taste-as-subjective-something is largely irrelevant. If something "looks good" but hurts to use, that's not much help. If it looks like ass, but is a delight to use, that's not good either (because most people won't reach the point of actually experiencing it). So you need "looks good" and you need "actually delightful to use". Taste seems to be orthogonal to both of those. Or perhaps (two kinds of?) taste is involved in each one.

At which point we define taste as two unrelated things: skill in aesthetics, and skill in ux.

I've seen apps that looked amazing (Taste #1, aesthetics) but made me go, "Okay, did they actually try using this thing?" (Taste #2, usability). I think these tastes are completely orthogonal, from personal experience. I think the vast majority of designers suffer from Total Usability Taste Blindness.

(And, though it feels a bit mean to point out, the vast majority of FOSS suffers from a total absence of both. The winning projects only win because they have no competition, they're the only free option available.)

Re: No Skill. No Taste

#183

Post by selridge »

throw4847285 wrote: post #143
fao_ wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IDK, I understood them perfectly well.

But what were they actually saying? They just used the phrase "college-educated" and several synonyms as an insult to put themself forward as just some working class Joe who has no time for rich people and their hoity toity high and mighty philosphizing. If I was to be charitable, I guess maybe their argument was that Kant only believed in subjective universality because he was rich, but that doesn't make any sense.…

Lmao. I love Kant. He’s great. I love dead white guys. One I’ve been banging on about in this thread is Bourdieu, who wrote a whole book on taste in France, Distinction. Here Bourdieu has the matter rightly and Kant doesn’t. Sometimes that happens. When you read a lot of dead white guys you find lots of them said very wise shit and also stuff that’s harder to find the wisdom in.

Here I don’t know what the trouble is. I’m sorry for calling your phrasing the equivalent of “hafalutin” (a word Marx has used more than twice—he’s dead and white), but what do you expect having come in to cloud the waters with 2 extra syllables to little end?

Re: No Skill. No Taste

#184

Post by isicjsjcu »

AntiDyatlov wrote: post #86
lubesGordi wrote: post #47

I don't know man. I'm writing a flashcard app, and I like it. It makes me happy and it works the way I want. Exactly how I want. BC I could never get into quizlet. Whatever. Maybe others will like it, maybe not, I don't care. Taste is subjective. Having 1 million todo apps, great. Maybe someone I know will find one they like and tell me about it. Maybe I'll find one that doesn't suck. Maybe I'll just make my own. One…

> Everyone being able to make their own apps however they want is a beautiful No. Silence is better than noise.

[dead]

Re: No Skill. No Taste

#185

Post by plorkyeran »

wseqyrku wrote: post #157
lubesGordi wrote: post #47

I don't know man. I'm writing a flashcard app, and I like it. It makes me happy and it works the way I want. Exactly how I want. BC I could never get into quizlet. Whatever. Maybe others will like it, maybe not, I don't care. Taste is subjective. Having 1 million todo apps, great. Maybe someone I know will find one they like and tell me about it. Maybe I'll find one that doesn't suck. Maybe I'll just make my own. One…

> Taste is subjective. I would like to offer a counterexample: iPhone, when it first came out anyways. Tasteful design is rather so obvious that when you see it you'd say yes, this is what anyone would expect from a "phone". That doesn't seem to be so subjective.

That was not at all the universal response to the iphone. http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=iphone is a (nsfw) contemporary article that I agreed with at the time, and I knew a decent number of people who got an early iphone and then switched back to a blackberry.

Re: No Skill. No Taste

#186

Post by overgard »

You know, before AI, one of the things that always kind of puzzled me about software development was that people thought it was super hard, or something only certain people can do. And I mean, the evidence seems to point to that being the case. But as a software dev, I always kind of thought that most people COULD do it, they just didn't really want to invest the time/effort to learn it (which is fair -- it is a considerable investment of time and effort, to be sure; it takes years, even decades, to become good)

Anyway, there seems to be this vibe recently that software developers are "gate keepers" keeping the unwashed masses out or something. But nobody was keeping anyone out -- basically all the tools and knowledge are free! That's how these AI's got built in the first place. But I think what we're really seeing with a lot of these "I'm just an idea guy" people is when they get a magic genie to make their idea.. it's not actually very good. Because good ideas often come from struggling and creating, not just from passively consuming, and if you're struggling and creating you're going to pick up skills needed to create even if they're not coming from formal education. And so I kind of distrust a lot of the "vibe" bros because I'm skeptical of people that think they can get to the destination without going on the journey

Re: No Skill. No Taste

#187

Post by pRusya »

HN is like an art gallery full of critics. You can be interested in some works or people, even romanticize it. But no one really cares about a gallery or industry in general. We are all just entertaining each other here.

Re: No Skill. No Taste

#188

Post by kolinko »

anonzzzies wrote: post #168

I am happy with all the apps I am creating only for me . Nice if someone else likes them, but I create them for me. That now takes 1 day from idea to playstore instead of weeks to months. I don't really care if someone calls it slop. My life is better for it so I shall continue.

Exactly this

Re: No Skill. No Taste

#189

Post by ianbutler »

selridge wrote: post #180
ianbutler wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Idk I've read a lot of Selridge's comments up and down the whole post now and it really seems like any idea of taste to them defaults to classism and then they misapply that framework here, which is realistically one of the fairest arenas. If someone likes what you make it doesn't matter where you come from.

It doesn’t default to class, people just pretend class doesn’t apply at all. Taste is often advanced as this subjective yet ultimately discriminating notion which refuses to be pinned down. Insistent but ineffable. This idea that you and I know what good software is due to having paid dues and they don’t, and the truth will out, is a common one! My argument isn’t that it’s class. It’s that this framework of describin…

I hear you, but I at least try to disarm that notion. I even have a footnote talking about how taste is entirely group dependent and measured by reception so while I think your point is more broadly applicable I feel it has less to do with what I was writing about which is broadly in the technical realm I feel pretty meritorious.

Re: No Skill. No Taste

#190

Post by ianbutler »

tptacek wrote: post #167
ianbutler wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My standards aren't expressed in the post at all is what I try to keep getting across. I'm describing an objective fact of social dynamics. "Things that don't consider their audience get ignored or are perceived poorly." The only thing I stated was a simple thing which is almost immovable fact at this point, that someone posting should be considering that. My opinions are actually a lot stronger than anything I've wr…

Always a helpful discussion strategy, just declare whatever you said to be an "objective" or "immovable" fact. I'm not sure there's much for either of us to gain by continuing. Anyways: now you know how I, and at least one other person I guess, read what you wrote.

> I'm not sure there's much for either of us to gain by continuing.

A feeling of self righteous indignation? (I joke)

Anyway, I appreciate your take, but yes I think we just take fully different sides. I really am having a hard time seeing it from your perspective, but I respect that we attempted to get through to each other. Cheers.

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