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No Skill. No Taste

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Re: No Skill. No Taste

#191

Post by yoz-y »

satvikpendem wrote: post #146
scoofy wrote: post #100

I suspect that in the future, apps will be like these blogs: most people will have them. The app authors will they they are great, most won't be great. Some will be great and hugely popular, many will be great but nobody will know or about them, because the attention economy is always hard. I think that's fine. What I really think is that most of the logical folks here think we ought to be focusing our attention and…

> I suspect that in the future, apps will be like these blogs: most people will have them Most people don't have blogs though.

Average person only knows formulas for Olivine and one or two Feldspars.

Re: No Skill. No Taste

#192

Post by xboxnolifes »

raincole wrote: post #13
roywiggins wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Darren Aronofsky https://www.decodingeverything.com/darren-aronofsky-ai-slop-... (Also, this website when Show HNs with slop READMEs get to the front page and nobody seems to notice that it's written in grating Claudese.)

> READMEs get to the front page and nobody seems to notice that it's written in grating Claudese Or you know, it's just not that important whether the README is written by Claude or not. Generally speaking people don't use a service/library for the author's ability to write excellent proses.

> Generally speaking people don't use a service/library for the author's ability to write excellent proses.

I think this is incredibly wrong. I'd even go as far to say that a well presented README/website is the second most important factor, only behind network effect.

Re: No Skill. No Taste

#193

Post by Jensson »

plorkyeran wrote: post #185
wseqyrku wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Well some people are stubborn but most do the switch to better designed items. So its not really subjective, the initial knee jerk reaction is but the more reasoned response after a few years isn't very subjective.

Re: No Skill. No Taste

#194

Post by skydhash »

altmanaltman wrote: post #177
skydhash wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ever been tasked to maintain a badly coded legacy app? Have you ever read some snippet that is so clear you don’t have anything to edit? Those are the opposite points of things. It’s not objective because the computer doesn’t care anyway. It’s like a well written prose vs a drunk’s rambling. They could describe the same scene, but one is much pleasurable to listen to. Or strolling through a well-tended garde…

Again, all of those are metaphors that describe a feeling and not anything concrete. Like what makes a codebase feel like "strolling through a well-tended garden"--there has to be some objective measures for that, right? Some things like "it's easier to maintain" or "it has really good readability," etc? Why are we not talking specifics of this "taste" instead of using The Karate Kid wax-on wax-off type metaphors? An…

As I said, the computer does not care, neither would a robot care about a garden or a garbage dump as long as it can cross it. But we interact with the world through our senses and we categorize things with epithets like pleasant, disagreeable,… And when we can present things to others would generally find enjoyable and pleasing, we are deemed to have good taste.

So the act of presenting and the judgement by others are what qualify the whole “taste” thing. The judgment is not yours to make, and presentation (either voluntarily or not) is all that needed for others to form an opinion.

So your private code that no one else has seen? No one cares. The repo linked to your Show HN post? You will be judged based on that.

Re: No Skill. No Taste

#195

Post by coldtea »

wafflebot wrote: post #107
vunderba wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Taste is subjective. If I spend twenty years subsisting solely on a high sodium cup-of-noodle diet, get severely impaired under the influence of everclear while trying to use a straight edge razor for the first time, hang up a white canvas, and spin around like a whirling dervish yard sprinkler and then display this finished piece next to Jan van Eyck’s The Last Judgement - we’ve long since left the realm of pure s…

I agree! Taste is downstream of such things as design principles which can be described in objective terms. Taste is not synonymous with personal preferences, otherwise we wouldn't describe some taste as "bad taste" or "poor taste." Rather, to me, one's taste refers to one's power of discernment as to what is good. We can enjoy cup-of-noodles without conflating our enjoyment as being good taste. I like a lot of thing…

>I agree! Taste is downstream of such things as design principles which can be described in objective terms

It doesn't need to be able to be described in objective terms to be objective, or rather to matter.

Re: No Skill. No Taste

#196

Post by selridge »

ianbutler wrote: post #189
selridge wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yeah, that’s the concern.

We are in the middle of an earthquake. The 90s was like this, but it’s bigger. Radical changes in what it means to build software are happening right now. That will without a hair of a doubt result in equally radical changes in what constitutes good and bad work.

Maybe, just maybe, the thing that seems really durable (taste) is already getting put into a blender that’s still running.

Re: No Skill. No Taste

#197

Post by zoogeny »

selridge wrote: post #170
zoogeny wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think your analysis is interesting but I would argue it has more to do with status than money.

They are both intertwined, often strategically. Bourdieu’s book Distinction is all about how (and when in life) status and money can buy taste.

Just skimming the Wikipedia article [1] and it is appears Bourdieu's argument is bit more nuanced than status and money. It is a bit laden with Marxist jargon, but at least the abstract seems to place the heavy burden on "cultural capital" which is a more precise term than what I chose (status) but close enough to my meaning.

Whether or not economic capital is actually transferrable to cultural capital seems to be another debate, but as the old saying goes "money can't buy taste". In fact, a newly rich lower class person marrying a contemporarily poor higher class person seems more likely.

As the abstract states: "Because persons are taught their cultural tastes in childhood, a person's taste in culture is internalized to their personality, and identify his or her origin in a given social class, which might or might not impede upward social mobility." Money can't rebuild the personality that is internalized in youth, but marriage might give your kids a shot.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distinction_(book)

edit: also to add, the relationship between these is the underlying theme of The Great Gatsby.

Re: No Skill. No Taste

#198

Post by anukin »

ianbutler wrote: post #113
tptacek wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where by "spamming" you mean daring to post it to HN under a "Show HN" title.

Among other places sure, I pivoted off the Show HN strictly, but it's fair for you to raise this given your thread was inspiration. Posting something to SHOW people without considering how people may want or need what you're showing is just bad etiquette anywhere frankly. If you're building for yourself that's great, maybe qualify it in your post because otherwise it's free game to judge poorly. Spam is inherently un…

What’s wrong with just posting and then taking the feedback and improving? Why is taste or for that matter any arbitrarily decided “in thing” necessary for posting in show hn? Who is the arbitrator here?

Re: No Skill. No Taste

#199

Post by selridge »

zoogeny wrote: post #197
selridge wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are both intertwined, often strategically. Bourdieu’s book Distinction is all about how (and when in life) status and money can buy taste.

Just skimming the Wikipedia article [1] and it is appears Bourdieu's argument is bit more nuanced than status and money. It is a bit laden with Marxist jargon, but at least the abstract seems to place the heavy burden on "cultural capital" which is a more precise term than what I chose (status) but close enough to my meaning. Whether or not economic capital is actually transferrable to cultural capital seems to be an…

Oh it's a bit laden for you? Was the plot summary on wikipedia taxing?

c'mon. Are you really going to tell me "ahem dear sir, I found out that this Mr Bourdieu likes him some nuance!" His most famous book is essentially an article ballooned into a monograph via nuance.

Re: No Skill. No Taste

#200

Post by ianbutler »

anukin wrote: post #198
ianbutler wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Among other places sure, I pivoted off the Show HN strictly, but it's fair for you to raise this given your thread was inspiration. Posting something to SHOW people without considering how people may want or need what you're showing is just bad etiquette anywhere frankly. If you're building for yourself that's great, maybe qualify it in your post because otherwise it's free game to judge poorly. Spam is inherently un…

What’s wrong with just posting and then taking the feedback and improving? Why is taste or for that matter any arbitrarily decided “in thing” necessary for posting in show hn? Who is the arbitrator here?

Nothing, do that! It's not just about Show HN. If you're asking for feedback you're clearing a lot of the problem right there. These are not who I'm talking about. You cultivate some measure of taste right there actually, just by trying to learn about the people you are potentially building for. I am talking about people who post here, reddit, twitter, reddit again etc etc and never ask for feedback they assume their stuff is a gift to the rest of us.
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