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No Skill. No Taste
211–220 of 222 posts
Re: No Skill. No Taste
#212Good read, but I have to disagree with the fact that skill and taste are correlated. It's true that learning skill gives you a more nuanced view of the craft that refines your skill. But software is not only for those who have skill in it, but for everybody. Lots of amazing engineers have an awful taste (really, really awful) in everything that is not their immediate field of knowledge or interest, with the aggravati…
> disagree with the fact that skill and taste are correlated > lots of amazing engineers have an awful taste in everything that is not their immediate field of knowledge or interest which one is it?
I clearly didn't express myself correctly, sorry. What I want to say is that one can develop taste with skill in one craft, like software engineering, while having awful taste in others, which is needed for many apps. This means that people with taste in other areas can now create nice software using their taste in other areas
Re: No Skill. No Taste
#213Earlier quoted context omitted.
> disagree with the fact that skill and taste are correlated > lots of amazing engineers have an awful taste in everything that is not their immediate field of knowledge or interest which one is it?
I clearly didn't express myself correctly, sorry. What I want to say is that one can develop taste with skill in one craft, like software engineering, while having awful taste in others, which is needed for many apps. This means that people with taste in other areas can now create nice software using their taste in other areas
Oh I like this. Taste couldn’t be transitive into software before but now it can.
Re: No Skill. No Taste
#214Earlier quoted context omitted.
Presentation matters. Good documentation is evidence of a library that has been carefully thought through. Slop in the readme suggests slop in the code.
I've seen developers who genuinely like to write code, but never met one who likes to write documents. I know they exist somewhere, but I'd not judge someone's programming ability/willingness by their English writing ability/willingness.
I like to write documents. It helps me understand the code much better, as I'm forced to write down what's happening at each stage. Yes, code itself can be self documenting, but writing it in English can elucidate any hidden assumptions.
Re: No Skill. No Taste
#215Earlier quoted context omitted.
Taste is not subjective. It's intersubjective. Subjective experiences are totally located within a particular subject. For example, "I'm hungry. I'm tired. I'm sad." Judgements of taste, on the other hand, implicate all other humans when they are made. They implicitly demand consensus in a way that is unlike any other subjective claims. This is the only possible explanation for why people will in one breath say, "it'…
I think you can lead yourself astray imagining that there’s a big difference between subjectivity and intersubjectivity. One is just a college educated term for the other. More importantly, I think that enough time has passed that we can critique poor old Kant on this matter. When he says the taste has no interest in something what he is really implicitly describing is that taste is the province of rich people. If on…
> I think that enough time has passed that we can critique poor old Kant
No, no, no! Here on Hacker News, it is apparently forbidden to criticize the dead because "they can't defend themselves." It's seen as somewhere between "cowardly" and "uncouth."
This policy seems to mainly apply, for some weird reason I suspect I would prefer not to know about, to the recently-departed Dilbert guy. But I'm sure his fans would stick up for Kant also!
Re: No Skill. No Taste
#216Lol last night, on a forked and accessible version of Termux I vibecoded into existence, on an Emacs and Emacspeak vibejiggered to work on Termux, I vibecoded, with gptel-agent, an Emacspeak package to make it speak when tool calls are being asked for by the model, and automatically speak any explanatory text after all the tools are called and edits are made. All on my phone with a Bluetooth keyboard. It's so easy, e…
This is so amazing! I am so stunned and deeply interested on how you set it up and your workflow. To me it sounds like you are already in the future many of us sighted people imagine with AI.
I am not sure if you are able to use it, but I saw Droidrun.ai (https://www.droidrun.ai/) the other day, and agents should be able to drive the phone.
Re: No Skill. No Taste
#217Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 know that I'm both pretentious and inarticulate. It's a rough combo. But I resented the idea that what I was saying was inauthentic. I legitimately love Kant, even though reading him is like trying to hammer nails through my skull.
Re: No Skill. No Taste
#218Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think you can lead yourself astray imagining that there’s a big difference between subjectivity and intersubjectivity. One is just a college educated term for the other. More importantly, I think that enough time has passed that we can critique poor old Kant on this matter. When he says the taste has no interest in something what he is really implicitly describing is that taste is the province of rich people. If on…
> I think that enough time has passed that we can critique poor old Kant No, no, no! Here on Hacker News, it is apparently forbidden to criticize the dead because "they can't defend themselves." It's seen as somewhere between "cowardly" and "uncouth." This policy seems to mainly apply, for some weird reason I suspect I would prefer not to know about, to the recently-departed Dilbert guy. But I'm sure his fans would s…
Oh damn. Dilbert dude died. Pour one out for someone other than him who deserves it.
Re: No Skill. No Taste
#219Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 know that I'm both pretentious and inarticulate. It's a rough combo. But I resented the idea that what I was saying was inauthentic. I legitimately love Kant, even though reading him is like trying to hammer nails through my skull.
He's quite good sometimes. But we don't always need to reach for that kind of writing if we struggle. If you want something from that era which is written by a young man who is trying to set the world on fire, you should try: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preliminary_Discourse_to_the_E...
This dude, Diderot, is gonna make a new encyclopedia of the world with his friends which breaks the monopoly on printed and well-regarded learning that was held by the traditional humanities. He wanted articles about the trades, about objects and engineered things, and he was PISSED OFF that he had to fight for it.
Is this guy's idea of how to organize knowledge "right"? Probably not. Will it light your brain on fire and make you grumpy or nosy or suspicious about categories of knowledge that persist still? YEAH.
Re: No Skill. No Taste
#220Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think you can lead yourself astray imagining that there’s a big difference between subjectivity and intersubjectivity. One is just a college educated term for the other. More importantly, I think that enough time has passed that we can critique poor old Kant on this matter. When he says the taste has no interest in something what he is really implicitly describing is that taste is the province of rich people. If on…
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Whoa, personal attacks are not ok here so please don't post like this.