Craftsmanship – The Alternative to the Four Hour Work Week Mindset (2018) • Hacker News Board

Re: Craftsmanship – The Alternative to the Four Hour Work Week Mindset (2018)

#41

Post by say_it_as_it_is » Sat, Oct 19, 2019, 11:05 PM UTC

shartshooter wrote: post #4

becoming a craftsman and getting to the 99th percentile has major trade offs. In order to survive as a business you need to create value and capture the market faster than your competition can. To do that you need to do more than your craft . You have to operate a business or you’ll get swallowed up by competition who doesn’t follow your mantra. I also believe the cheapification of so much of society and the shallown…

"Market capture" doesn't exist in a competitive marketplace. Being the first to serve a market first guarantees no such future performance. Customer loyalty is another myth.

Re: Craftsmanship – The Alternative to the Four Hour Work Week Mindset (2018)

#42

Post by NotSammyHagar » Sun, Oct 20, 2019, 5:05 AM UTC

artsyca wrote: post #8

Antoninus wrote: post #2

I'm not a great developer by today's measurements. I struggled throughout my degree and the first 4 years of my career. Especially, when it came to computer networking and algorithms. 7 years into this profession and few projects high-profile projects later, I feel like I'm just getting my legs going. What keeps me going is adopting the mindset that software development is a lifelong craft from posts like this and HN…

The software profession has been corrupted and utterly misdirected by the entire management industry that has been built around it -- it sounds like you've got the beginnings of enlightenment brewing inside of you and I invite you to use your critical reasoning outside of the facts of your `craftmanship` and see how the algorithms and concepts of computer science apply directly to one's pursuit of ultimate understand…

There was no 'calling' as those mathematicians and electrical engineers in the pre-computer ages saw it. They wanted to solve problems and build amazing machines. They did not imagine some mystical future of benevolence for programmers.

Re: Craftsmanship – The Alternative to the Four Hour Work Week Mindset (2018)

#43

Post by TeMPOraL » Sun, Oct 20, 2019, 9:15 AM UTC

vorpalhex wrote: post #39

TeMPOraL wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The price issue seems like a somewhat false dichotomy, because the more expensive brands don't operate on razor thin margins, so they could (and would have to) cut prices if there wasn't a back-pressure from the bottom-feeder brands. On top of that, I wonder at which point does planned obsolescence and lack of quality becomes the broken window fallacy? What's a difference between a glazier's son running around and br…

Planned obsolescence is wrong, and we are in agreement. Having cheap (and therefore widely available) products that are hard to repair and may have short lifespans is generally desirable in my opinion, even though there are some ecological and worker rights issues. We should be wary when we discuss what a premium brand is. Artificial brand tiers have led us to treat many mass market craptastic companies as "premium"…

> Having cheap (and therefore widely available) products that are hard to repair and may have short lifespans is generally desirable in my opinion, even though there are some ecological and worker rights issues.

I'm of mixed feelings about this. Having a 10x more expensive electric kettle that lasts 10x longer doesn't mean I won't buy a kettle. It means that I'll generate 10x less trash for the same utility received. When I look at it, making things more durable wouldn't hurt necessities that much - people would save up and buy appliances, and the longer lifetime would mean they actually save money over time.

In general, I think that cheap availability of crap products perpetuates the cycle of poverty. I strongly agree with the Boots Theory of Socioeconomic Unfairness[0]. Perhaps with a twist - I blame sacrifices of quality made in order to make the products cheaper. I think the world would be better off if we suddenly removed the bottommost quality tier of all goods categories, and didn't replace with anything. There should be hard limits on how low the market can get with respect to quality, because price is flexible - it's predicated by demand - wheras quality is not, and low quality is what sets off the poverty trap.

> Artificial brand tiers have led us to treat many mass market craptastic companies as "premium" despite them not knowing quality if it smacked them.

Yes. But part of the reason behind brands and price tiers was so that we don't have to be experts in ascertaining quality. We're supposed to trust the brands, but it turns out we can't - trust on the market is something to be exploited.

Nice that you brought up Bose, because I was under impression they were a premium quality brand, in a similar fashion to Apple - i.e. extra overpriced on top of above-average quality. So you're saying, I shouldn't really buy into the "above-average quality" part with them?

--

[0] - https://moneywise.com/a/boots-theory-of-socioeconomic-unfair...

Re: Craftsmanship – The Alternative to the Four Hour Work Week Mindset (2018)

#44

Post by artsyca » Sun, Oct 20, 2019, 10:20 AM UTC

NotSammyHagar wrote: post #42

artsyca wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The software profession has been corrupted and utterly misdirected by the entire management industry that has been built around it -- it sounds like you've got the beginnings of enlightenment brewing inside of you and I invite you to use your critical reasoning outside of the facts of your `craftmanship` and see how the algorithms and concepts of computer science apply directly to one's pursuit of ultimate understand…

There was no 'calling' as those mathematicians and electrical engineers in the pre-computer ages saw it. They wanted to solve problems and build amazing machines. They did not imagine some mystical future of benevolence for programmers.

Yes I'm sure that's what was going through Turing's mind when he solved the enigma -- let me save freaking Western civilization so I can be forced to suicide and all these millennials can come and get free lunch from their benevolent corporations

Re: Craftsmanship – The Alternative to the Four Hour Work Week Mindset (2018)

#45

Post by vorpalhex » Sun, Oct 27, 2019, 2:25 PM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #43

vorpalhex wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Planned obsolescence is wrong, and we are in agreement. Having cheap (and therefore widely available) products that are hard to repair and may have short lifespans is generally desirable in my opinion, even though there are some ecological and worker rights issues. We should be wary when we discuss what a premium brand is. Artificial brand tiers have led us to treat many mass market craptastic companies as "premium"…

> Having cheap (and therefore widely available) products that are hard to repair and may have short lifespans is generally desirable in my opinion, even though there are some ecological and worker rights issues. I'm of mixed feelings about this. Having a 10x more expensive electric kettle that lasts 10x longer doesn't mean I won't buy a kettle. It means that I'll generate 10x less trash for the same utility received.…

> Nice that you brought up Bose, because I was under impression they were a premium quality brand, in a similar fashion to Apple - i.e. extra overpriced on top of above-average quality. So you're saying, I shouldn't really buy into the "above-average quality" part with them?

Bose is above average in their technology but not their quality or durability. For your $400 you will get some very fancy tech, both nothing near $2000 IEMs.