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Paul Graham On Two Kinds of Programmers and Painters

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Re: Paul Graham On Two Kinds of Programmers and Painters

#41

Post by galactus »

idlewords wrote: post #17
huntse wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well the claim that Cezanne couldn't draw is pretty obviously contradicted by his sketches, especially when you look at them "in the flesh".

Cezanne had at least six years of classical drawing instruction, where you begin by drawing various geometric forms, move on to making sketches of plaster statuary, and then finally draw from the model. It's a highly technical form of training akin to doing scales all day long on a musical instrument. I'm sure there's a folder in some archive in Aix full of extremely boring and careful studies he did at the time. I'v…

There are perhaps other qualities in Cezanne's paintings, but PG is far from being the only person who considers Cezanne's drawing skills quite deficient.

Re: Paul Graham On Two Kinds of Programmers and Painters

#42

Post by pvg »

Alex3917 wrote: post #39
gjm11 wrote: post #18

Maciej Ceglowski, who is posting in this thread but evidently too modest to blow his own trumpet, wrote what seems like the definitive response to Paul Graham On Painting back in 2005: http://www.idlewords.com/2005/04/dabblers_and_blowhards.htm .

Definitive? It doesn't even address the ideas put forth in the essay.

Which ideas does it not address? The core idea of the original (hey, it's in the title) is that hackers are like painters. The argument of Ceglowski's response, whether you agree with it or not, is that they aren't.

Re: Paul Graham On Two Kinds of Programmers and Painters

#43

Post by gatormax »

idlewords wrote: post #16
pg wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you give an example of something I said that you think is false? Or is this just a sort of reverse argument from authority?

False statements you have made about art: "The paintings made between 1430 and 1500 are still unsurpassed." (easy refutation - go to sistine chapel, look up). "What made oil paint so exciting, when it first became popular in the fifteenth century, was that you could actually make the finished work from the prototype." This is not how people painted with oil until the 19th century. It was a very expensive medium requi…

I would expect that you're correct, given your stint as a professional painter, something Mr. Graham cannot lay claim to. And it doesn't really matter.

The "Hackers and Painters" essay is not about painting, nor the strict similarities between "hacking" and painting. It is about the fact that "hackers" do both design and development. This is different from the conventional notion of product development existing separate from engineering. The painting analogy is merely a (successful) vehicle for communicating this distinction.

I think this is obvious, and I assume you know it. The bitterness in your riposte, especially the invocation of sexual neener-neenerism, perplexes a bit. Perhaps as a painter you take offense to the imperfect use of painting as an analogy. This seems excessive. "Tomate un geniol."

(I am neither a "hacker" nor a painter.)

Re: Paul Graham On Two Kinds of Programmers and Painters

#44

Post by dgallagher »

He was terribly frustrated he was like this guy who had all kinds of ideas, but he couldn't articulate them with his hand.

I've experienced this. Since several years ago I've had tons of idea's for startups I'd like to create. Problem was, I had a business/finance/network engineer background and had no way of actually building anything. It's extremely difficult being stuck like that. Ambitions are polluted by your own limitations.

Three years ago a few close friends and I decided to develop a video game using XNA for Xbox 360. We were three programmers, two artists, and myself who handled game design (not a coder). It was a simple game. Basically, you were a guy on a board with a bat and would melee with others, trying to knock them off the board. It was sorta like Nintendo Hockey crossed with Super Smash Brothers in a top-down 2D view. Long story short, the programmers lost interest and the project died after two years of part-time work. The two artists and I were more or less helpless in trying to finish the game, so we had to abandon it.

This was a year ago and I was frustrated. I came to the realization that in order to build something, you need to have the idea, and you need to have a means of building it. So I ordered a bunch of books and started to teach myself how to program. Thats enabled me to work on a new startup.

Now I can see things much clearer having the ability to write code. That frustration of not being able to build your ideas, or having their destiny out of your control, is completely gone. It's empowering. This quote really rings true to me now:

The best programmers are the ones that combine in one head both the ability to translate ideas into code and having the ideas. Just like the best artists have both the ability ... (have) a great hand.

Re: Paul Graham On Two Kinds of Programmers and Painters

#45

Post by Alex3917 »

pvg wrote: post #42
Alex3917 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Definitive? It doesn't even address the ideas put forth in the essay.

Which ideas does it not address? The core idea of the original (hey, it's in the title) is that hackers are like painters. The argument of Ceglowski's response, whether you agree with it or not, is that they aren't.

"The core idea of the original is that hackers are like painters."

No it's not. This is wrong for the same reason that idlewords is wrong when he says that the thesis of H&P is:

"Of all the different types of people I've known, hackers and painters are among the most alike. What hackers and painters have in common is that they're both makers."

This isn't a thesis that pg is trying to prove. Rather, it's a source of ideas. That is,

"Because hackers are makers rather than scientists, the right place to look for metaphors is not in the sciences, but among other kinds of makers. What else can painting teach us about hacking?"

The essay doesn't even identify what those ideas are, let alone try to disprove them. All he's attacking is the source of the ideas. That's like saying Newton's theory of gravity is wrong because sitting under apple trees is gay.

Re: Paul Graham On Two Kinds of Programmers and Painters

#47

Post by pvg »

Alex3917 wrote: post #45
pvg wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which ideas does it not address? The core idea of the original (hey, it's in the title) is that hackers are like painters. The argument of Ceglowski's response, whether you agree with it or not, is that they aren't.

"The core idea of the original is that hackers are like painters." No it's not. This is wrong for the same reason that idlewords is wrong when he says that the thesis of H&P is: "Of all the different types of people I've known, hackers and painters are among the most alike. What hackers and painters have in common is that they're both makers." This isn't a thesis that pg is trying to prove. Rather, it's a source of i…

"No it's not."

Yes it is. Because that's what it says, as opposed to what you'd like to believe it said. In fact you quoted its fundamental point right there -

"Of all the different types of people I've known, hackers and painters are among the most alike. What hackers and painters have in common is that they're both makers."

How is this not equating hackers and painters? How is the rest of the verbiage not 'a thesis he is trying to prove' but rather 'a source of ideas'. The writing directly contradicts what you are saying.

Re: Paul Graham On Two Kinds of Programmers and Painters

#48

Post by Alex3917 »

pvg wrote: post #47
Alex3917 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The core idea of the original is that hackers are like painters." No it's not. This is wrong for the same reason that idlewords is wrong when he says that the thesis of H&P is: "Of all the different types of people I've known, hackers and painters are among the most alike. What hackers and painters have in common is that they're both makers." This isn't a thesis that pg is trying to prove. Rather, it's a source of i…

"No it's not." Yes it is. Because that's what it says, as opposed to what you'd like to believe it said. In fact you quoted its fundamental point right there - "Of all the different types of people I've known, hackers and painters are among the most alike. What hackers and painters have in common is that they're both makers." How is this not equating hackers and painters? How is the rest of the verbiage not 'a thesis…

"X and Y are both instances of Z, so let's use Y and Z as a source of ideas about X."

This pattern is basically repeated in every single paragraph, e.g.

* The reputations of hackers probably have a large random component introduced by fashion, as happens with artists.

* In hacking as with painting, it’s best to start by sketching

* Both software and paintings are intended for a human audience, so both hackers must have empathy to do good work.

The essay was written for the benefit of hackers, so if you want to attack the ideas in the essay, a 'good' argument might be that hacking does not require empathy. As opposed to saying that the idea that the best paintings were done between 1430 and 1500 is just some guy's opinion, which adds nothing.

Now if you wanted to challenge the ideas about art as a way of challenging the ideas about hacking then that would at least be interesting, but just nitpicking about art history is lame.

Re: Paul Graham On Two Kinds of Programmers and Painters

#49

Post by zimbabwe »

randallsquared wrote: post #38
zimbabwe wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You need to understand that this is entirely a subjective opinion. There are forms of art where accuracy is prized, but in any kind of modern art, any rule can be broken if the result is interesting. Are you saying you like none of Picasso's later work? Or even Dalí's?

In fields I know something about (unlike art, which I don't), "interesting" and "well-done" are not very correlated.

So people who do good work are never interesting? Or people with fascinating ideas never learn to polish them? I'm confused.

Re: Paul Graham On Two Kinds of Programmers and Painters

#50

Post by zimbabwe »

jules wrote: post #36
zimbabwe wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You need to understand that this is entirely a subjective opinion. There are forms of art where accuracy is prized, but in any kind of modern art, any rule can be broken if the result is interesting. Are you saying you like none of Picasso's later work? Or even Dalí's?

There is no way to judge art other than by subjective opinion. > There are forms of art where accuracy is prized, but in any kind of modern art, any rule can be broken if the result is interesting. > Are you saying you like none of Picasso's later work? Or even Dalí's? I do like Picasso's and Dali's work and also Cezanne's work. I even like the picture I linked to. But this is the key part: > if the result is interes…

Fair enough.

Certainly for me, a tilted bowl of fruit that defies logic is more interesting than a boring bowl of fruit. It still doesn't fascinate me incredibly, but it at least adds something worth thinking about. I'm not that well-versed in painting, however, so perhaps somebody more enthusiastic than I can explain to both of us what makes Cezanne so awesome?

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