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Woodworking as an escape from the absurdity of software

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Re: Woodworking as an escape from the absurdity of software

#461

Post by Petersipoi »

probably_wrong wrote: post #311
jimbokun wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How you choose to add whitespace to your code is not a meaningful outlet for creativity. Linters are a great tool for eliminating bike shedding. I don't think wood working per se gives you more flexibility than building software. It's wood working as an individual, not part of a team, so you can make your own decisions and not answer to anyone. If you were a one man software consultant you would have the same amount…

> How you choose to add whitespace to your code is not a meaningful outlet for creativity. I'd like to mildly disagree. Using whitespace to group functionality together in "paragraphs" and aligning the horizontal indentation in the clearest possible way is not too far away from editing a short story to make it flow better. Earlier today my linter rearranged multiple "key: value" one-liners into two-liners and the end…

> objectively

I do not think that word means what you think it means

Re: Woodworking as an escape from the absurdity of software

#463

Post by dilyevsky »

eddd-ddde wrote: post #286
ravenstine wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At a level or two down from the abstraction of company size, crafting hobbies are also a reprieve from the tyranny of linters. So many programmers today believe that code is always better when it all looks identical. Consistency is a good thing, but not when it's expected to be absolute. Programming should actually allow for creativity, and where you decide to add spaces and newlines can actually add subtle but impor…

> the tyranny of linters This is a take I don't think I've seen before. Is someone actually mad prettier is changing their single quotes to double quotes? Are they mad some line is breaking at some word? Certainly I've never been. I use linters / formatters even when I'm working solo because the mere concept of having to think where to break lines is meaningless disruption from the actual goals I have. If you _really…

You dont like kitchens where every cabinet is different slightly different size/color/material?

Re: Woodworking as an escape from the absurdity of software

#464

Post by dilyevsky »

ravenstine wrote: post #62
Arainach wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consistency is critical for reducing mental load when working as a team. Format your personal projects however you want, but when collaborating your editor should apply the standard format every time you save.

Maybe I'm not articulating my point very well. I absolutely agree that consistency, in principle, is usually a very good thing. My objection is to the idea that it's always a good thing, which it's not. Treating code formatting as rules rather than suggestions, in my experience, is a waste of time and unnecessarily tyrannical. In terms of mere code formatting, I don't buy that there's a meaningful difference between…

Consistency and standards irl are even more “tyrannical” not less bc you can’t change the thing easily after the fact

Re: Woodworking as an escape from the absurdity of software

#466

Post by skydhash »

hinkley wrote: post #287
sukruh wrote: post #35

Most of the people I know who pursue creative/crafting hobbies alongside a software development job have chosen to work for well-known big companies, for prestige and safety, and ended up unfulfilled in their jobs. Most big companies are not good if you want to solve problems and build stuff. Especially "the enterprise", where software is seen as a cost center so the less of it the better. The effort of managing up e…

At small companies, across a long career, I’ve solved the same problems many times. But that’s not the part that stings the most. What grinds my gears is failing to solve problems I’ve already solved . At some point you have to convince others that a plan is good. Your arguments might not work on a new team. You might not know what the secret sauce was that got you consensus last time. Or after years of getting your…

> Because mastery is, at the end of the day, converting an intellectual process into intuition, so you can go faster. Once a decision process is successfully ingrained, the intellectualized path is dead weight.

That's where you write a blog post, a company note, or a book if you got the time. The best proof of mastery is teaching because that's when you got confronted to the problems from another perspective (the other may not learn it as well as you do). And you won't have to repeat yourself that much if your arguments and process are written somewhere.

Re: Woodworking as an escape from the absurdity of software

#467

Post by [deleted] »

VelesDude wrote: post #454
tmarsden wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Completely agree, his ideas could stand on their own there was no need to push them with violence.

He used violence to get attention on the ideas. What this did was stifled his goals by decades all for his own selfish gains. Did more damage than good by his own definition of success.

[deleted]

Re: Woodworking as an escape from the absurdity of software

#469

Post by denkmoon »

Aurornis wrote: post #457
tmarsden wrote: post #376

I think this all boils down to what Ted Kaczynski talked about in "Industrial Society and Its Future." Specifically "The Industrial Revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race" because "in modern industrial society only minimal effort is necessary to satisfy one’s physical needs." I would say 99.999% of all modern work is "surrogate activity" (an activity that is directed toward an artific…

> I would say 99.999% of all modern work is "surrogate activity" (an activity that is directed toward an artificial goal that people set up for themselves merely in order to have some goal to work toward.) I think this level of hyperbole only feels correct when you've been trapped in the kinds of companies where everyone is at least ten steps removed from the customer. When you're sitting through meetings and pushing…

You can understand why though. Those of us in corporate land swim in an all consuming miasma of unreality. Nothing matters. Logic is irrelevant. Absurdity is the norm. Of course it skews your perspective. Yet another ill corporatism inflicts on us.
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