The point of an essay (at least pg's style of essay) is to explore a subject and, to a lesser extent, to incite others to explore the subject and their own feelings about it as well.
Unfortunately, the writer here decides not to explore his own feelings fully and his points are made in a few sentences without details or evidence,
"The bits on London or Paris are terribly naïve and missing the point. Whoever is using the word hip for London or art for Paris can only have a vague understanding of what he is talking about"
This smells like an ad-hominem
"Looking into Paul’s ferocious defiance towards school and corporate culture, it is easy to imagine Paul being a rather shy person, who would rather jump in the ocean than being part of anything looking like a team."
But that essay style, say the most truth with least number of words, also incites people to disagree. The way they do may not always add valuable information, but it is still fun to read. You can not tell me you did not enjoy:
Also remark that in painting, many of the women whose pants you are trying to get into aren’t even wearing pants to begin with. Your job as a painter consists of staring at naked women, for as long as you wish, and this day in and day out through the course of a many-decades-long career. Not even rock musicians have been as successful in reducing the process to its fundamental, exhilirating essence.
Just the fact that PG provoked the above is wonderful.
Incidentally, believing that live models would be titillating is a classic sign of a noob. That idea is left over from Victorian times, when the mere idea of a naked woman was exciting. In actual fact, live models are generally pretty unattractive. Someone who wanted to stare at women would do way better, nowadays, at any beach.
I have to say, I was partly inspired to attend art school (and study painting) by 'Hackers and Painters'. After all, it's an O'Reilly book.
I am an archetypal hacker personality even if my achievements are modest. Computer architecture is as natural to me as breathing, whereas I could barely draw a crude stick figure. I realise MBTI has limitations but I am solidly in the realm of INTP/INTJ.
Anecdotes are not data, but let me tell you - by any measure of personality types I have ever seen, hackers and painters are as close to different species as you can get that can still produce offspring. 'Painters' thought processes and modes of creativity are so alien to those of a 'hacker' that I have no idea how the world does not descend into chaos with so many of those types populating it. I say this after spending many endless days in the company of 'painters' (especially if you include the tutors, many of whom had painting careers).
In fact the experience was shaking enough to make me reconsider my once strongly-held belief in universal suffrage. I gave it a year of full time effort and then threw in the towel. Of course, I am assuming that 'painting students' don't change dramatically by the time they become 'painters'.
Also, regarding the marvellous statement about spending all day with women who aren't wearing any pants - I'll leave what that en'tails' every 28 days up to you to figure out - if that doesn't get through to you then let's just say the novelty wears off.
Paul, if you are reading this, your thesis is bollocks. Thanks for nothing.
Don't judge painters by art students. They're quite different groups. The link between art students and painters is nothing like the one between, say, medical students and doctors. Most art students (painting majors especially) don't end up as artists, and quite a lot of artists spent little or no time in art school. IIRC, Picasso went for one semester and Van Gogh didn't go to art school at all. Calder studied engineering.
How different my experience has been. I'm an avid drawer and programmer.
I don't know how similar the mental processes of drawing and programming are. But what I do know is that the state I'm in when I'm drawing feels the same as the state I'm in when I'm programming. When I'm deep into either, I often remark to myself how relaxing it feels.
If painting didn't feel like programming to you, maybe it was because you weren't good at it. When comparing hackers to painters, it only makes sense to compare people who are good at hacking to people who are good at painting. Doing something you're not good at involves so many hurdles and complications that are unique to the novice that all you're getting is noise. If you'd been drawing for as long as you've been able to hold a pencil, PG's thesis might not seem so bollocks.
Sorry, I'm going to have to disagree. It probably depends on the painter, but I know a few who's senses of humor and curiosity perfectly match that of stereotypical hackers.
Where painters are those who do painting, and hackers are those who hack, I have to say I've noticed much similarity. But if you compare self-appointed 'artistes' to self appointed 'hackers', you'll be disappointed by the similarities, because a cultural touchstones are comparatively random.
I don't mindlessly follow everything pg says or does, but I do think the author is totally off base here.
Basically, I don't think you can "get" the hacker/painter parallel unless you really are a hacker. When I am in the right mood and sit down to code something, it is not me typing stuff and watching letters appear on the screen. It is not me transforming the state of the computer's memory. It is ideas flowing from my brain and becoming a creation. It's creative. (I don't paint, but music and coding go well together. When you hit upon the perfect melody, it just feels good. Programming is exactly the same for me.)
I don't want this post to be about me, but I do want to say that pg is not alone in thinking that programming is creative.
If all you do is write "select * from foo" into your PHP pages, though, and read "Hackers and Painters", you'll probably dislike it. That's because you're not hacking, you're code monkeying. There is plenty of money to be made by monkeying, but don't confuse it with art.
I think the hacker / painter connection is a bit overstated, partially due to the entanglement of a couple separate points. One of the major parallels that PG draws between hacking and painting is that some languages (most notably Lisp, though it's just as true of Forth and Smalltalk, as well as newer languages like Python, Ruby, OCaml, Haskell, etc.) are very flexible and well-suited to iterative development, and that this completely changes the character of programming with them. Similarly, he describes the difference between painting with tempera vs. sketching and oil paints, which allow more experimentation and changes in plan. (I'm not a painter, so I'm taking this at face value.)
While this is a useful analogy, it doesn't really say anything specifically unique to hackers and painters, vs. other creative types in general; it's more a statement about how working with malleable mediums affects the creative process. Many of his points about painting could be easily adapted to other creative pursuits: Hacking and cooking * , hacking and composing, hacking and writing, etc. His points fit most strongly when relating hacking to other "maker" fields, in a general sense. Due to his background, he refers to "Hackers and Painters", but the connection seems tenuous in writing. (Also, not many people actually paint, so the examples may not be very accessible.) Consequently, some people have missed his underlying point (that hacking is a creative thing, not something purely theoretical and logical) and, for example, dismissed his references to painting as an attempt to rub off some its glamor on programming. Hackers and Makers would be a better fit for his message.
* For example, consider the difference between making a stir-fry, with all its chopping required in advance, to a stew that can be progressively tasted, maybe have a dash more pepper or tomato added, let it simmer longer, etc.
exactly. i imagine lots of people, even practitioners, see technical fields as rigid robotic type things. but to me, when i'm working on a program or electrical circuit or whathaveyou... to borrow a line from Eminem, it's like smearing bloodstains with a paintbrush
The author might have done well to read pg's essay on disagreement since his attacks were mostly vague (I too agree that the characterization of London and Paris could have been better supported), and the attacks were executed merely by bringing up an example point and then not attacking it. On the point of cities, I think that there is good economic evidence (not cited by pg) that Cambridge and Boston are very much an intellectual center because some of the greatest universities of the world and they are leaders in terms of patents and scientific citations (from "Who's Your City" by Richard Florida).
Most of the comments I've seen in response to this post are either that "the author was wrong" or "the author didn't give enough evidence." I think that you are completely missing the point of what this guy Cecil wrote.
His point was that pg's essays on philosophy/art made him cringe. Ok? That's his whole deal. He goes on and tries to explain why, but I think that what is really valuable here is that Cecil (who I'm assuming is an artist) is expressing a point of view which has largely gone unstated.
To be honest, reading Cecil's post made me feel better in some way. I don't know anything about art, but I have been thinking about philosophy for freaking forever and I have to say that PG's essays often make me cringe when he traipses into topics which he really -does- seem naive about. Note I said "seem." I don't have examples offhand because I haven't read one of his articles for weeks. Also, the point of -this- post is not at -all- to talk about PG, it is to talk about my understanding of Cecil's post[1].
I think that in general my aversion to internet discussion comes from the fact that people seem to spend approximately 1 second understanding each other and 20 minutes formulating counter-arguments to what they are assuming/hallucinating their "opponents" -meant- (not said). They often miss the -point- of what others are trying to say (and yes, I recognize the massive potential hypocrisy in meta-meta-criticism). Have some heart.
"Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle."
[1] I think that I could, in fact, explain why they make me cringe. (I assume that Cecil could, too, actually - I assume he could sit down next to you, read through them with you, and whenever you saw him cringing you could ask him why - I don't think he's making up the fact that he cringed.) I could go back and re-read his essays and write up long responses explaining what classic philosophical and logical errors he is making (most of which have to do with assuming context/over-generalization/etc.), but the problem is that his errors are very deep. His errors (like so many people's errors) have to do with his big complicated worldview - to reveal them would take a book. And frankly, I don't care - it's much more interesting and fulfilling to respond to someone who's really spent their whole life "thinking" about deep philosophical problems (Chomsky, Foucault, Nagle, Graeber, etc.)
In a world where philosophy was reserved for 'philosophers', art for 'artists', hacking for 'programmers' and business for 'businessmen' the hapless inhabitants would be sleeping the open and picking berries.
Unfortunately, the writer here decides not to explore his own feelings fully and his points are made in a few sentences without details or evidence,
"The bits on London or Paris are terribly naïve and missing the point. Whoever is using the word hip for London or art for Paris can only have a vague understanding of what he is talking about"
This smells like an ad-hominem
"Looking into Paul’s ferocious defiance towards school and corporate culture, it is easy to imagine Paul being a rather shy person, who would rather jump in the ocean than being part of anything looking like a team."
Lack of substance really hurts this blog post.