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Interesting. But it's due to statements like "you’re either above the API or below the API" that I unfortunately can't get through many ribbonfarm articles. I m

by tw1010 7y ago

Interesting. But it's due to statements like "you’re either above the API or below the API" that I unfortunately can't get through many ribbonfarm articles. I mean, it's clearly not true that "everyone works for an algorithm" (take architects as a trivial example). I keep having to force myself find a strong-man interpretation of all the half-baked ideas, which makes it exhausting to get through without becoming a bit annoyed.

andy_ppp 7y ago
I’m going to go out on a limb and say buildings built the way they currently are is a joke and in 20 years time there will only be prefab. Architects are paid pretty badly compared to devs. What I’m trying to say is I can see what it means if I squint at it a bit.
jonah 7y ago
> take architects as a trivial example I guess it depends on how strict your definition of algorithm is, but I share an office with an Architect and he seems to spend the largest portion of his time dealing with codes and rules and laws and compliance. Edit: And to add to the sibling comment, he is paid what he is, as much of not more for his knowledge of those rules and experience navigating them as he is for his aesthetic sense.
nostrademons 7y ago
Venkatesh frequently oversimplifies things to make a point. It's just his personality type, which thinks in generalities and so speaks in generalities. I wouldn't say he's wrong, though, just "not yet right". Architects and construction workers, for example, are one industry that is not yet eaten by software, but IMHO will be within the next 20-30 years. I could see housing revolutionized by software that just encodes all the relevant building codes in software, then uses a WYSIWYG editor and constraint solver to let people design their own houses, then has robots build the house from the ground up. The role of the architect would be replaced by software; the role of the construction worker by robots. Instead you would have surveyors and people who load the building materials from trucks into the robots, both of whom function below the API.
m463 7y ago
> it's clearly not true that "everyone works for an algorithm" That said, there are algorithms that govern our daily lives. An economy is sort of emergent behavior of all the participants.

by tw1010 7y ago

andy_ppp 7y ago

I’m going to go out on a limb and say buildings built the way they currently are is a joke and in 20 years time there will only be prefab. Architects are paid pretty badly compared to devs. What I’m trying to say is I can see what it means if I squint at it a bit.

jonah 7y ago

> take architects as a trivial example I guess it depends on how strict your definition of algorithm is, but I share an office with an Architect and he seems to spend the largest portion of his time dealing with codes and rules and laws and compliance. Edit: And to add to the sibling comment, he is paid what he is, as much of not more for his knowledge of those rules and experience navigating them as he is for his aesthetic sense.

nostrademons 7y ago

Venkatesh frequently oversimplifies things to make a point. It's just his personality type, which thinks in generalities and so speaks in generalities. I wouldn't say he's wrong, though, just "not yet right". Architects and construction workers, for example, are one industry that is not yet eaten by software, but IMHO will be within the next 20-30 years. I could see housing revolutionized by software that just encodes all the relevant building codes in software, then uses a WYSIWYG editor and constraint solver to let people design their own houses, then has robots build the house from the ground up. The role of the architect would be replaced by software; the role of the construction worker by robots. Instead you would have surveyors and people who load the building materials from trucks into the robots, both of whom function below the API.

m463 7y ago

> it's clearly not true that "everyone works for an algorithm" That said, there are algorithms that govern our daily lives. An economy is sort of emergent behavior of all the participants.