4 ms·

Worse yet, most people have bad taste and actually can't tell good and bad design work apart, so you're really spending all that effort to please a minority tha

Worse yet, most people have bad taste and actually can't tell good and bad design work apart, so you're really spending all that effort to please a minority that you're unfortunate enough to be part of. https://xkcd.com/1015/ https://xkcd.com/1015/

avmich 6y ago
True, but here is - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gutenberg_bible_Old_Testament_Epistle_of_St_Jerome.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gutenberg_bible_Old_Testa... - an example of old font. Do you think a lot of people would have problems with reading this?
- gridlockd 6y ago
  > Do you think a lot of people would have problems with reading this? I don't know. Readability and aesthetics are at odds. I believe there used to be a strong aesthetic desire for text to be of uniformly block-like shape. It took centuries for spaces to appear between words and even longer for paragraphs to become as short as they are today.
  - avmich 6y ago
    > Readability and aesthetics are at odds. I'm not sure. If it's a cafe front, I can deal with Comic-like windings. If I'm reading something for a reasonably long time, I start valuing functionality - here it's readability. Maybe people could train to read easily that font - they didn't have much of alternatives. That would mean readability is rather conditional. I'd like to know.
    - v64 6y ago
      > Maybe people could train to read easily that font - they didn't have much of alternatives. That would mean readability is rather conditional. I'd like to know. I feel like comprehension of the underlying language will aid readability. If it were written in English, despite the illegibility, I'd be able to read it easier by having a general sense of what the words are supposed to be from context.
karmakaze 6y ago
Blub paradox applied to taste is even harder to deal with because people without it want to believe it doesn't exist. Programmers can eventually move along the spectrum.
- gridlockd 6y ago
  I used to scoff at Blub, but with the experience I gathered, I came to the conclusion that with all things considered, it is actually Blub that is the most powerful language.
paulcole 6y ago
Even worse is when you think you’re part of the minority but aren’t.
- hnzix 6y ago
  It's so upsetting when someone with poor taste is putting in their 10k hours and wondering why they're getting no traction. Time + talent + exposure (luck) are all needed in some sort of formula. Talent is the one variable that you can't grind.

avmich 6y ago

True, but here is - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gutenberg_bible_Old_Testament_Epistle_of_St_Jerome.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gutenberg_bible_Old_Testa... - an example of old font. Do you think a lot of people would have problems with reading this?

gridlockd 6y ago
> Do you think a lot of people would have problems with reading this? I don't know. Readability and aesthetics are at odds. I believe there used to be a strong aesthetic desire for text to be of uniformly block-like shape. It took centuries for spaces to appear between words and even longer for paragraphs to become as short as they are today.
- avmich 6y ago
  > Readability and aesthetics are at odds. I'm not sure. If it's a cafe front, I can deal with Comic-like windings. If I'm reading something for a reasonably long time, I start valuing functionality - here it's readability. Maybe people could train to read easily that font - they didn't have much of alternatives. That would mean readability is rather conditional. I'd like to know.
  - v64 6y ago
    > Maybe people could train to read easily that font - they didn't have much of alternatives. That would mean readability is rather conditional. I'd like to know. I feel like comprehension of the underlying language will aid readability. If it were written in English, despite the illegibility, I'd be able to read it easier by having a general sense of what the words are supposed to be from context.

karmakaze 6y ago

Blub paradox applied to taste is even harder to deal with because people without it want to believe it doesn't exist. Programmers can eventually move along the spectrum.

gridlockd 6y ago
I used to scoff at Blub, but with the experience I gathered, I came to the conclusion that with all things considered, it is actually Blub that is the most powerful language.

paulcole 6y ago

Even worse is when you think you’re part of the minority but aren’t.

hnzix 6y ago
It's so upsetting when someone with poor taste is putting in their 10k hours and wondering why they're getting no traction. Time + talent + exposure (luck) are all needed in some sort of formula. Talent is the one variable that you can't grind.