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There is something wrong with division of labour in creative projects... the story of the service industry seems to be how this is relearnt over-and-over. A "si

There is something wrong with division of labour in creative projects... the story of the service industry seems to be how this is relearnt over-and-over. A "silo" is incomprehsible in a factory: the pin-machinist isnt silo'd. Knowledge, skills, vision, creative engagement... these are silo'd. And this follows from misconceiving creative work as a form of goods-producing labour.

akkartik 5y ago
Yes! I'd like to reiterate my link to https://creators.vice.com/en_uk/article/animator-hand-draws-film-in-4-years-nova-seed https://creators.vice.com/en_uk/article/animator-hand-draws-... in OP.
aspenmayer 5y ago
> Knowledge, skills, vision, creative engagement... these are silo'd. And this follows from misconceiving creative work as a form of goods-producing labour. It’s also related to the division of decision-making, usually between workers, with little or no executive authority, and management, with some to all of the executive authority. Creative roles are typically closer to management, and their knowledge bases are siloed, as is the business’s operational experience and expertise. Everyone wants to be close to power, but how many actually wield power effectively? What types of hierarchy are amenable to diffuse power structures? A lot of business are run like petty fiefdoms, and may not benefit from a minor change, and yet may not have the stomach for radical reform either. Worker owned co-ops and DAOs give me hope for new ways of working.
dpark 5y ago
> A "silo" is incomprehsible in a factory Efficient factories are built on silos. You do your job in your area and the next person does theirs. You might collaborate, but you absolutely have a clear division of labor. If you don’t have a division of labor and silos, you don’t have a factory. You have artisans.
- hinkley 5y ago
  Because a lot of the profit comes in vertical integration. I mean that’s why you built the factory right? To take materials in one end and put something that is greater than the sum if its parts out the other?
- akkartik 5y ago
  Yes. And that's ok! The world ran on artisans for hundreds of years. It's even better than that right now, because we already have factories: the programs. Do we need factories to build the factories? I don't think we're there yet, not to mention we don't know how to build these meta-factories right. Quoting myself from OP: "Libraries with non-trivial functionality take a long time to get right, and in the meantime they are produced more like guilds of craftsmen than factories. (Even if the products themselves permit factory-like operation at scale.) In that initial bake-in period we are ill-served by conventional metaphors of software components, building blocks, etc. We should be dealing more in vertically-integrated self-contained systems rather than plug-and-play libraries. More OpenBSD, less `gem install`." Efficiency is great, but it's not the only thing to optimize for.
  - dpark 5y ago
    To be clear, I was not comparing factories to software engineering. I was merely responding to the claim about factories not being silo’d. Software engineering looks nothing like a factory. At least not at the point of coding. Maybe at the deployment side.

akkartik 5y ago

Yes! I'd like to reiterate my link to https://creators.vice.com/en_uk/article/animator-hand-draws-film-in-4-years-nova-seed https://creators.vice.com/en_uk/article/animator-hand-draws-... in OP.

aspenmayer 5y ago

> Knowledge, skills, vision, creative engagement... these are silo'd. And this follows from misconceiving creative work as a form of goods-producing labour. It’s also related to the division of decision-making, usually between workers, with little or no executive authority, and management, with some to all of the executive authority. Creative roles are typically closer to management, and their knowledge bases are siloed, as is the business’s operational experience and expertise. Everyone wants to be close to power, but how many actually wield power effectively? What types of hierarchy are amenable to diffuse power structures? A lot of business are run like petty fiefdoms, and may not benefit from a minor change, and yet may not have the stomach for radical reform either. Worker owned co-ops and DAOs give me hope for new ways of working.

dpark 5y ago

> A "silo" is incomprehsible in a factory Efficient factories are built on silos. You do your job in your area and the next person does theirs. You might collaborate, but you absolutely have a clear division of labor. If you don’t have a division of labor and silos, you don’t have a factory. You have artisans.

hinkley 5y ago
Because a lot of the profit comes in vertical integration. I mean that’s why you built the factory right? To take materials in one end and put something that is greater than the sum if its parts out the other?
akkartik 5y ago
Yes. And that's ok! The world ran on artisans for hundreds of years. It's even better than that right now, because we already have factories: the programs. Do we need factories to build the factories? I don't think we're there yet, not to mention we don't know how to build these meta-factories right. Quoting myself from OP: "Libraries with non-trivial functionality take a long time to get right, and in the meantime they are produced more like guilds of craftsmen than factories. (Even if the products themselves permit factory-like operation at scale.) In that initial bake-in period we are ill-served by conventional metaphors of software components, building blocks, etc. We should be dealing more in vertically-integrated self-contained systems rather than plug-and-play libraries. More OpenBSD, less `gem install`." Efficiency is great, but it's not the only thing to optimize for.
- dpark 5y ago
  To be clear, I was not comparing factories to software engineering. I was merely responding to the claim about factories not being silo’d. Software engineering looks nothing like a factory. At least not at the point of coding. Maybe at the deployment side.