4 ms·

I don't know anything about philosophy, however, the book permeates my thinking while writing software. Here are two examples. Every time ask myself where does

I don't know anything about philosophy, however, the book permeates my thinking while writing software. Here are two examples. Every time ask myself where does this go or I have to decide on a folder structure, file, variable, class, or function name, I think of Pirsig's analytical knife. One day after forgetting a script running on a server out in the cloud which was scraping changing price data for a couple years, I logged into the server with an terminal to look at it's health. Everything was running perfect. I thought that must have been what Pirsig meant by Quality.

chanakya 4y ago
What Pirsig said about the analytic knife is philosophy.
- hinkley 4y ago
  Like AI, bits of philosophy get carved off and called common sense or culture on a relatively constant basis. I think we had a conversation about that maybe a month ago. It seems to be a large part of why they both get people's shields up. Because whatever is left to be claimed by those names has not yet or may never achieve consensus. Sort of a Market for Lemons.
tclancy 4y ago
The one other book that really altered my development work was also a Westerner on Eastern concepts: https://www.amazon.com/Wabi-Sabi-Artists-Designers-Poets-Philosophers/dp/0981484603/ https://www.amazon.com/Wabi-Sabi-Artists-Designers-Poets-Phi...
hinkley 4y ago
I don't think it's my imagination that there is something fundamentally different about the mentality of programmers who are also labeled as 'handy'. I grew up on home improvement and woodworking shows, and spent a couple summers as a bicycle mechanic long before reading this book. Particularly in the Home Improvement shows where owners learned about the consequences of their sins and especially those of the previous owners. Neglect can be very expensive, and the surprise of it magnifies the experience. I invest a lot in avoiding big nasty surprises. I also have a weird brand of minimalism where I can be quite precious about a cherished tool or piece of furniture but fairly blasé about many of my other belongings. For me the book was more of a nod-along, and there are certain conversations that are replaced with shorthand when talking to other people who hover when a desk chair is broken or a projector won't turn on. It is often useful to have other terminology and metaphors available to describe how you feel about something though. A particular problem I've had with the automatic equating of 'preaching to the choir' with 'waste of time'.

chanakya 4y ago

What Pirsig said about the analytic knife is philosophy.

hinkley 4y ago
Like AI, bits of philosophy get carved off and called common sense or culture on a relatively constant basis. I think we had a conversation about that maybe a month ago. It seems to be a large part of why they both get people's shields up. Because whatever is left to be claimed by those names has not yet or may never achieve consensus. Sort of a Market for Lemons.

tclancy 4y ago

The one other book that really altered my development work was also a Westerner on Eastern concepts: https://www.amazon.com/Wabi-Sabi-Artists-Designers-Poets-Philosophers/dp/0981484603/ https://www.amazon.com/Wabi-Sabi-Artists-Designers-Poets-Phi...

hinkley 4y ago

I don't think it's my imagination that there is something fundamentally different about the mentality of programmers who are also labeled as 'handy'. I grew up on home improvement and woodworking shows, and spent a couple summers as a bicycle mechanic long before reading this book. Particularly in the Home Improvement shows where owners learned about the consequences of their sins and especially those of the previous owners. Neglect can be very expensive, and the surprise of it magnifies the experience. I invest a lot in avoiding big nasty surprises. I also have a weird brand of minimalism where I can be quite precious about a cherished tool or piece of furniture but fairly blasé about many of my other belongings. For me the book was more of a nod-along, and there are certain conversations that are replaced with shorthand when talking to other people who hover when a desk chair is broken or a projector won't turn on. It is often useful to have other terminology and metaphors available to describe how you feel about something though. A particular problem I've had with the automatic equating of 'preaching to the choir' with 'waste of time'.