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I'm going to be a little negative, so please bare with me. The world needs artisanal programmers like it needs artisanal attorneys. See: https://www.mcsweeney

I'm going to be a little negative, so please bare with me. The world needs artisanal programmers like it needs artisanal attorneys. See: https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/i-am-an-artisanal-attorney https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/i-am-an-artisanal-attorn... How is an artisanal attorney different from any other attorney? Like other artisans, I pay close attention to my ingredients and process; I am intimately involved in all stages of creation. Other attorneys print their documents on paper they buy in mass-produced boxes, tens of thousands of sheets at a time, using ink that mechanically jets onto the page. I make my own paper by hand,... This article is so similar to this satire I couldn't believe so many commenters were taking it so seriously. If you are new to programming, this is a mostly ridiculous notion which plays to your vanity. While admiring your reflection, be careful not to fall, face first, in the pool. Now, how do I know? Because this isn't the first time I've encountered this idea. Jonathan Blow, in his own way, has been making the same silly argument for years. As I've said before -- his frame of "programmers were real men once" makes each video/rant seem both one note and self aggrandizing. For him, it seems to be a marketing exercise, but also an intellectual muddle, which with one breath tells you to romantically forget this is an engineering discipline, with economics and tradeoffs and constraints and compromises, and with the next, which actually helpfully(!), tells you about physical constraints of the machine. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data-oriented_design https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data-oriented_design The problem as I see it is that Blow and Muratori are half right about most things. They're almost always right about the particulars of programming (strict OOP patterns and "Clean Code" aren't great for performance). It's their frame that "civilization is in decline" (or "programmers were real men once" as here) that is wrong/catastrophic. Civilization simply has different priorities than game engine priorities (performance is a constraint, but not the primary constraint of most software).

FrustratedMonky 2y ago
But aren't there artisanal attorney's? There are some in specialized areas, perhaps even inside a specialized area there are a few firms that are known to be at the top, and find creative solutions to problems. They aren't all Law-and-Order. Same with accountants. Sure, it's all number crunching. But then why do some become the top business leaders, the CEO's. Maybe because in that field, being a top artisan and able to play with financial instruments, allows you to build a business. (and I'm playing devils advocate for the small percentage of accountants/business that are actually trying to build something, not just playing with money to bilk people)
- mustache_kimono 2y ago
  > But aren't there artisanal attorney's? Not in the way there are artisanal bread-makers. See the linked article. > There are some in specialized areas Let's presume the following definition: artisanal: (of a product, especially food or drink) made in a traditional or non-mechanized way. I am saying -- there is no attorney marketing their unique skill with the Smith Corona Galaxie or with a quill. Instead, you probably want them to write a brief for you and don't particularly care how they physically do it.
  - FrustratedMonky 2y ago
    I guess by this argument, writes/authors also cannot be 'artisanal'? This seems like we are instead discussing a narrow definition of 'artisanal'. Where I was taking more broad definition of someone at the top of their 'craft', an expert with deep knowledge of a specialized area.
    - mustache_kimono 2y ago
      > This seems like we are instead discussing a narrow definition of 'artisanal'. Perhaps see the article. This is the definition which is most like the definition it uses.
      - FrustratedMonky 2y ago
        "Perhaps see the article" Are you joking, it was 2 paragraphs. And did not offer any definition. You are reading into it you're own internal monologue, and thinking the article stated more than it did. So if we go by the article using example of 'making a table', you could say writers/authors/accountants would NOT be artisans. Since they are not physically crafting something. or If it is more about "enjoy the process, ... , improve yourself, learn new things", then it is very much more general and includes many fields.
        mustache_kimono 2y ago
meiraleal 2y ago
> this is an engineering discipline oh, well. I just checked all 7 old and new wonders of the world and all of them needed engineers. I don't think being an engineering discipline limits software in any way related to what can be achieved with it.
- mustache_kimono 2y ago
  > I don't think being an engineering discipline limits software in any way related to what can be achieved with it. I don't either. I think programming can be art, etc. My issue here is that I don't think favoring artisanal methods are part of the appeal of software. We are much more interested in what software does. For instance, it might be useful to know x86_64 vector assembly. It might make your program run faster. It might even be necessary for you to know it for your program to work correctly. What I am saying is -- if a higher level construct exists, like C, C++, or Rust, which can produce an equivalent program, but you choose to write your entire program in x86_64 assembly, because that is/was the artisanal way, that's mostly unimportant/irrelevant to the user, except as an oddity.
  - meiraleal 2y ago
    Got it. I don't think writing in x86_64 is any more artisanal than Python or JavaScript. It's actually quite easy to make the distinction. Assembled software - using multiple libraries in place of crafting (almost) every piece of it - is the opposite of artisanal software. You can have that with assembly, C/C++, Java, or JavaScript. As an example, I'm developing an IDE from the ground up. The current conventional approach would be to fork VSCode, a bloated, slow, over-engineered, ultra-complex Electron app reliant on Microsoft's standards. Alternatively, I can code it artisanally, which will likely result in something worse in many ways and break in unexpected ways. But for my specific use case, it provides a much better user experience than taking the assembly-line approach to software development. The chances of this project failing are much higher using this customized approach than if I used the assembly-line method, but it doesn't matter to me - coding it this way is already so much more fun.
    - 2y ago
FredPret 2y ago
Software is somewhat unique because the design, execution, and mass distribution can all be one step. So you really can be a software artisan, though the world needs the mass production kind of software too.
- mustache_kimono 2y ago
  > So you really can be a software artisan, though the world needs the mass production kind of software too. I think this is true only if "artisan" means whatever you want it to mean. Here, you seem to think it means "made by one person." But, here, my definition, and the definition of the article, is "making software using the old methods." artisanal: (of a product, especially food or drink) made in a traditional or non-mechanized way.
  - FredPret 2y ago
    Ah, I guess you’re right. To me, “artisanal” means one / very few experts carefully crafted a custom product to their own exacting standards, driven by their internal need for perfection rather than guided by a spec sheet / quality level specified externally. There are definitely hackers who do this.
Veserv 2y ago
“Civilization in decline” is overstating the problem. It is a common refrain that performance and security are poor because they are not priorities. The corollary being that the only reason things are slow and insecure is because we do not try to make them fast and secure due to incentives. If the industry were incentivized, then wham-bam secure and fast. Right now. That is wrong. The incentives against fast and secure have been going for so long that the institutional knowledge, if it even existed previously, is not present. Programmers have spent their entire careers not knowing how to make things fast or secure. They do not know how to make things fast or secure, right now, even if the incentives changed. Making things slow is not a tradeoff or a choice as they do not even know (right now) how to do the alternative. Yes, if the incentives changed then the industry as a whole could relearn how to do things over years and decades. The individuals who adapt and learn the new techniques that are now incentivized would thrive and come to dominate the industry. But, it is a relearning process, not a overnight thing. This is analogous to the loss of manufacturing expertise in the US due to offshoring and then the process of onshoring. You must rebuild the knowledge and experience. Except it is even worse in this case because you can not even bring the offshore experts to re-teach you what you have forgotten. You have to learn from the scraps of forgotten lore and rediscover and reinvent what was lost. This is more like the loss of knowledge involved in making the Saturn V rocket. Sure, we could make a new Moon rocket if the incentives aligned, hell, we could probably make a better one with modern technology, but we can not do that right now. We must relearn and retool to achieve that. That is the problem they are seeing, whether they actually realize what is happening or not, and it is a serious problem if we need to make a sudden course correction to achieve these goals if they suddenly become incentivized (*cough* security *cough*). If we decide to change when we need it right now, then we are in for a rough few years to decades.
- mustache_kimono 2y ago
  > It is a common refrain that performance and security are poor because they are not priorities. > We must relearn and retool to achieve that. That is the problem they are seeing, whether they actually realize what is happening or not. I think I broadly agree. I'd say -- I'm not sure we ever really knew how to be fast and secure. I think our problems re: memory safety and remote exploits, etc., are pretty relatively new. I'd also say that this yearning for a forgotten yesterday is somewhat understandable, though mostly weird, a kind of tech revanchism. My problem with Blow, et. al. is probably that they don't frame these as simply cultural differences or matters of priorities, whether or not, if the culture shifted, results could be achieved immediately or otherwise. Instead it is always a great big catastrophe. Seriously -- I think he does it because it sells more games if the games are produced by some mercurial genius, by the Last Keeper of the Flame.
jairojair 2y ago
Yes! Sometimes people put focus on right or wrong and forget to enjoy the process. I wrote a little bit about it here: https://jairojair.com/articles/coding-just-for-fun/ https://jairojair.com/articles/coding-just-for-fun/
musicale 2y ago
> I'm going to be a little negative, so please bare with me. took off my shoes, does that count?

FrustratedMonky 2y ago

But aren't there artisanal attorney's? There are some in specialized areas, perhaps even inside a specialized area there are a few firms that are known to be at the top, and find creative solutions to problems. They aren't all Law-and-Order. Same with accountants. Sure, it's all number crunching. But then why do some become the top business leaders, the CEO's. Maybe because in that field, being a top artisan and able to play with financial instruments, allows you to build a business. (and I'm playing devils advocate for the small percentage of accountants/business that are actually trying to build something, not just playing with money to bilk people)

mustache_kimono 2y ago
> But aren't there artisanal attorney's? Not in the way there are artisanal bread-makers. See the linked article. > There are some in specialized areas Let's presume the following definition: artisanal: (of a product, especially food or drink) made in a traditional or non-mechanized way. I am saying -- there is no attorney marketing their unique skill with the Smith Corona Galaxie or with a quill. Instead, you probably want them to write a brief for you and don't particularly care how they physically do it.
- FrustratedMonky 2y ago
  I guess by this argument, writes/authors also cannot be 'artisanal'? This seems like we are instead discussing a narrow definition of 'artisanal'. Where I was taking more broad definition of someone at the top of their 'craft', an expert with deep knowledge of a specialized area.
  - mustache_kimono 2y ago
    > This seems like we are instead discussing a narrow definition of 'artisanal'. Perhaps see the article. This is the definition which is most like the definition it uses.
    - FrustratedMonky 2y ago
      "Perhaps see the article" Are you joking, it was 2 paragraphs. And did not offer any definition. You are reading into it you're own internal monologue, and thinking the article stated more than it did. So if we go by the article using example of 'making a table', you could say writers/authors/accountants would NOT be artisans. Since they are not physically crafting something. or If it is more about "enjoy the process, ... , improve yourself, learn new things", then it is very much more general and includes many fields.
      - mustache_kimono 2y ago

meiraleal 2y ago

> this is an engineering discipline oh, well. I just checked all 7 old and new wonders of the world and all of them needed engineers. I don't think being an engineering discipline limits software in any way related to what can be achieved with it.

mustache_kimono 2y ago
> I don't think being an engineering discipline limits software in any way related to what can be achieved with it. I don't either. I think programming can be art, etc. My issue here is that I don't think favoring artisanal methods are part of the appeal of software. We are much more interested in what software does. For instance, it might be useful to know x86_64 vector assembly. It might make your program run faster. It might even be necessary for you to know it for your program to work correctly. What I am saying is -- if a higher level construct exists, like C, C++, or Rust, which can produce an equivalent program, but you choose to write your entire program in x86_64 assembly, because that is/was the artisanal way, that's mostly unimportant/irrelevant to the user, except as an oddity.
- meiraleal 2y ago
  Got it. I don't think writing in x86_64 is any more artisanal than Python or JavaScript. It's actually quite easy to make the distinction. Assembled software - using multiple libraries in place of crafting (almost) every piece of it - is the opposite of artisanal software. You can have that with assembly, C/C++, Java, or JavaScript. As an example, I'm developing an IDE from the ground up. The current conventional approach would be to fork VSCode, a bloated, slow, over-engineered, ultra-complex Electron app reliant on Microsoft's standards. Alternatively, I can code it artisanally, which will likely result in something worse in many ways and break in unexpected ways. But for my specific use case, it provides a much better user experience than taking the assembly-line approach to software development. The chances of this project failing are much higher using this customized approach than if I used the assembly-line method, but it doesn't matter to me - coding it this way is already so much more fun.
  - 2y ago

FredPret 2y ago

Software is somewhat unique because the design, execution, and mass distribution can all be one step. So you really can be a software artisan, though the world needs the mass production kind of software too.

mustache_kimono 2y ago
> So you really can be a software artisan, though the world needs the mass production kind of software too. I think this is true only if "artisan" means whatever you want it to mean. Here, you seem to think it means "made by one person." But, here, my definition, and the definition of the article, is "making software using the old methods." artisanal: (of a product, especially food or drink) made in a traditional or non-mechanized way.
- FredPret 2y ago
  Ah, I guess you’re right. To me, “artisanal” means one / very few experts carefully crafted a custom product to their own exacting standards, driven by their internal need for perfection rather than guided by a spec sheet / quality level specified externally. There are definitely hackers who do this.

Veserv 2y ago

“Civilization in decline” is overstating the problem. It is a common refrain that performance and security are poor because they are not priorities. The corollary being that the only reason things are slow and insecure is because we do not try to make them fast and secure due to incentives. If the industry were incentivized, then wham-bam secure and fast. Right now. That is wrong. The incentives against fast and secure have been going for so long that the institutional knowledge, if it even existed previously, is not present. Programmers have spent their entire careers not knowing how to make things fast or secure. They do not know how to make things fast or secure, right now, even if the incentives changed. Making things slow is not a tradeoff or a choice as they do not even know (right now) how to do the alternative. Yes, if the incentives changed then the industry as a whole could relearn how to do things over years and decades. The individuals who adapt and learn the new techniques that are now incentivized would thrive and come to dominate the industry. But, it is a relearning process, not a overnight thing. This is analogous to the loss of manufacturing expertise in the US due to offshoring and then the process of onshoring. You must rebuild the knowledge and experience. Except it is even worse in this case because you can not even bring the offshore experts to re-teach you what you have forgotten. You have to learn from the scraps of forgotten lore and rediscover and reinvent what was lost. This is more like the loss of knowledge involved in making the Saturn V rocket. Sure, we could make a new Moon rocket if the incentives aligned, hell, we could probably make a better one with modern technology, but we can not do that right now. We must relearn and retool to achieve that. That is the problem they are seeing, whether they actually realize what is happening or not, and it is a serious problem if we need to make a sudden course correction to achieve these goals if they suddenly become incentivized (*cough* security *cough*). If we decide to change when we need it right now, then we are in for a rough few years to decades.

mustache_kimono 2y ago
> It is a common refrain that performance and security are poor because they are not priorities. > We must relearn and retool to achieve that. That is the problem they are seeing, whether they actually realize what is happening or not. I think I broadly agree. I'd say -- I'm not sure we ever really knew how to be fast and secure. I think our problems re: memory safety and remote exploits, etc., are pretty relatively new. I'd also say that this yearning for a forgotten yesterday is somewhat understandable, though mostly weird, a kind of tech revanchism. My problem with Blow, et. al. is probably that they don't frame these as simply cultural differences or matters of priorities, whether or not, if the culture shifted, results could be achieved immediately or otherwise. Instead it is always a great big catastrophe. Seriously -- I think he does it because it sells more games if the games are produced by some mercurial genius, by the Last Keeper of the Flame.

jairojair 2y ago

Yes! Sometimes people put focus on right or wrong and forget to enjoy the process. I wrote a little bit about it here: https://jairojair.com/articles/coding-just-for-fun/ https://jairojair.com/articles/coding-just-for-fun/

musicale 2y ago

> I'm going to be a little negative, so please bare with me. took off my shoes, does that count?