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The worst aspect of most arts are critics. Programming included. All these pseudo-intellectual categories, analysis of sizes (forms) and styles, anthologies stu

The worst aspect of most arts are critics. Programming included. All these pseudo-intellectual categories, analysis of sizes (forms) and styles, anthologies stuff like that. BTW, for those who can read Russian, Nabokov's the Gift (Dar) is the best reading about poetry - how it is not a a mere classification of rhythms (I imagine hipster idiots, advocating well-typed pairs of words and type-checkers for poets) but an inner sudden insight from a pre-linguistic, non-verbal mind (which people call "heart") verbalized on the spot. This is what programming is also (read On Lisp) - one express his own sudden insights by giving it a structure in terms of a programming language (and trying it till it is hot), which means it should be restricted as less as possible (this is fucking why Lisps or Smalltalk or Erlang feels so special). Poetry is not the a mere form with some vague meaning, it is these sudden insights and some structure a poet gives to it. That is why we could enjoy Rumi without being able to read Persian. We are excited when we found an unexpected, rare gem, a verbalization (an expression!) of what we felt ourselves, but still been unable to express (same experience with reading source code of the best (Norvig, rtm+PG, Sysoev, etc.)) The rate of gems to stuff is 20/80, so do not expect to much. Read arc.arc to understand what I mean. Like it is with everything (at least with literature, music and programming), 95% of poetry is narcissistic or graphomanic crap, like blogs. That's why, perhaps, most of people are convinced that poetry is something which has a rithm in it. Read Nabokov or Pamuk.

peter_l_downs 11y ago
Not sure what you mean by hipster idiots in this context, although I agree with your overall point. I can explain at least one reason to write a rhythym-based poem generator [0] – the problem lends itself to some interesting code :) I'd never claim that it's a valuable tool for creating "art", but it was fun to write and because of it I've thought a lot more about what "art" is and isn't. And, Sussman liked it! > We are excited when we found an unexpected, rare gem, a verbalization (an expression!) of what we felt ourselves, but still been unable to express (same experience with reading source code of the best (Norvig, rtm+PG, Sysoev, etc.)) Really well written; the frisson of recognizing one's own experience described by someone else is both validating and comforting. [0]: https://github.com/peterldowns/bard https://github.com/peterldowns/bard
- dschiptsov 11y ago
  I am working with tourists in Himalaya, so I am biased against hipsters (role-playing governed behavior). For a poet it is a process of verbalization of non-verbal insights (side-effects of conditioning), for a reader it is recognition of ones own insights from someone else's verbalizations. Types are irrelevant here.)

peter_l_downs 11y ago

Not sure what you mean by hipster idiots in this context, although I agree with your overall point. I can explain at least one reason to write a rhythym-based poem generator [0] – the problem lends itself to some interesting code :) I'd never claim that it's a valuable tool for creating "art", but it was fun to write and because of it I've thought a lot more about what "art" is and isn't. And, Sussman liked it! > We are excited when we found an unexpected, rare gem, a verbalization (an expression!) of what we felt ourselves, but still been unable to express (same experience with reading source code of the best (Norvig, rtm+PG, Sysoev, etc.)) Really well written; the frisson of recognizing one's own experience described by someone else is both validating and comforting. [0]: https://github.com/peterldowns/bard https://github.com/peterldowns/bard

dschiptsov 11y ago
I am working with tourists in Himalaya, so I am biased against hipsters (role-playing governed behavior). For a poet it is a process of verbalization of non-verbal insights (side-effects of conditioning), for a reader it is recognition of ones own insights from someone else's verbalizations. Types are irrelevant here.)