The craftsman in us all | Hacker News Reader

The craftsman in us all

books.guardian.co.uk

8 pointsdanw5 comments

Cool. This has come at a good time for me. I've been working on a problem where I've been going down quite a few dead ends. Conceptually the problem shouldn't be that hard to solve, so I've been berating my self a bit about failing to hit on the solution correctly the first time.

So where the article mentions: "To arrive at that goal, the craftsman at work has instead to dwell in waste, following up dead ends". That perfectly describes how it feels to struggle through this problem, with code strewn around and thrown away in different approaches.

Build one to throw away as it were

While I was struggling making my first (and so far, last) piece of furniture, I got some sage advice. The woodworker said, “Woodworking is about problem solving. There is no right or wrong. Only smarter, faster, and safer. It doesn't matter how you do it, as long as it looks nice.”

He added, "Do you think the true masters of furniture making don't make mistakes? They do. They shim stuff up. You think everything's perfect, but it's not. You can't even tell." It's ok and part of the process to make mistakes.

The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne --Geoffrey Chaucer

The craftsman style in archtitecture has seen a tremendous resurgance in popularity since the late 90s. People seem to more and more value the attention to detail and appreciation for natural materials.

Small home arts & crafts are increasingly more popular (did you know scrapbooking is a >$3 billion industry in the US?). Look at the popularity of Etsy.com: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=124684

I feel like society is going in 2 directions. One the hand, people are willing to accept low/lower quality in items/services, in particular if they're being made free. But also the availablity of information in the form of online instruction and tutorials is reducing the barriers of entry for many individuals, sparking their interest in hand-made high-quality items.

Other than saying I agree with this article, I don't really have a point here, just voicing some thoughts I've been pondering quite a bit in the last couple months.

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