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Great creation is never done in isolation.

However, I think there's a mismatch of definitions. Getting to a destination, and seeing the big picture usually takes a lot of minds to envision. Once you know the destination, then in most industries, it falls back on the individual to figure out how to get to that destination. That's the quiet part.

In the software industry, it's both collaborative and solo at the same time. How many projects have you worked on where someone comes in and clobbers code you've just committed and then there's merge conflicts and wasted effort trying to understand what they were doing? If that hasn't happened to you yet, you're lucky. So on the one hand, agree, you're both trying to build something together, but most likely you're both off in your corner figuring out how to contribute your part.

I do think some of the loneliest parts of creation are when you see something no one else does and you can't really explain it without building it first. The amount of effort and energy required to do that is higher than normal and the fear that it could backfire weighs on you.

Software can be like that, but it doesn't have to be. I've been part of teams where we built entire products with pairing, frequent pair rotation, and cross-functional teams.

Loneliness is a choice we have made, but I don't think it's a very good one.

Well, to be fair, both you and the author fall for the same mistake: conflating what works your you/them, in your/their context, with what's generally good / bad.

Oh? Where exactly did I do that?

re: > Loneliness is a choice we have made, but I don't think it's a very good one.

It can be a good choice for particular situations (like the author seems to think of), perhaps some situations call for a balance of alone vs. social.

Your original post makes a good case for specific solutions to specific situations (upvoted), but then as usual, the typical root of disagreements are poorly scoped comments.

I read that more along the lines that loneliness is a choice we made but the fact that we've chosen isn't good. Not that alternatives to loneliness are better but rather that we shouldn't drive people towards specific styles of creativity through the workflows that the software development industry has developed (eg. Agile, SCRUM, etc.)

If people are feeling deeply lonely in their collaborative work, it sounds to me like it's not working for them. Ditto "where someone comes in and clobbers code you've just committed and then there's merge conflicts and wasted effort trying to understand". Unless you're going to ague those things are good, then no, I don't think I'm conflating anything. I'm taking what people are already saying is bad and saying there are solutions for that.

> I've been part of teams where we built entire products with pairing, frequent pair rotation

To be honest, that sounds terrible to me. I can’t think when someone is constantly looking over my shoulder.

Maybe if you get candidates that do great at whiteboard interviews, you’d have a lot of success when pairing too?

Yeah, many things people haven't tried can sound terrible to them. But it turns out the experience of collaboration is not in fact "someone is constantly looking over my shoulder". Pairing may not be for you, and like any collaboration it takes time to learn to do well.

Honestly, I think whiteboard interviews are terrible. And pairing interviews can be a challenge to run, which is why I go way out of my way to make people feel comfortable in them. But done right, I think they are no worse than any other kind of interview, which inevitably puts people on the spot. And for many it's better, because coding is way more their strong suit than answering vague questions about their history and character.

> But the notion of a noble solo genius high on his mountain creating great things is more myth than reality

I’m not sure that’s actually true. The more I work the more I find that a single unit doing all the work is absolutely the most efficient.

Even if you can ultimately get more work done with many people working on the same thing (and some things cannot be done alone at all), the efficiency is lower.

I think that leads a lot of people towards the feeling that lone genius is most likely. I think it’s certainly more likely than any given person being part of a team that’s genius.

> Do some people need silence to create? Sure. Bless them.

I would disagree and say your example is pretty much the only one which works this way, because the process and result requires multiple people to be expressive together.

Maybe dance and musical performance might fit the same rough description, but in those the skill required is personal based, and so most of the contributers will be in silence concentrating very hard on their own part and how it fits into the restas opposed to being completely collaborative.

> your example is pretty much the only one

Which example? I gave 7.

> Which example? I gave 7.

IMO Improvistional Theatre is the only valid example here, the other 6 IMO are silent and I will explain why:

1. Music - Done mainly in ones own head, drawing on personal experience and skill to find something which fits with what you are hearing. The process may not be silent, but the creation is.

2. Stand up comedy - The writing/creation is done by the comedian alone, then when workshopping in front of a live audience they assessing the material against the reactions, and adjusting it in their brain silently. An audience reacting is not creating anything, it is informing the creative process going on in the brain.

3. Literature has editors and friends who read drafts - again all the creation is done in silence. Feedback may be given verbally, but that informs the creation, it is not part of it.

4. Product development - This is not artistic creation. It is commerical development. The initial idea and creation is most likely done by an inventor/designer on their own in silence. It is commercial requirements which push this into the further areas of development as you suggest.

I fully accept this is a subjective opinion so I am not stating you are wrong, only how other people can have different opinions based on perspective of what creation, the creative process, and indeed silence actually is.

You must have miscounted because I cant find another 2?

How many of these have you actually observed happening? Because your assertions that they are "silent" (in the sense of the original piece) seems wildly out of line with what I've seen. You might try watching the documentary I linked to see how you're wrong about recorded music, for example. And if if your only experience of product development is that sort of top-down drudgery, I'm truly sorry, but it absolutely can be richly creative and collaborative.

> You must have miscounted because I cant find another 2?

That you're blaming your failures on me is not a good sign, so this is probably my last reply. I also mentioned improvisational music and movies. I could also add staged theater, in which much of the creative work happens in group contexts (starting with table readings, going through all of the rehearsals, and often after).

I’m quite gobsmacked at the arrogance and dismissiveness of your responses in this thread. Maybe tone it down a bit and be less defensive?

Gosh, a person on the internet has opinions on my writing! Truly a novel experience for me.

I'm sure I have a lot to learn about how to write for this audience from a person who [checks profile] joined this site last week. But that would make you a bit of an expert in both arrogance and dismissiveness, so I'll definitely give it a think.

Please refresh on the guidelines. Your comment does nothing but break them. "Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes. ...Please don't sneer" etc. If you edited out your swipes there'd be nothing left.

These all seem super arbitrary - like Product development for example, who says that commercial development isn't artistic? So if there's money involved it's not art...? What about video games, I am pretty sure a lot of people consider those to be art, and it's also a collaborative commercial creative process.

Same with music, there are plenty of jam sessions where people create music together totally improvised on the spot. I mean pretty much all of them can be done collaboratively if people felt like it, and often do.

> 1. Music - Done mainly in ones own head, drawing on personal experience and skill to find something which fits with what you are hearing. The process may not be silent, but the creation is.

You don't write music, do you? And I guess you've never been at a jam session either.

Pair programming? That’s multiple people being creative together with nothing to do with music or performance. I think there are plenty of examples of collaborative creativity.

Absolutely. I was part of a startup that did pairing with frequent pair rotation. We also collaborated very closely with product/design. It great to be in the middle of coding, come across a product question, and drag over the product manager for discussion. Often together we'd come up with an approach that was better than any of us would have separately.