Comment by asa400
14 days ago
From this comment it follows that for “industrial” software, having less power actually allows for a greater degree of composition at a higher level. Whether “more power” is advantageous is contextually dependent. Having only cutting and welding at your disposal is, as a designer, somewhat freeing.
Are you accusing artist blacksmiths of spending too much time thinking about/admiring their ad hoc tools?
Cf Whitehead
Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking of them.
Actually no! The tools that make sense for industry are sometimes not specific enough for artists, and simultaneously the tools that make sense for artists are sometimes hard to generalize in an industrial setting where repeatability and composition are have greater importance to the success of the end product. My quibble is when folks say artist blacksmiths and industrial metal forming are the same and should be treated the same, to continue the metaphor.
The industrial metal factory needs an army of artisans to keep the equipment running.
Is this a definition for "advancing" regards civilization? Bc it is not happening, and it is arguable if it is good for us at all.
Whitehead probably did not consider how many "hobbyist blacksmiths" we would need to fix the abstractions when they leak