Comment by w10-1
7 months ago
Most HN posts are how to program, mainly focusing on new tools and ideas.
But now the tooling is so good and the competition so fierce that the real question now is not how but what to program.
For that, it's essential to see things through the eye of users, so you can see the value to them.
This post imagines how Nadar saw his subjects, and how his subjects saw things. Not only is it a different time, but in most cases the subjects had a hand in history, we know now.
To me that's the essence of product design: imagining a different world through the eyes of another, and understanding how to make a real difference.
Products mostly focus on the present-market scale, but investments incorporate the full life cycle. The real power of the historical perspective is understanding how it's the latent value in the context that gives a new product its power, and how significant that can be over time, particularly when a technology becomes pervasive.
Here the photograph far outdoes the samurai's sword in its influence, not just for images and history but as a demonstration of the power of recording light for science, medicine, etc.
May this post inspire someone to make the next photograph.
>For that, it's essential to see things through the eye of users, so you can see the value to them.
The main issue is that the skills needed to make a product can be different from the skills needed to land a job in an organization. That makes it further muddy what to program.
"But now the tooling is so good and the competition so fierce that the real question now is not how but what to program.
For that, it's essential to see things through the eye of users, so you can see the value to them."
It's always been that way. e.g. Infamous HN Dropbox post.