Comment by bradly
6 days ago
> Woodworking is also an art form. But most people just need furniture, fixtures, and structures. Nobody would take seriously the idea that new construction all be done with sashimono joinery in order to preserve the art form, but somehow we're meant to take seriously the idea of hand-dovetailed CRUD apps.
How many furniture makers did you talk to forming this opinion? The metaphor does not line up with either my software of furniture experience. I work with production furniture shops that choose not to use CNCs to avoid the soul being sucked out of the work. This is not a rare stance to take and this is not "japanese joinery" woodworking. This is real work, balancing the means of production with optimal quality. There is all sorts of arguments on whether cncs or using a domino or whatever is "real" woodworking, but the idea that this choice of quality does not exist in woodworking and so we shouldn't have it in software is not my experience.
You don't need to talk to furniture makers to know that mass produced furniture has replaced cabinetmakery almost completely. Most of us are sitting on the evidence.
It is not about being mass produced or not–it is this reoccurring theme by people who do not spend their days writing code saying that mediocre code is good enough. It is not for me. Code decays. Mediocre code today is bade code tomorrow. Not everyone shares this pov–totally fine–but the tone of the article is tough.
I'm a professional software developer and I'm saying mediocre code is often good enough. Mediocre code does not in fact decay. The belief that every line of code you write on every problem definition has to be crystalline and formally rigorous is an early-career thing you get over. Fretting over literally every line of code is a way of doing your job badly. The skill is in knowing when you need really interesting (and "interesting" is the distinction here) code, and when you should just whip our your shop jig and repeat the exact same pocket hole joint you've been using for the last 10 years.
I don't want to step on the cabinetry discussion, just, I think it's important to call out this idea that there's a universal quality/intricacy/interestingness threshold for all production software. That was a common fallacy long before LLMs (you used to see a lot of it in Rails culture with people ceaselessly grooming unit test suites and designing ever-more-seamless mocking systems). Part of growing in this profession is getting a sense for when extra exertion is needed, and when it's wasted.
4 replies →
Right but just like most people were looking for a cheap shirt, pot or chair, most people are looking for 'cheaper way to make computers do what I want'. These changes didn't happen because people hated art or failed to inquire with weavers, potters and joiners.
4 replies →