Re(4): KDE Community Working Group takes care of the community
Posted by: Anonymous
[ip: 213.47.44.9]
on September 08, 2008 07:53 AM
like a recipe serves a functional, and not aesthetic purpose
The point you are missing is that purpose and aesthetics are orthogonal. A building might primarily serve the purpose of housing something, but its design and even they way it was built can still be admired by those of the same trade.
A cook might cater to a totally different taste than another one but will still find admiration for the other's excellency, be it knowledge of spices, creativity in combining ingredients or arrangment on the plate.
If one is vegetarian and totally distains dishes including meat, cooks excelling in meat based dishes will still take pride in their creations.
Same for software. It might not even be recognizable as a separatable part of the system it is controlling, but it can still be a piece of art.
If it does what it was designed for it even serves the functional purpose, even if it does not what some people would prefer it to do.
Beautiful code matters a lot, especially since it is a nice break of the decade old routine of mass producing low quality products.
Software engineers still forced to produce below their capabilities by artificial schedules and mythical time-to-market absolutely envy those who have the option of implementing a solution based on the very principles of engineering.
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Re(4): KDE Community Working Group takes care of the community
Posted by: Anonymous [ip: 213.47.44.9] on September 08, 2008 07:53 AMThe point you are missing is that purpose and aesthetics are orthogonal. A building might primarily serve the purpose of housing something, but its design and even they way it was built can still be admired by those of the same trade.
A cook might cater to a totally different taste than another one but will still find admiration for the other's excellency, be it knowledge of spices, creativity in combining ingredients or arrangment on the plate.
If one is vegetarian and totally distains dishes including meat, cooks excelling in meat based dishes will still take pride in their creations.
Same for software. It might not even be recognizable as a separatable part of the system it is controlling, but it can still be a piece of art.
If it does what it was designed for it even serves the functional purpose, even if it does not what some people would prefer it to do.
Beautiful code matters a lot, especially since it is a nice break of the decade old routine of mass producing low quality products.
Software engineers still forced to produce below their capabilities by artificial schedules and mythical time-to-market absolutely envy those who have the option of implementing a solution based on the very principles of engineering.
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