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Yeah. Exactly the same as there should never be an “artisan era” for chairs, tables, buildings, etc.

Hell even art! Why should art even be a thing? We are machine driven by neurons, feelings do not exist.

Might be your life, it ain’t mine. I’m an artisan of code, and I’m proud to be one. I might finally use AI one of these days at work because I’ll have to, but I’ll never stop cherishing doing hand-crafted code.

2 comments

>> Yeah. Exactly the same as there should never be an “artisan era” for chairs, tables, buildings, etc.

That's funny you bring up those examples, because they have all moved on to the mass manufacturing era. You can still get artisan quality stuff but it typically costs a lot more and there's a lot less of it. Which is why mass-manufacturing won. Same is going to happen with software. LLMs are just the beginning.

Did you get the Eames version of Windows, or a knockoff?

Windows was probably the worst example you could use in this context!

Oh no, but I know! And it is indeed terrible.

I live in a city where there are new houses being built. They are ugly. Meanwhile, the ones that exist since a long time ago have charm and feel homely.

I don’t know, I‘m probably just a regular old man yelling at clouds, but I still think we’re going in the wrong direction. For pretty much everything. And for what? Money. Yay!

Hugh.

You're continuing to make good arguments for why mass-production should exist _alongside_ artisanal craftsmanship. Broad availability of housing which is functional, albeit of questionable aesthetic appeal, is a good thing to improve housing availability[0]; and also it is a good thing for (fewer) well-built, charming, individual homes to be available for those who want to spend more and to get more.

[0] I'm extremely aware that there are other contributing factors to housing shortages. Tax Billionaires, etc. My metaphor still works despite not being total.

The difference is that end users don't interact with the code that the artisan created, and don't care what it "feels like". One type of code that I do agree should be artisanal is the interface end of libraries.

Yes, it's like artisanal plumbing or electrical wiring... all hidden behind walls. A plumber might take pride in the quality of his soldered joints, but artisanal? Who wants to pay for that?