About Armstrong and makers.
I just come out from a guest lecture by Joe Armstrong.
No not Greenday Billie Joe Armstrong:
This one is the right Joe Armstrong:
About 21 years ago he invented the programming language Erlang and now writes a book about it which will be published at the Pragmatic Programmers in early June. He told us a lot of stories about computer industry millionaires ... Maybe he is even one as well :)
Anyway, besides the thrill of getting to hear a presentation by one of the "BIG people" it was kind of fun to listen to him. Joe Armstrong knows how to keep the attention and mixes many anecdotes into his technical focuses discurs. I liked that ... and the same time I felt a bit bad about not being able to share his affection for processors and other (in my opinion) boring technical details. Well, I understand them because I have to deal with them here in my studies - but I just don't like them :/
This made me think of what I read yesterday in my Hackers & Painters book. It was the chapter where Paul Graham actually compares hackers and painters. He calls them makers and sees a lot of things that those groups have in common. They both want to create beautiful things. I guess this was exactly the reason why I started to study media technology - I loved the aesthetics of digital media and wanted to do all this cool stuff - then the private college thing turned out to be the wrong system for me to learn it. Interestingly enough Graham criticizes also the system at computer science colleges and blames them for not letting hackers do what they actually want to do - Well, this sounds familiar to me who kinda ended up in such a department.
When I started to study computer science at university I still had the intention to create beautiful stuff. But as a matter of fact my enthusiasm just got so broken down that I can't arse myself to see the "beauty" of code or software .... Well, I definitely believe to be a maker. In some kind of sense. I like to see the results of my work and I goddamn like to create something. It's the best kind of productivity and makes me see sense in what I'm doing. The problem is just the big variety of media which you can use for creating. I like to draw. I like to combine sounds. (Like for modul modal or when I DJ). I like to write (more or less) clever stuff. And I like a lot of other things. Sure also using technology - BUT CODE??? No, not really! I probably just found out that programming code is not my medium at all. (Education) Experiment failed! But doing mistakes is the best way to learn, isn't it? So let's see what will be the next step to find out what kind of creator I really want to be ;)
No not Greenday Billie Joe Armstrong:
This one is the right Joe Armstrong:
About 21 years ago he invented the programming language Erlang and now writes a book about it which will be published at the Pragmatic Programmers in early June. He told us a lot of stories about computer industry millionaires ... Maybe he is even one as well :)
Anyway, besides the thrill of getting to hear a presentation by one of the "BIG people" it was kind of fun to listen to him. Joe Armstrong knows how to keep the attention and mixes many anecdotes into his technical focuses discurs. I liked that ... and the same time I felt a bit bad about not being able to share his affection for processors and other (in my opinion) boring technical details. Well, I understand them because I have to deal with them here in my studies - but I just don't like them :/
This made me think of what I read yesterday in my Hackers & Painters book. It was the chapter where Paul Graham actually compares hackers and painters. He calls them makers and sees a lot of things that those groups have in common. They both want to create beautiful things. I guess this was exactly the reason why I started to study media technology - I loved the aesthetics of digital media and wanted to do all this cool stuff - then the private college thing turned out to be the wrong system for me to learn it. Interestingly enough Graham criticizes also the system at computer science colleges and blames them for not letting hackers do what they actually want to do - Well, this sounds familiar to me who kinda ended up in such a department.
When I started to study computer science at university I still had the intention to create beautiful stuff. But as a matter of fact my enthusiasm just got so broken down that I can't arse myself to see the "beauty" of code or software .... Well, I definitely believe to be a maker. In some kind of sense. I like to see the results of my work and I goddamn like to create something. It's the best kind of productivity and makes me see sense in what I'm doing. The problem is just the big variety of media which you can use for creating. I like to draw. I like to combine sounds. (Like for modul modal or when I DJ). I like to write (more or less) clever stuff. And I like a lot of other things. Sure also using technology - BUT CODE??? No, not really! I probably just found out that programming code is not my medium at all. (Education) Experiment failed! But doing mistakes is the best way to learn, isn't it? So let's see what will be the next step to find out what kind of creator I really want to be ;)
janis - 22. Mär, 12:27
