Morley wrote:I remain convinced that seventy-five to eighty percent of any art can be learned.
I agree.
Simply doing engineering problems over and over does NOT make a good engineer. You need passion.
My bishop once told me we should not have passion but rather have balance. f*** him!
Right! When I was coding for a living, it was a form of art for me. I loved well-crafted code, beautifully minimalistic, self-explanatory. I had a passion for it. Still do.
H.
"Others cannot endure their own littleness unless they can translate it into meaningfulness on the largest possible level." ~ Ernest Becker "Whether you think of it as heavenly or as earthly, if you love life immortality is no consolation for death." ~ Simone de Beauvoir
Right! When I was coding for a living, it was a form of art for me. I loved well-crafted code, beautifully minimalistic, self-explanatory. I had a passion for it. Still do.
H.
I'm delighted that you found art in writing code. It's something I could never do. I've written a fair bit of code in my time. I always felt it was the least interesting thing a human could do. Kind of like reading the white pages in the phone book.
That must be why I was never any good at it.
This, or any other post that I have made or will make in the future, is strictly my own opinion and consequently of little or no value.
"Faith is believing something you know ain't true" Twain.
schreech wrote:I envy great writers. I literally get jealous with I read a well written book as that skill seems so far out of my reach that I may as well aspire to professional basketball. I feel like great writers are born with that gift and it can't be learned...
You'd be surprised. Writing is something you can get better and better at the more you do it and the more you do different kinds of it.
That of course requires time. But, though the time needed may vary from individual to individual, I think like Morley says, most of it can be learned. One can become an excellent stylist. Whether one has anything to impart with the style is another thing, though, and maybe that is the part that has you feeling inadequate. But that can come with time as well.
I learned most about writing from a couple of gigs I had with very tiny word limits. One was writing entries for an academic encyclopedia. I had to boil pages and pages down into small entries. It was an excellent discipline and I think had an almost immediate impact on my basic sentence level writing.
From the Ernest L. Wilkinson Diaries: "ELW dreams he's spattered w/ grease. Hundreds steal his greasy pants."
Right! When I was coding for a living, it was a form of art for me. I loved well-crafted code, beautifully minimalistic, self-explanatory. I had a passion for it. Still do.
H.
I'm delighted that you found art in writing code. It's something I could never do. I've written a fair bit of code in my time. I always felt it was the least interesting thing a human could do. Kind of like reading the white pages in the phone book.
That must be why I was never any good at it.
True beauty in code is when a human can read it.
H.
"Others cannot endure their own littleness unless they can translate it into meaningfulness on the largest possible level." ~ Ernest Becker "Whether you think of it as heavenly or as earthly, if you love life immortality is no consolation for death." ~ Simone de Beauvoir
LDSToronto wrote: True beauty in code is when a human can read it.
H.
I never wrote much code, but I learned an appreciation for it when I had to write/edit a programmer's reference guide (COBOL). I can see the appeal of elegant code.
From the Ernest L. Wilkinson Diaries: "ELW dreams he's spattered w/ grease. Hundreds steal his greasy pants."
I'd love to learn: Pencil drawing Short story writing Furniture building Cake decorating Iron working
I took a cabinet making course some years ago and will eventually tool up and build furniture. Unfortunately my garage is too small. I'm a pretty good cook and could spend hours in the kitchen.
H.
"Others cannot endure their own littleness unless they can translate it into meaningfulness on the largest possible level." ~ Ernest Becker "Whether you think of it as heavenly or as earthly, if you love life immortality is no consolation for death." ~ Simone de Beauvoir
LDSToronto wrote:I'd love to learn: Pencil drawing Short story writing Furniture building Cake decorating Iron working
I took a cabinet making course some years ago and will eventually tool up and build furniture. Unfortunately my garage is too small. I'm a pretty good cook and could spend hours in the kitchen.
H.
Furniture building would be awesome!
From the Ernest L. Wilkinson Diaries: "ELW dreams he's spattered w/ grease. Hundreds steal his greasy pants."
LDSToronto wrote:I'd love to learn: Pencil drawing Short story writing Furniture building Cake decorating Iron working
I took a cabinet making course some years ago and will eventually tool up and build furniture. Unfortunately my garage is too small. I'm a pretty good cook and could spend hours in the kitchen.
H.
Furniture building would be awesome!
I love clean lines and simple designs. 60s/70s retro and craftsman furniture appeal to me. For a few years now I've been amassing tools - I've got a King table saw, a crosscut mitre saw, a large number of hand tools. What I need still are clamps, a router, router table, and drill press. But, I probably need to buy a new house first.
H.
"Others cannot endure their own littleness unless they can translate it into meaningfulness on the largest possible level." ~ Ernest Becker "Whether you think of it as heavenly or as earthly, if you love life immortality is no consolation for death." ~ Simone de Beauvoir
LDSToronto wrote:Right! When I was coding for a living, it was a form of art for me. I loved well-crafted code, beautifully minimalistic, self-explanatory. I had a passion for it. Still do.
H.
This is great.
Oh for shame, how the mortals put the blame on us gods, for they say evils come from us, but it is they, rather, who by their own recklessness win sorrow beyond what is given... Zeus (1178 BC)
Oh for shame, how the mortals put the blame on us gods, for they say evils come from us, but it is they, rather, who by their own recklessness win sorrow beyond what is given... Zeus (1178 BC)