Does hacking dilute creativity?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2484277

by waterwave21 • 15 years ago

7 4 15 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

Hey guys,

Up until now I've been on the business side of things, but have now decided to learn to hack so that I can build my own ideas as soon as they come. However, even though I really enjoy programming, I feel that it somehow constricts my flow of ideas. Instead of pondering about whats possible, I now feel less creative as I feel the need to 'stay within the lines' of programming.

Has anybody else felt that hacking dilutes their creativity? If so, does this go away as your hacking skills progress?

johnny22• 15 years ago

Constraints (like the limitations of a programming language, system resources, etc) are what make it possible for me to be creative.

EDIT: i think that's also why you often hear the phrase "pushing the boundaries" in relation to creativity. Society is a constraint of a sort.

barisme• 15 years ago

No, programming empowers you to make your ideas actually work. It also forces you to break the great big idea into chewable little pieces, and that's the process that turns imagination into creation.

But yeah, you might feel constrained for a while until you master the tools. Once you do master them though, will anyone be able to tell you that your idea can't be implemented?

_delirium• 15 years ago

What kind of stuff are you building?

I do have that problem to some extent myself. Sometimes building something really shows you new insight into a problem or system, but other times it ends up being 90% drudge work of the "accidental complexity" variety.

One approach to mitigate it is to try to find a lightweight prototyping process you can use, where you still actually write functioning code, but hopefully in a way that's less constraining. This is particularly useful if your "real" code is tied up in frameworks and Enterprisey architecture, which tend to be hard-to-steer ships.

Many parts of the Lisp and Python communities consider ease of open-ended, exploratory programming one of their main goals, so you might find something useful there. Prototyping the core ideas in some simpler way can also help; e.g. a lot of game designers will test out mechanics ideas by building little 2d demos where triangles interact with squares, even if the real game isn't going to look like a 2d abstract game.

JonLim• 15 years ago

Disagree!

I'm on the business side of things as well and I started learning PHP last year while freelancing and then switched over to Rails when I started my work with a Rails dev shop.

I have found that the process is that I dream up an idea, figure out how to code it, and repeat either step as necessary. Sometimes you have to tweak, sometimes you have to redo, but I have never really felt the constraints of my ability to code as a limitation to my creativity.

It becomes easier as you get better. :)

EDIT: I have also found that it helps for me to create a lean canvas for my projects - the money aspect is somewhat important, and it helps me figure out the MVP of a product so that I don't slave away for weeks on a non-profitable idea.

http://www.leancanvas.com

Does hacking dilute creativity?

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