Gopher Proxy
gopher.conman.org:70 gopher.conman.org:70/0Phlog:2026/08/06.2
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
* * * * *
What is even taste when it comes to programming?
[This is me reposting a comment I left on Lobsters [1] about “Taste Is All
That's Left [2],” a post about vibecoding. I think my comments works well
enough on its own here as a post. —Sean]
As I read this, I was reminded of two quotes. The first is about the taste
gap from Ira Glass:
> Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All
> of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But
> there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not
> that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your
> taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your
> taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this
> phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went
> through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing
> that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just
> starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and
> the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a
> deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going
> through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will
> be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do
> this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take
> awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.
>
“THE GAP by Ira Glass [3]”
The second is from The Ze Frank Show:
> For a very long time, taste and artistic training have been things that
> only a small number of people have been able to develop. Only a few people
> could afford to participate in the production of many types of media. Raw
> materials like pigments were expensive; same with tools like printing
> presses; even as late as 1963 it cost Charles Peignot over $600,000 to
> create and cut a single font family.
>
> The small number of people who had access to these tools and resources
> created rules about what was good taste or bad taste. These designers
> started giving each other awards and the rules they followed became even
> more specific. All sorts of stuff about grids and sizes and color
> combinations — lots of stuff that the consumers of this media never
> consciously noticed. Over the last 20 years, however, the cost of tools
> related to the authorship of media has plummeted. For very little money,
> anyone can create and distribute things like newsletters, or videos, or bad
> ass tunes about "ugly."
>
> Suddenly consumers are learning the language of these authorship tools. The
> fact that tons of people know names of fonts like Helvetica is weird! And
> when people start learning something new, they perceive the world around
> them differently. If you start learning how to play the guitar, suddenly
> the guitar stands out in all the music you listen to. For example,
> throughout most of the history of movies, the audience didn't really
> understand what a craft editing was. Now, as more and more people have
> access to things like iMovie, they begin to understand the manipulative
> power of editing. Watching reality TV almost becomes like a game as you try
> to second-guess how the editor is trying to manipulate you.
>
> As people start learning and experimenting with these languages authorship,
> they don't necessarily follow the rules of good taste. This scares the shit
> out of designers.
>
“the show with zefrank - 2006-07-14 [4]”
I'm not sure what I make of all this.
[1] https://lobste.rs/s/4qfkrz/taste_is_all_s_left#c_b1a4to
[2] https://notashelf.dev/posts/taste-is-all-thats-left
[3] https://vimeo.com/85040589
[4] https://archive.org/details/zefrank-theshow-083
Email Sean Conner at sean@conman.org
.
you're on gopher.conman.org^70/0Phlog:2026/08/06.2
back link is gopher.conman.org:70/1phlog.gopher