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this is an analogy that is worthy of discussion, but i dont think this discussion really touches on some key things. the first is that in bluegrass, like gypsy jazz, the idea of jams are central. jams are informal gatherings where people come and go and play tunes together. they are often damn fun, which is really the reason they exist. some jams are more novice, others are more advanced, but in general you are expected to be welcoming, or at the very least not mean. and this is how people are able to start to learn the style. they are able to sit right next to people who are much better than them and learn. this is the best way to learn this kind of music, to be right next to someone who is doing the things you want to do. the jams also serve a second purpose which is that they are a pretty good way of communicating everyone's musical skills to each other. it doesn't tell you everything about a musician, but its a good gauge of overall maturity, interests, and sound. this means that likeminded musicians find each other quickly. festivals are interesting to watch, because you see that by the end of 4 days or so, people have often created informal jam groups that are quasi bands at that point. tech meetups seem to be a really shitty quasi jam. open source projects seem to be a better format, and though i havent really been part of it, demoscene, defcon, chiptunes, infosec... strike me as communities that are a little more mature about the whole thing. i dont know them well enough, but i get the vibe anyway. they seem to have stronger sense of community. i think that really good software teams are almost certainly the product of something resembling a jamming environment. the key is that all the members of the team have independently decided that they respect all the other members and want to be on the team with them. i think this is not fully understood and institutionalized in software management practices. i think that now the focus is too much on "here is the problem we want to solve, lets find the people that are skilled in this area". i guess im saying that good teams will create themselves and management is kind of a crutch. i get that there are real world constraints etc blah blah. but sometimes i wonder about this: money does not help creating good music, and i kind of think that might be more true of software than we think too. |
Wow, yeah, I agree. I think this is such a misunderstood aspect of software. A lot of institutions seem to think it's like biotech, where a huge investment in gleaming buildings and dedicated lab space will make all the difference.
I'm old enough (and grew up in SF) to remember when software development was not the monied, gentrifying cultural enemy it's often made out to be nowadays, but a creative pursuit that naturally took place in funky, artistic neighborhoods, for the same reasons everyone else was there. It was the right environment for this sort of activity.
Money does of course help for software development in that you do need to live, and it takes a lot of time. I read this interesting quote about the Galapagos project (an arts collective moving from NY to Detroit)[1]: "You can’t paint at night in your kitchen and hope to be a good artist. It doesn’t work that way."
Now, counter examples abound, I am sure of that. And most creative folks do need to do something to make ends meet. But in the end, if paying the rent means you have to be drained from a corporate job by the end of the day, it does make it harder to create good music, art, and yeah, software. This is one reason I have to wonder if SF can continue to be the locale where this sort of creativity, including even software, will come from in the future.
[1] https://www.galapagosdetroit.com