[FrustratedMonky]

I guess by this argument, writes/authors also cannot be 'artisanal'?

This seems like we are instead discussing a narrow definition of 'artisanal'.

Where I was taking more broad definition of someone at the top of their 'craft', an expert with deep knowledge of a specialized area.

[mustache_kimono]

> This seems like we are instead discussing a narrow definition of 'artisanal'.

Perhaps see the article. This is the definition which is most like the definition it uses.

[FrustratedMonky]

"Perhaps see the article"

Are you joking, it was 2 paragraphs. And did not offer any definition.

You are reading into it you're own internal monologue, and thinking the article stated more than it did.

So if we go by the article using example of 'making a table', you could say writers/authors/accountants would NOT be artisans. Since they are not physically crafting something.

or

If it is more about "enjoy the process, ... , improve yourself, learn new things", then it is very much more general and includes many fields.

[mustache_kimono]

> You are reading into it you're own internal monologue, and thinking the article stated more than it did.

No, I'm reading critically. Just because an article does not readily offer up a definition, it does not mean it isn't working with one.

However, I'll try to be intellectually charitable, here, and say it's plausible a reader could feel the article unhelpfully conflates many definitions of "artisan". Unfortunately, all such definitions don't make much sense in the context of programming. What's wrong is not the concluding sentiment of "enjoy the process, ... , improve yourself, learn new things", it's that "artisan", even in its many definitions, doesn't touch upon those noble sentiments. Attorneys and programmers simply aren't artisans, even if they enjoy their process, and improving themselves, and learning new things, and your insistence to the contrary is self-aggrandizement.

That isn't to say I would limit "artisanal" to the physical crafts. I might extend it to any endeavor where the process is part of our use of the product. Like -- I may know this or that writer drinks 20 year old Scotch, and smokes only three cigars a day, while he types at exactly 45 words per minute on his decades old Smith Corona. I can understand being romantically engaged by that process.

However, while this kind of process might be important to our enjoyment of that literature, is is almost entirely unimportant to our use of software, because the artifact is still what is most important, by a mile. I couldn't care less whether a game designer copied a method from Boost or wrote it from scratch him/herself, just as, I couldn't care less whether my attorney saw the face of God after smelling the dust mites in the Westlaw Reporters at the law library. The romance of the "artisan" is almost entirely incoherent in this context.

It's why "I am an Artisanal Attorney (because I make my own paper and write briefs with a quill)" is so funny. Do me a favor and try to write your own. "I am an Artisanal Programmer (because I do all my Objective C programming on a NeXTcube)..."

[FrustratedMonky]

You have again, only offered examples of things that 'are not' artisan, and offered no definition or real argument against the sentiment of the article. No argument for what is artisan, and why it does not apply.

I'd say you have instead backed yourself into a corner where nothing is artisan, that the term can't be applied to any field at all.

If it is purely "the artifact is still what is most important, by a mile", then of course there are many that would include iPhones, an algorithm, a mathematical proof,... etc...

If an artisan can only be judged by their products, then any trash that is popularly agreed upon as 'artisanal' can make the producers an 'artisan'. It is all 'in the eye of the beholder'.

Thanks for the intellectual charity. I'll buy a coffee with it for what it is worth.

Edit: To stretch this further, if 'artisanal' using a 'traditional' or 'non-mechanist' methods, then since programming is now many decades old, I could say ::

"Well son, I'm programming in VBScript, like my father did, and his father before him. In the traditional manner of a dying generation. I don't dig these new fangled editors with their 'code completion', leave VSCode to the kids. I do things the old way and it works and my customers love it".

[mustache_kimono]

> You have again, only offered examples of things that 'are not' artisan,

That's simply not true. I said:

>> That isn't to say I would limit "artisanal" to the physical crafts. I might extend it to any endeavor where the process is part of our use of the product.

And went on to explain how a writer might be an "artisan".

> and offered no definition or real argument against the sentiment of the article.

That's because I do agree that some of the sentiments of the article are good, but I also disagree that muddling such good sentiments with the wrong word, "artisan", is good. I said "enjoy the process, ... , improve yourself, learn new things" isn't "artisan" because there is no definition of "artisan" which encompasses those things. An Oxford don might also enjoy the process, improve him/herself, and learn new things. He/she may be in a what we now consider a "skilled" profession (though significantly not a "trade"), but he/she never was and is not now an "artisan". See: https://www.oed.com/search/dictionary/?scope=Entries&q=artis... and https://www.oed.com/search/dictionary/?scope=Entries&q=artis...

> No argument for what is artisan, and why it does not apply.

Again, no, I don't need to make an argument for what definition applies when I've ceded the ground that any one definition is better than another.

> If an artisan can only be judged by their products, then any trash that is popularly agreed upon as 'artisanal' can make the producers an 'artisan'.

I'm pretty sure you've completely misunderstood me here. Please reread my comment (or see the double quoted section above). My argument was precisely the opposite. Programmers, and attorneys are NOT artisans because what matters most is their product, whereas bakers and cobblers MIGHT BE artisans because their process MAY contribute to our use and enjoyment of the product.

> Edit: To stretch this further, if 'artisanal' using a 'traditional' or 'non-mechanist' methods, then since programming is now many decades old, I could say ::

Yes! Exactly. This is why this notion is ridiculous.

[FrustratedMonky]

I think we have stumbled into the age old debate over what is 'art'. And there is no answer.

I might like to think of programmers as 'craftsman' that can reach some height of achievement/skill to be deemed as 'artisans' in their 'craft'. Maybe like a Dijkstra, or even a John Carmack/Doom.

But to your argument I think. There must be some 'physical' product. So there are some programmers or even accountants that have reached some heights of understanding their craft but their product does not count because it is too ephemeral. There is a necessary quality of a 'repeatable' physical process and forming a physical product to count as 'artisanal'.

A lot of programmers are crap or mid. Just like the woodworker, or chef, that could be great, but most of them are mid or crap.

I'm sure there are a lot of people that shop at Hobby Lobby, that thing of themselves as artisans. But are mostly not.

So you need some combination of a process and also some general agreement of the admirers of the product.

I just fall on the other side of this gray shady line, that programmers and writers, do generally produce something, a product, and they practice to become experts at it. They also have a process that contributes to the product.

Even if like 99% of Chefs, 99% of programmers are crap, with no process and crappy products. They both are producing products, and the best ones have some process.

"Perhaps it is undeserved, because you don't seem to be reading what I wrote."

On this point, I think there is also some bias. You think your points are clear, but frequently people think they are clear because they have their own internal perspective that makes what they write seem clear to themselves. But are not really quite getting it out onto paper. If your points aren't landing, maybe at some point it is not the readers fault for not grasping them. I really have tried to follow yours, and don't think we are even disagreeing that much.

If I was to be intellectually charitable, I think this is probably a case of a very contentious subject that has been argued for a few thousand years, and we jumped into an internet argument in the middle, with very different backgrounds, that can't be resolved.

What is art? Programming isn't the only time this argument has happened when a new medium/technology came into existence. Is photography art? Many think not, many think it is. Can you have an artisanal photographer? Is a portrait painter an artist, but not a portrait photographer? What about metal working, welding, you would say yes? Or Poets, you would say no?