[andai]

I often hear people say lately, "why should I bother to read this, if you didn't even think it was worth writing?"

I've been thinking about this in art. Is it the end result that matters, or the process of creating it?

I once saw a hideous sculpture. Didn't like it at all. Then the video zoomed and I saw that the whole thing (quite massive) had been hand-built out of individual toothpicks, and suddenly I thought it was amazing.

Perhaps an even better example: I read a story of a man in india who carved a passage through a mountain, so there would be a shorter route from his remote village to the city. He did it by hand and it took him 20 years. We seem to have an instinctive admiration for heroic effort.

In business, generally only the end result matters. Although, the end result also includes the client's perception of how the product was made... (see also: fake fairtrade etc.) In a meaningful way, the perception, the story, is reality.

[nicbou]

I don't think it's a matter of process vs end result. I just want to feel that a human with taste judged that it was worth my attention.

If a human put some effort into it, that's a signal.

[jcgl]

This is mostly what it is for me too. We're all awash in an information deluge, and we need heuristics to keep from drowning. Human effort, proof-of-work if you will, is a heuristic that helps with the AI-generated part of the deluge.

[kibwen]

> Is it the end result that matters, or the process of creating it?

One of the main reasons that art is valuable is in its ability to communicate emotions. Good art has the ability to serialize emotions within the artist and deserialize them within the mind of the viewer. It's not just "wow, this is a pretty picture", it's "wow, this is how another person sees the world, and now that I understand that, I feel an intimate connection with them".

[SkiFire13]

> I've been thinking about this in art. Is it the end result that matters, or the process of creating it?

What is the "end result" you're talking about here?

Programs are complex beasts, you cannot just quickly look at them and get an idea of what's they are actually doing. You might look at the behavior of the program in some limited circumstances, but that will make you blind to all the other situations where bugs will likely hide! In the end a code review is looking at what the "end result" is, and it requires quite a lot of effort!

So without knowing what the end result is, how can you justify the effort for such code review? And that's where the process comes in, as an indicator of what to expect.

[selcuka]

> Is it the end result that matters, or the process of creating it?

I think this comment misses the point. Let's forget about AI and assume that there are three developers: A, B, and C. Now, A is supposed to make a PR, but instead they describe it to B, and B writes the code. C reviews the PR and gives feedback. A passes the feedback and the responses between B and C.

As you see, this is not easy for either B or C, and A is totally useless in this scenario. When you replace B with an LLM that doesn't get tired or bored, only C complains about the process.

[sdevonoes]

Your boss cares only about the end result. Good engineers care about the process too

[cestith]

Part of art is the process of creating it. It’s not just the physical artifact, nor even just the completion of the final product. The inspiration, subject matter, the consideration of form, the initial concepts, the redesigns, the meaning or emotion the artist tries to impart, the beauty of the thing, the skills employed and further developed during the process, the choice of materials, the use of perspective, and how the work is presented are all part of the art.

[BlandDuck]

This is a very good point. I think key issue is that it requires time and effort to evaluate and understand the final product.

Before I starting reading something to understand it, I want to have a sense that it is likely going to be worth my time and effort in the end. The more time and effort the author has put into the piece, the more likely it is that it will be worthwhile to read it.