[snail22]

As someone who studied architecture for years, this made me literally groan out loud. Frank Lloyd Wright is usually the one architect whom people at least have heard of. One of the issues which has discouraged me from pursuing computer programming in the past is my impression that a lot of people involved in technology-related careers (ie my would-be future peers) have narrow perspectives on the world due to their reduced levels of interest in a wider liberal arts education, and it is annoying when I see something which confirms that. I really hope that I don't sound like a troll, but I also value giving and receiving honest feedback, and my guess is that some of you could probably benefit from looking away from the computer screen once and a while and exploring something new.

[josephlord]

Well I am British and his work seems largely American although Wikipedia mentions a few buildings in Japan. I did like the Guggenheim when I visited NY over 20 years ago but didn't know/remember the artist's name.

If you asked me to name a few architects I would probably have come up with Wren, Mackintosh, Gaudi and Norman Foster. I'm sure that there are a few others that I would go "ohh yeah" to.

Architecture isn't really my thing on the liberal arts side of things, I'm more an Economics and Politics man.

[mhurron]

> Frank Lloyd Wright is usually the one architect whom people at least have heard of.

Simpsons did it.

On a more serious note -

> people involved in technology-related careers (ie my would-be future peers) have narrow perspectives on the world due to their reduced levels of interest in a wider liberal arts education

Not any more or less than any other field. It's funny, people are individuals, they often act individually.

[sanoli]

What are you talking about? Here in HN people are aware of and interested in a bunch of different subjects. Plus, unlike the liberal arts/artist crowd, they have tachnical knowledge and are usually more rational about their opinions and conclusions. So one person says he hadn't heard of Wright in the middle of many more people commenting the article, and you say hackers need to look more at the arts?

[snail22]

I'm not necessarily talking about HN, but about people I have known in person - classmates in college, people I knew socially afterwards, and (this probably has skewed my judgement somewhat) an ex-boyfriend. I also personally suspect that the phenomena may even be making some hard-to-trace contribution (through reduced opportunities to practice communication skills, limited peer groups, and less time spent studying human diversity and other cultures in general) to the headlines which keep popping up about how sexist the technology field is. I know that concern may sound extreme, and I really hope that it can be proven wrong. Obviously (and thankfully) none of that can be generalized, but the original poster's example was so shocking to me that I felt compelled to say something warning people that the situation is in some cases possible.

I also don't know what you mean when you say that people with technical knowledge (which I have some of) are "more rational about their opinions and conclusions" - I sincerely believe that taking a literary theory class and learning about often-vilified (perhaps not here) ideas such as postmodernism and deconstruction improved my decision-making ability by allowing me to better understand both sides of an issue.