Ask HN: Would you differentiate between hacker, artist, craftsman and engineer
I am looking for various views on how you would define and differentiate between a hacker, artist, craftsman and engineer. I have some thoughts, but in order not to influence the discussion i will not post my own definitions until some time has passed.
The question again:
How would you differentiate between a hacker, artist, craftsman and engineer?
I have drafted some questions based on my own thinking. Feel free to use these to answer.
x = hacker or artist or craftsman or engineer
How does a (x) see the world?
What character traits does a (x) demonstrate?
Why does (x) do what they do?
How does (x) do what they do?
What does (x) actually do?
4 comments
[ 4.7 ms ] story [ 19.0 ms ] threadA hacker values novelty.
An artist's values aesthetics.
A craftsman values quality.
An engineer values discipline to ship.
These are all spitballed, but there are a high number dimensions to think about.
Artist: someone who extracts meaning out of something. Some extract meaning from the meaningless, some extract it from something already existing, like a different form on music or a perspective on war.
Craftsman: someone who makes high quality things.
Engineer: someone who finds the optimum solution to a problem. The hacker religiously follows the shortest route, the engineer considers various trade offs.
Artist: someone who creates something that stirs emotions. My friends and I used to debate if ads are truly art form or not, I lean towards that they are. But some of my friends argue that art product should be the product, not make you wish to buy another product.
Craftsman: I haven't thought about craftsman much. It seems recently there is a lot of romanticizing of craftsman in the Western hemisphere but back home there are tons of craftsmen who seems to struggle financially.
Engineer: someone who builds something using well established principles, with a lot of formal processes, communications, and most likely in a team. They may work on artistic projects such as video games or art installation but their part of project is not artistic.