The Imaginative Programmer
Zed Shaw
stories
design education is broken
(funny) rants about not being taken seriously in one area because of
something else he does (often programming)
> I propose we hack creativity and make it worthless
4 types
- no imagination, technique - stereotype of nerd programmer
- imagination, no technique - biz dreamer
- no imagination, no technique - doesn’t exist
- imagination, technique - the goal
Process
- imagine - problem, “itch”
- establish a concept - some form of constraint
- research technologies and tools - do research or you’ll pay later
- Regine the Concept Through Composition - mark what’s in and what’s out
- Explore through prototype - work on paper, throw away code
- Make it Real
We are programmers, everything is recursize
‘top down’ v ‘bottom up’ is really ‘concept’ v ‘technique’
- take a notebook with you (email ideas to yourself)
- fear of failure is the biggest killer of new ideas
- create a ‘place’ or a trigger that gives you permission to fail
- beginning of critical thinking in composition, definite after
prototype
- talk to others about your ideas help, solitude best for dev ideas