craft

Yesterday’s word in the Wordle game was CRAFT. 

I came across a couple of ways craft was talked about in the last few days. 

First was Jerry Seinfeld, promoting the first movie he has directed, at age 70. I had watched and loved the show, Seinfeld. I had read somewhere that comedians tend to understand human psychology better since they need to process a lot to come up with lines that are concentrated wisdom that surprise us and make us laugh. I had also read somewhere that you should not take serious life advice from a comedian. But still. 

Jerry must be on a media tour to promote his movie and hence coming up with “thought bombs” that grab attention (in the first article below, he proclaimed movies are dead). But it was a good read and I came across below excerpt:- 

Stand-up is like you’re a cabinetmaker, and everybody needs a guy who’s good with wood.

There’s trees everywhere, but to make a nice table, it’s not so easy. So, the metaphor is that if you have good craft and craftsmanship, you’re kind of impervious to the whims of the industry. Audiences are now flocking to stand-up because it’s something you can’t fake. It’s like platform diving. You could say you’re a platform diver, but in two seconds we can see if you are or you aren’t. That’s what people like about stand-up. They can trust it. Everything else is fake.

He repeats that in other words in another interview. 

David Remnick: It is possible that you've probably made a dollar or two from Seinfeld, and yet you still work so hard. Why?

Jerry Seinfeld: Because the only thing in life that's really worth having is good skill. Good skill is the greatest possession. The things that money buys are fine. They're good. I like them. But [nothing like] having a skill.

Pursue mastery that will fulfill your life. You will feel good. I know a lot of rich people and they don't feel good as you think they...would. They don't. They're miserable. So I work because if you don't in standup comedy - if you don't do it a lot - you stink.

Finally, I came across another one, from recent Stripe Sessions (edited a bit). 

Craft and Quality, and professional grade software.

To me craft is mindset, and quality is the output.

If you think of anything that was built or created, and well done, it's probably because they cared and they knew their craft. They designed it well. They iterated and prototyped. They chose the right materials. They built it well. It's very easy to see when the person doesn't care. The work is sloppy. There are mistakes. It works and likely breaks down very quickly.

And I think as a software industry the past decade we kind of forgot the craft. More stuff look like something where people didn't care about the craft. We focused on building larger teams. We then made them run like factories churning out new things at a consistent pace. We validated "quality" by A/B testing and looking at metrics. Lot of software today borderline works.

But we are supposed to be professionals and real companies. We're selling products to people to buy. I think our responsibility is to deliver good products and quality products, not something that is sloppy.

Craft is the mindset that creates quality. But it's not enough. You need to have the right skills and ideas. You need individuals who take their profession and craft seriously, then build teams that work this way together, and have a company that creates for it. 

Great products require consistent, daily effort keeping the quality.

Now in the age of AI, I hope people will still flock to craftsmen (is software development an art or craft is a different debate) since they are not fake. The challenge is how to make people passionate about the craft, how to make them care about what they build, how to teach them to think and how to inspire people to keep learning forever.