I come to praise .join, not to bury it...

[Alex Martelli]

"Carel Fellinger" <cfelling at iae.nl> wrote in message
news:98rmod$c8p$1 at animus.fel.iae.nl...
    [snip]
> > some people (just as it is going to attract others), so,
> > it's not a clear "win" either way, even if you just frame
> > it as a popularity-race.  Focus on *substance*, on the
>
> but if you get too blinded by this substance thing, you might easily
> overlook that in the end you have to weight things and there again the
> seasoned sense of aesthetics of the gifted ones is what makes the
> difference.

I appreciate "form follows function" as an aesthetic principle.

Clearly, given such masterpieces of functional spareness as
Bauhaus and other artistic schools of this century have been
able to produce, I'm not alone in this (and the spare functional
beauty of Medieval Francescan churches, etc, stands to prove
that this is not by any means an idea new to this century; also,
of course, it's NOT by any means an idea limited to Western
culture, as for example a certain Zen-inspired style of Japanese
furniture shows).

Just as clearly, given such masterpieces of rich ornamentation
as great Baroque architects (etc, etc -- again, this is not
limited to one century, or one continent!) have produced, it
is anything but a _universally accepted_ guiding principle for
the fashioning of beauty in human artefacts.

You seem to imply some moderation (have to weight things) is
key to YOUR aesthetics -- fine, Aristotle will agree, as will
no doubt others, but much breathtaking beauty is instead in
works which pushed their guiding principles to absolute
extremes (Bach's "Art of the Fugue", Picasso's "Guernica",
Olbrich's "Sezession Haus", Leopardi's "Infinito" -- where
is any 'moderation' or 'weighting' in these and many other
masterpieces across all arts and centuries and continents?!).

In my own profession, I make certain choices which I perceive
as guided by 'aesthetics' when I cannot afford to articulate
in full detail the path back from the practical example up to
the guiding-principle; my experience (and 'gift', if any) may
help this synthesis (a productivity plus) by helping me
perceive as "elegant" an architecture which will prove helpful
to the design-task at hand.  If and when challenged, though, I
can and will fall back to the time-consuming, perhaps boring,
but often enlightening task of detailed analysis of the
constituent elements -- there is nothing 'inherently ineffable'
in this.  I see architects of manufacts with more psychological
interactions, such as GUI's or buildings, perform similarly --
a sense of beauty to guide their everyday work (as reasoning
back to first principles would take forever and slow things
down unacceptably), but solid, explainable reasons they can
trace back if and when needed... *IF* they're worth a dime as
building-architects and/or GUI-architects.  And for the only
'art per se' I _do_ know a little bit about, cinema, I see a
very similar pattern again -- yet farther removed, OK, but a
great movie can be fully analyzed (and IS, over and over again,
in all sorts of debates and critical publications).

That doesn't mean it's possible to make somebody _without_
appropriate gifts into a great movie director, GUI designer,
building architect, OR software architect, of course -- but,
it DOES mean each of these professionals need not fall back
on vague generalities and empty hand-waving if and when their
design choices get challenged.

Somebody who's unable to do anything but talk of aesthetics
when discussing a choice in the architecture of a software
component is simply not contributing to the discussion.  It
looks good to you, it looks bad to him, it looks indifferent
to her, yawn, great debate, now let's get beyond this to the
REAL meat of the issue, please -- the technical implications
of this, that, or the other choice in a specific matter.

If you _can't_ get down to concrete specifics, then either
you're not investing enough time & energy to contribute
(in which case, staying out of a debate WOULD be a nice
matter of courtesy), or you lack some specific (experience,
culture, professional background, whatever) to be able to
analyze and express your surface impressions in the issue --
in which case, it's quite possible that they're misfounded,
and, IF the huge investment of time and energy doesn't
faze you, in-depth analysis to see if they ARE might well
be warranted (and that is basically what I've been doing
throughout this thread -- striving to help others articulate
their objections, in great detail, by first laying out in
just as much details my reason for NOT objecting at all to
the architecture Guido has chosen for .join; it won't of
course have any direct repercussion on how Python behaves
in the matter, but it MAY have positive implications on
technical growth of the people involved, and thus, very
indirectly, on future efforts on their part).


> > other hand, is going to be a win for all who _are_ involved
> > with Python -- not just those who happen to be on the
> > "I like it" side vs the "I like it not" one (and I've
> > never seen any argument about _aesthetics_ [as opposed to
>
> I hope you'll see the argument in the above:)
>
> > _usability_ -- human-factors studies DO have a substantial
> > side too:-)] that doesn't boil down to such trifles]).

Nope: it _still_ boils down to aesthetics being AT BEST
a mental and verbal shorthand to avoid the considerable
investment required to articulate the concrete underlying
realities in detail.  AT WORST (and, I suspect, more often,
particularly in Usenet debates) a way for somebody to keep
spewing words on a subject on which they actually have
nothing concrete, constructive, and useful to say.


Alex