Hackers & Painters: Big Ideas from the Computer Age

by Paul Graham

We can confirm this empirically. Suppose you hear a strange noise that you think may be due to a nearby fan. You turn the fan off, and the noise stops. You turn the fan back on, and the noise starts again. Off, quiet. On, noise. In the absence of other information, it would seem the noise is caused by the fan. At various times and places in history, whether you could accumulate a fortune by creating wealth has been turned on and off. Northern Italy in 800, off (warlords would steal it). Northern Italy in 1100, on. Central France in 1100, off (still feudal). England in 1800, on. England in 1974, off (98% tax on investment income). United States in 1974, on. We’ve even had a twin study: West Germany, on; East Germany, off. In every case, the creation of wealth seems to appear and disappear like the noise of a fan as you switch on and off the prospect of keeping it.

If you suppress variations in income, whether by stealing private fortunes, as feudal rulers used to do, or by taxing them away, as some modern governments have done, the result always seems to be the same. Society as a whole ends up poorer.

Beauty is the first test: there is no permanent place in this world for ugly mathematics. — G. H. HARDY, A Mathematician’s Apology

Mathematicians call good work “beautiful,”

When they like something, they have no idea why. It could be because it’s beautiful, or because their mother had one, or because they saw a movie star with one in a magazine, or because they know it’s expensive. Their thoughts are a tangle of unexamined impulses.

Saying that taste is just personal preference is a good way to prevent disputes. The trouble is, it’s not true. You feel this when you start to design things.

If taste is just personal preference, then everyone’s is already perfect: you like whatever you like, and that’s it.

Once you start to examine the question, it’s surprising how much different fields’ ideas of beauty have in common. The same principles of good design crop up again and again.

GOOD DESIGN IS SIMPLE. You hear this from math to painting.

In math it means that a shorter proof tends to be a better one. Where axioms are concerned...

In writing it means: say what you mean and say it briefly.

When you’re forced to be simple, you’re forced to face the real problem. When you can’t deliver ornament, you have to deliver substance.

GOOD DESIGN IS TIMELESS.

if something is ugly, it can’t be the best solution.

Aiming at timelessness is also a way to evade the grip of fashion.

then its appeal must derive more from merit than fashion.

Strangely enough, if you want to make something that will appeal to future generations, one way to do it is to try to appeal to past generations.

GOOD DESIGN SOLVES THE RIGHT PROBLEM.

GOOD DESIGN IS SUGGESTIVE.

Jane Austen’s novels contain almost no description; instead of telling you how everything looks, she tells her story so well that you envision the scene for yourself.

Likewise, a painting that suggests is usually more engaging than one that tells. Everyone makes up their ...

In software, it means you should give users a few basic elements that they can combine as they wish, like Lego.

GOOD DESIGN IS OFTEN SLIGHTLY FUNNY.

think it’s because humor is related to strength. To have a sense of humor is to be strong: to keep one’s sense of humor is to shrug off misfortunes, and to lose one’s sense of humor is to be wounded by them.

GOOD DESIGN IS HARD.

Not every kind of hard is good. There is good pain and bad pain. You want the kind of pain you get from going running, not the kind you get from stepping on a nail.

In art, the highest place has traditionally been given to paintings of people.

We are so good at looking at faces that we force anyone who draws them to work hard to satisfy us.

Bauhaus designers adopted Sullivan’s “form follows function,”

if function is hard enough, form is forced to follow it, because

Wild animals are beautiful because they have hard lives.

GOOD DESIGN LOO...

In most fields the appearance of ease seems to come with practice.

When people talk about being in “the zone,” I think what they mean is that the spinal cord has the situation under control. Your spinal cord is less hesitant, and it frees conscious thought for the hard problems.

GOOD DESIGN USES SYMMETRY.

There are two kinds of symmetry, repetition and recursion. Recursion means repetition in subelements, like the pattern of veins in a leaf.

In writing you find symmetry at every level, from the phrases in a sentence to the plot of a novel.

way. The Eiffel Tower looks striking partly because it is a recursive solution, a tower on a tower.

The danger of symmetry, and repetition especially, is that it can be used as a substitute for thought.

GOOD DESIGN RESEMBLE...

It’s not cheating to copy.

The point of painting from life is that it gives your mind something to chew on: when your eyes are looking at something, your hand will do more interesting work.

Imitating nature also works in engineering. Boats have long had spines and ribs like an animal’s ribcage.

GOOD DESIGN IS REDESIGN.

It’s rare to get things right the first time. Experts expect to throw away some early work. They plan for plans to change.

When people first start drawing, for example, they’re often reluctant to redo parts that aren’t right.

you should cultivate dissatisfaction. In Leonardo’s drawings there are often five or six attempts to get a line right.

GOOD DESIGN CAN COPY.

Attitudes to copying often make a round trip. A novice imitates without knowing it; next he tries consciously to be original; finally, he decides it’s more important to be right than original.

Unknowing imitation is almost a recipe for bad design. If you don’t know where your ideas are coming from, you’re...