[HN Gopher] Paint Drip People
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Paint Drip People
Author : KentBeck
Score : 64 points
Date : 2023-07-06 14:47 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (tidyfirst.substack.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (tidyfirst.substack.com)
| jhinra wrote:
| This analogy seems like a stretch. An artist that has paint
| dripping from their strokes strikes me as sloppy. Is this analogy
| really tied to a single specific type of painting?
| riebschlager wrote:
| I believe the analogy is more a reference to the shape of paint
| drips as seen in the image on the page. The T model of skills
| has a single "descender" that represents deep knowledge in a
| single topic, whereas paint drips represent varying depths of
| knowledge in several areas.
| Applejinx wrote:
| It's a good enough analogy to go deeper than that. The T
| model is an intentional, planned descender. The paint drip
| thing implies that you don't know which drips are going to go
| where, or what will turn up. It's a more flexible approach
| that will be quicker to seize on underlying conditions people
| are just beginning to discover. The terrain defines what you
| end up doing, and if something takes off, the paint drip
| types are going to be all over it, even though it's not
| planned.
|
| It's not that useful of an observation because you must then
| ask what you're going to do about it, but it is a valid
| observation all the same. This mode of being does exist. My
| career's based on being that, and also putting in the effort
| to finish things: otherwise it would be pure dilettantism.
| ilyt wrote:
| Yeah but if you don't have attached article the first thing
| I'm gonna think about is "sloppy" or "this person is into
| boring tasks like watching paint dry"
| [deleted]
| ilyt wrote:
| My first thought was "people that do the boring enough stuff
| comparable to watching paint drip/dry" so dunno whether name is
| all that good or not.
|
| But I definitely acquired some skills in similar method, just
| doing something, hitting a snag and exploring some niche of
| debugging or code to get that tiny speck of knowledge while
| otherwise not knowing all that much about adjacent subjects.
| donkeyd wrote:
| Thanks for sharing! I often call myself a flat bar, because I'm
| missing the one specialization for the T-shape. This description
| of the 'paint drip person' hit really close to home, so I think
| that that's what I'll call myself in the future.
| throwway120385 wrote:
| A jack of all trades is a master of none, but oftentimes better
| than a master of one.
| fsniper wrote:
| This also resonates with me. That's one of the reasons I am not
| on the development side of things. In the systems side you need
| to know some of everything.
| donkeyd wrote:
| > I am not on the development side
|
| The same, pretty much. I moved into architecture and having
| such broad knowledge really helps with being able to talk to
| pretty much anyone.
| corry wrote:
| Thought-provoking metaphor. Upon reflection, I think the article
| emphasizes the wrong aspect of this -- the drip part itself -- at
| the expense of the more interesting elements (the length and
| breadth of the horizontal line, the amount of paint, etc).
|
| CURIOSITY seems to be the horizontal line; i.e. the person's
| latent curiosity about things, domains, areas, etc, and the urge
| to explore/discover is what drives the horizontal movement.
|
| The 'amount of paint' variable, which is clearly the most
| important part of the physical reality underpinning the metaphor,
| would perhaps be akin to COMPETENCE. Competence is a stand-in
| word for intelligence, grit, suitable background knowledge, and
| probably a host of other qualities.
|
| So what's the grand conclusion here? That highly curious and
| highly competent people tend to be prolific in their output?
|
| Not so surprising perhaps, but fun to think about.
| corry wrote:
| Self replying with another thought: I always find it remarkable
| when really young founders (like college-age) are successful,
| because they lack so much understanding about the world,
| business, people, etc. BUT they likely have a great deal more
| curiosity and drive than older folks.
|
| Maybe there's some sweet spot, where founders have enough real-
| world experience to understand how the world works, and how to
| build things, but are still curious and driven enough to jump
| off and try.
|
| Past that point, I fear that curiosity starts declining even as
| competence increases - say, when you're 50, will you get the
| feeling you 'know' the world in-and-out, you 'know' there's no
| easy opportunities... and besides, you have a teenager-filled
| family, a mortgage, etc all of which perhaps stifle really
| broad-ranging curiosity not least because your time has more
| demands on it.
| neilv wrote:
| It's a not-unusual theory, but it's bumping into something
| I'd really like to avoid (especially on HN), which is
| negative generalizations of different
| age/gender/racial/familystatus/etc. demographics in business
| contexts.
|
| (In the US, a super HR person's Spidey Sense would tingle,
| and they'd fly across the building and yank the keyboard out
| of someone's hands, before certain sentences could be
| finished. Then sit down for a constructive discussion about
| why generalizations are not only counterproductive and
| unfair, but also a big policy no-no at most established US
| companies. But on HN, we just have to frequently ask to
| please stop saying that.)
| throwway120385 wrote:
| It's also not really helpful to generalize like that in the
| sense that I've known plenty of 50+ senior engineers who
| were very curious and very capable. And they often had a
| lot of advice about pitfalls to avoid when applying new
| technologies because they had used the same technology 20
| years ago when it was called something else or sold by a
| different vendor. People often deride experience on here,
| but I've gotten a lot of mileage professionally out of
| learning from other peoples' experiences. Occasionally I
| have to explain that "yes, things are really different now"
| but that's good because if I'm wrong about that I get to
| find out before I invest a bunch of time in a bad approach.
| chrisweekly wrote:
| also (citation needed, I know), IIRC the median founder
| age for successful startups in a decade was like 48
| matwood wrote:
| You hear about the young founders because they are the
| exception. Research shows most successful ones are in their
| late 40s. I also take issue with curiosity changing over
| time. If anything, it's naivete. Young founders charge ahead
| and a few get lucky.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| I think that there is also a certain (to a large degree
| realistic) pessimism that comes with age. It's not just that
| younger people are less risk averse (though they are), it's
| that they are less likely to think that they will fail.
|
| Lots of successful startups could have a post-hoc analysis of
| "Holy shit we were stupid, but we worked hard and got lucky"
|
| Or, as a friend of mine put it, inexperienced people don't
| succeed because they know something that experienced people
| do, they succeed because they _don 't_ know something that
| experienced people do.
| jimmygrapes wrote:
| Reminds me of Pixel (the cat from Heinlein novels and
| others), who teleports and travels through walls because
| the cat simply does not know such feats are impossible.
| turnsout wrote:
| I like that! I would tweak the "amount of paint" from
| Competence to Enthusiasm. If you have Curiosity + Enthusiasm,
| the rest will take care of itself. That's why a 25 year old who
| just learned programming is more likely to develop an
| innovative new database than a 45 year old database expert who
| has "seen it all."
| [deleted]
| zdw wrote:
| How is this different from "senior generalist who did a few deep
| dives in specific areas and projects"?
| Applejinx wrote:
| The unplanned nature of the areas and projects. Doing deep
| dives implies agency. The concept here is that the paint drips
| are unpredictable and unexpected, which could lead to
| significance and could just be a waste of time :)
| juancn wrote:
| It's the drive maybe? I mean, when you're like this, you can't
| help it.
|
| The deep dives are driven by curiosity rather than by projects
| necessarily.
| neilv wrote:
| > _Once it starts rolling, it's not clear how far it will go. In
| any case, the brush keeps moving._
|
| I like this. Sounds like one can have multiple drips going at
| once, including some that hve been dripping for a long time.
|
| > _Eventually the last drip stops and a new one starts._
|
| Is this sentence saying that at some point the multiple ongoing
| drips might stop (or slow to a crawl), but the person is still
| learning, because they're already starting new drips?
|
| I'd prefer to avoid misinterpretations of short-attention-span or
| serial-dabbler.
|
| Also, the characterization of T-shaped here speaks of interests,
| but the motivations for skill development might actually be
| necessities, such as in an early startup. The interest can be a
| side-effect of something needing doing. You start to dig into the
| solution domain, anchored around a real problem, and it becomes
| interesting.
|
| If only we could be comb-shaped.
| amadeuspagel wrote:
| A particular type of essay that HN is an absolute sucker for --
| an awesome type of person that you're supposed to identify with.
| Paint Drip Person. T-Shaped Person. Paul Graham has also written
| a bunch of these, so maybe it's just in the DNA of the site.
|
| I guess the classical example of this is the renaissance man, but
| that at least required different fields like art and science and
| not different kinds of programming.
| istjohn wrote:
| Yes, these post-hoc explanations for why someone is successful
| allow us to indulge in fantasies of success without providing
| any actionable advice that has actual empirical evidence.
| adfm wrote:
| I still get a kick out of the fact that the person that came
| up with Nerd Merit Badges is the same person that came up
| with the term fullstack and almost nobody mentions it or even
| gets the original meaning of the term.
| cachvico wrote:
| That is very interesting - found your older post pointing
| to https://web.archive.org/web/20110210194715/http://forge3
| 8.co...
|
| So actually a full-stack developer, according to the person
| who coined the term, is not just someone who can do backend
| and front-end, but you need to have the design (and
| business) chops too.
| gottorf wrote:
| Why such a needlessly pessimistic view? I think this "paint
| drip" imagery is a cute way to describe the characteristics
| of success described therein.
| oh_sigh wrote:
| Except the "paint drip" aspect of this successful person
| might be entirely irrelevant to their success. Imagine if
| Keith ate oatmeal every day for breakfast, and there was an
| "Oatmeal people" article describing why eating oatmeal for
| breakfast is the key to Ken's success. After all, it gives
| him long lasting energy, having a routine can be useful, it
| is simple to prepare and you can think about other things
| while making it, etc.
|
| Or, for every "paint drip person", you might find another
| person who is equally as successful and devoted their
| entire energy to a single project or idea.
| thrashh wrote:
| Well let's say I find a super successful restaurant that
| makes its burritos one way. I'm amazed. I'm inspired. I
| write a book about it and describe the specific ways that
| they do things that make them successful.
|
| Then a few years later, I find another super successful
| burrito restaurant. They make it completely opposite to
| what I wrote in my book.
|
| It turns out the reasons for success runs deeper than the
| superficial things that you see people do day to day.
|
| For every successful person that reads a book a week,
| there's probably 5 that just laze on the couch.
| gottorf wrote:
| > For every successful person that reads a book a week,
| there's probably 5 that just laze on the couch.
|
| I understand that not every successful person reads a
| book a week (or s/a book a week/any other "productive"
| habit often bandied about in articles like this), but I
| really doubt that very many successful people habitually
| laze on the couch.
| istjohn wrote:
| There are worse vices than indulging in self-help cotton
| candy, but we should see it for what it is.
| Applejinx wrote:
| It's a certain kind of content. I might invoke Godin's Law (not
| Godwin, Godin): the evocation of an idea feels better and more
| significant if you leave it extremely vague, and draw no useful
| conclusions from it :)
|
| Put any of this stuff into practice and you run into practical
| issues, and it's way less interesting.
|
| I'm definitely a paint drip dude and it's not at all useful. In
| the absence of a team of cultists to do my bidding, any paint
| drip that stops is then useless to go further, and the metaphor
| breaks down. It becomes 'abstractly looking at a pile of
| uncompleted projects', and even when my job is coming up with
| stuff of that nature, I have to finish the stuff for it to
| matter, even to me.
|
| Don't be a drip: 'real artists ship' :)
| jhawleypeters wrote:
| I have two friends. One lives by "Don't be a drip, 'real
| artists ship'". He's got ~20 products shipped. The other
| friend drips hard, with a comparable number of projects
| abandoned over a comparable timeframe.
|
| Both spent about two decades living in near poverty and only
| recently experienced financial success.
|
| I don't believe telling either of them to switch strategies
| would have been helpful.
|
| We could infer from these two cases that "don't give up" is
| the unifying factor, and that that's helpful advice. I think
| history is littered with counter examples. Giving up may not
| be psychologically healthy (or advisable), but advising
| somebody "don't give up" can still be cruel and unhelpful.
| Resisting the urge to give advice may be kindest.
|
| I suspect most advice broadcast on the internet does more to
| inflate the author's reputation than to help the audience.
| Even if this is true, it doesn't rule out the possibility of
| a small quantity of exceptional advice having an outsized
| positive impact that outweighs the over abundance of
| reputation inflating advice.
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