I’ve been reading Hackers and Painters and am about done. To say this book has had a profound influence on me would be an understatement. I’ve already decided that starting a technology startup is in my future, I’m more interested in the prospect of grad-school, and *gasp* I’m gonna re-learn Lisp. I was interested in the language when I took my Artificial Intelligence class, but was told it had no practical value. Now I’ve come to think that Lisp has more merit than originally assumed, so here I go. It’s definitely a neat language.
Oh yeah, but I titled this post as “Good Design”, primarily because I wanted to list the elements of good design as stated by Paul Graham. I’m listing it here more for posterity, so I can look back at them when I want to. If you, the casual reader, are interested in reading the essay where Mr. Graham talks about good design, it’s freely available to read online, it’s called Taste for Makers.
good design…
…is simple
…is timeless
…solves the right problem
…is suggestive
…is often slightly funny
…is hard
…looks easy
…uses symmetry
…resembles nature
…is redesign
…can copy
…is often strange
…happens in chunks
…is often daring
-Tom