Benjamin Sandofsky:

The difference is shell apps come from the wrong mentality. They start from, “How do we reduce effort?” instead of “How do we deliver the best product?”

Great products require more work. They requires commitment, attention to detail, and leaving your comfort zone. Shortcuts are just a distraction.

(Via David Weiss.)

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A node plugin to make working with the command line feel like working with jQuery.

"The world is a complex place. The only way to deal with it is is to simply - to create abstractions, or as I would say, to identify and recognize patterns in the phenomena. When we teach, we often take the short-cut of teaching these simplifications directly, rather than having students identify and recognize them for themselves. This may be more efficient - there's no shortage of studies that show this - but each time we teach a simplification, we make it harder for students to recognize new or alternative patterns in the same phenomena. But complex phenomena are dynamic, changing, and the simplifications are rarely valid for long. It's better to learn how to recognize patterns for oneself, to cope with this changing phenomena. The use of badges to recognize learning exaggereates that problem, because badges tend to privilege the learning of simplifications."

[Click through for references.]

Yo dawg, I heard you like web service abstractions...

Found talk by @unclebobmartin on #decoupling #abstraction #designprinciples @skillsmatter http://t.co/CYuMiLkL
– Kofi Sarfo (wimirotech) http://twitter.com/wimirotech/status/186795360105140224

Brett Victor's interactive essay on combining various levels of abstraction with each other -- and the concrete.

Tomma Abts, Tauba Auerbach, Matt Connors, Charline von Heyl and Bernd Ribbeck talk about the role of abstraction in painting today.

What does the term ‘abstraction’ mean to non-figurative painters working today? I spoke to five artists, all of whom make work grounded in process and materiality. There is a dissonance between the directness of their work and the fuzzier set of interests and objectives – high-minded, metaphysical and historical – that ‘abstraction’ suggests. None of these painters seem interested in spirituality as a social idea or abstraction as a historical category, but they share a real belief in the metaphysical properties of work, materials, process and practice, a kind of secular faith in the possibilities of non-objective image-making. Their desire is not for transcendence through abstraction, but for a greater embeddedness in the world through materials and work.

I am punching the first person to say the words "robot expressionism"

ith a little bit of duct tape. Before that we took it with us for a bite to eat following the panel. It sat on the table next to us and when the wind

"The recorded output and eventual input of our lives is outpacing our ability to abstract it"

Likewise, the most powerful way to gain insight into a system is by moving between levels of abstraction. Many designers do this instinctively. But it's easy to get stuck on the ground, experiencing concrete systems with no higher-level view. It's also easy to get stuck in the clouds, working entirely with abstract equations or aggregate statistics.

This interactive essay presents the ladder of abstraction, a technique for thinking explicitly about these levels, so a designer can move among them consciously and confidently.

I believe that an essential skill of the modern system designer will be using the interactive medium to move fluidly around the ladder of abstraction.