Software makes software (that makes software)

I got a Master of Industrial Design degree from Auburn University in 2007.

Thats the same year the iPhone came out. I still remember the vibe in the hallways of Wallace Hall: we were all like, huh what black rectangles are OK now?? A sheet of glass? Really??? Nobody back then seemed to care that Tim Cook was an Auburn alumni.

The thing about the profession of industrial design was you’d figure out how to shape plastic, metal, and other materials in ways that made humans feel good. Like this shape makes ‘em feel that way, this shape makes ‘em feel this way, this shape is better than that shape. How people used those shapes was really important, there was psychology and human factors to consider. But I always gravitated towards software. It just made sense to me.

My masters thesis was about software and I got shut down at my defense the first time for good reason. One of my professors told me that “This is industrial design, you gotta make a physical product.” There were concerns about if software could be considered a product, and if there was any industrial design involved. So, I burned my software to a CD-R and made a cool box for it & the profs were like right on, and I got my degree.

My first job out of graduate school was making software and these days I shape way more bits than atoms. All this AI jazz has got me thinking: what do we do with an endless repeating generative medium that has indelible shape & form that can self-organize and adapt? Software used to be really hard to change, it took a lot of people a lot of time to hit the right buttons in the right order.

And is it really soft–ware anymore? It’s shapeable, changeable, like water… I think there is some cool spooky action going on here & I am starting to pick up on a new vibe that is super fresh. As softwarians, we are making software that makes software, tools that make machines, that build bridges and connect hearts. That becomes a tool itself, the edifice upon which something else grows. Software that makes software that makes software. This is natural, instinctive, for reasons we can’t really understand (but it feels good, so right).

When we make software that makes software (that makes software):

• Impact stops being capped by how fast we can type
• Bottleneck moves from our hands → heart
• The job becomes E-X-P-L-A-I-N-I-N-G (fast, with feeling, intensity, direction, richness, tenacity, obsession, understanding of craft, clarity, human responsibility, morality, economically, opportunistically)
• Taste, judgment, and vision are the guide (they always were)
• We think in decades versus minutes

Where some people see doom, I see joy and curiosity compounding, let’s shine bright.