I’m going to talk with Paul Graham as part of the intermittent Web of Ideas series at the Berkman Center this Wednesday evening at 7pm. You’re invited. And we serve pizza.

Paul Graham is a software guru, entrepreneur, essayist and painter. Inhis essay, “Taste for Makers,” Paul argues that successful design, from math to software to painting, relies on the same aesthetic principles. Taste is therefore not a matter of subjectively appreciating fine works but is a required capability for creating great software. But is taste as timeless as Paul suggests? Do the design principles Paul points to result from aesthetic or functional characteristics? And why should we think that the visual and the programmatic, the artistic and the functional, the physical and the virtual might all be beautiful in similar ways?

I’ll interview Paul for a while and then it will be open discussion. Paul is deeply knowledgeable and thoughtful, so this ought to be fun. (Note: The Berkman Center moved around the corner this year. It’s now at 23 Everett St in Cambridge. [map]) [Tags: berkman paul_graham web_of_ideas]

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