Comment by stavros

Hate to comment on the medium or writing style instead of the content but you're not alone. I understand the terms in the article in isolation or used in other fields, but it seems like the author is using a lot of technical metaphors. Or maybe I'm not their sophisticated audience.

"The last 10% take 90% of the time"

The author had a shower thought. It was poorly explored, poorly argued and deliberately packaged in complex language to hide the lack of substance. The bibtex reference at the end is the cherry on top.

I had to think way too hard about what the author was trying to say. It smacks of an attempt at precise language, yet the subject matter is not precise at all. The author commits a Paul Grahamism, assuming their personal experience is generalizable and uniform.

Certainly, some artists work in the way they describe. Maybe even "most", who knows. But there are plenty of artists that do not. I've known plenty of artists to go straight to the detail in one corner of their piece and work linearly all the way across and down the canvas. I don't know how they do it, it certainly doesn't work for me, but obviously different people work in different ways.

The abstract is some of the worst writing I've read in a while. Trying to sound so very smart while being incapable of getting your point across. This whole article reeks of pretentiousness.