I don't understand the distinction made here between a craft and a pop culture. Popularity of a technique or tool can definitely matter to a craftsperson, as they directly impact the availability and cost, as well as the marketability of that craftsperson's skills. Crafts are social; craftspeople definitely pay attention to what their colleagues and competitors are thinking and doing, and trends come and go as opinion leaders and trendsetters rise and fall.
The biggest distinction I can think of between a craft and a popular culture is that pop culture is most commonly experienced passively, via consumption, while being a craftsperson by definition involves active creation. So in this sense music is really two cultures: the culture of music creation, which is a craft, and the culture of music appreciation, which is a pop culture.
I think your passive vs active distinction is a good one but I don't think that was the direction taken in the post, the distinction drawn here is how solutions to problems are chosen. Roughly: pop culture will chose a solution based on fashion while a craft will chose a solution based on the perceived quality of both the solution itself and the result. Obviously these two aspects are mixed in reality but the point that it's more fashion than craft is one I find convincing.
What I don't find convincing is the defence of fashion driven programming techniques. Too much of an ode to mediocrity for my taste. Pop culture will be mediocre and fashion driven on it's own, the only thing pushing it to be better is the craftspeople complaining about it.
As more and more of our infrastructure runs on software we need people pushing for more engineering discipline, not less.
> pop culture is most commonly experienced passively, via consumption, while being a craftsperson by definition involves active creation
I don't agree with that distinction. Every pop culture has two sides, the consumer and the creator. What makes it pop is the immediacy and the need to affirm itself by popularity only. In other words, if something is not popular, it can't be pop.
I agree with that. This article seems to focus on the craft of language creation and specification versus the pop culture of consuming languages and creating with them.
Like musicians, language advocates must dance the dance to have their message accepted by the masses.
The biggest distinction I can think of between a craft and a popular culture is that pop culture is most commonly experienced passively, via consumption, while being a craftsperson by definition involves active creation. So in this sense music is really two cultures: the culture of music creation, which is a craft, and the culture of music appreciation, which is a pop culture.