The pg quote is interesting, I strongly disagree with this part<p>> But if your job is to design things, and there is no such thing as beauty, then there is no way to get better at your job.<p>That would be only true if as a designer your job is to make things as beautiful as possible, or aligned with your own taste. But to me large part of professional design is not personal taste but knowing and understanding your target audience and design intent, and design appropriately.<p>> If taste is just personal preference, then everyone's is already perfect: you like whatever you like, and that's it.<p>Which then goes to the other large part of professional design; its one thing to have some "taste" or be able to evaluate a design, and another thing to actually create/implement/change a design. Indeed that is the big thing of professionalism in general, not just being able to imagine some ideal solution, but to understand what is implementable with the real-world constraints which include your own skills and/or time-budget.<p>There is this common division of hobbyists vs professionals and its often implied that professionals can do things better. But to me the big distinction between the two is that professionals can do things on a budget and on the spot, while hobbyists can pour endless hours for their passion projects. With that perspective its not surprising that hobbyists can accomplish better results in many cases.