CodeTree.org, and Encapsulation

Continuing my tradition of being the last to report exciting news, here's a link via Generator.x to an interesting project that aims to create a network of source code for visual programmers working in Flash and Processing.

This seems to me like a very useful tool, since it allows and encourages the community as a whole to share solutions and novel approaches to problems. Which got me thinking about my own creative process, and the value of a project like CodeTree therein:

In my personal work, I tend to avoid seeing what other people have done with a problem until after I've given it a shot. Indeed, try to limit myself to researching a problem in the abstract, rather than trying to see what other people have done in the same medium. I gave a talk at FlashBelt last year outlining my creative process. I called this purposeful separation from outside influences Encapsulation and it's one of six parts of my process:


Simplify
Diverge
Mutate
Transplant
Hybridize
Encapsulate


By Encapsulating, I am trying to encourage novel solutions to projects, which I think arise more freely when I am not influenced by what others have done. This is drastically different from my approach to commercial projects, where time limits demand that I don't spend countless hours re-inventing the wheel. However, in a creative and exploratory project, reinvention can make thee difference between the typical and the sublime.

But is this encapsulation really helpful at all? Or would I be better off biting the bullett and realizing that some of my supposedly innovative projects are downright redundant?

Or maybe I should stop blogging and actually *make* something for a change.