Is Programming Art? 462
chromatic writes "A constant question for software developers is 'What is the nature of programming?' Is it art or science? Does creativity or engineering lead the design and implementation of a program? John Littler talked to several well-known and well-respected programmers (including Guido van Rossum, Andy Hunt, Bjarne Stroustrup, Paul Graham, and Richard Stallman) to find their answers; he shares their thoughts and his own in Art and Computer Programming." From the article: "What the heck is art anyway, at least as most people understand it? What do people mean when they say 'art'? A straw poll showed a fair degree of consensus--art is craft plus a special degree of inspiration. This pretty much explains immediately why only art students and art critics at a certain sort of paper favor conceptual art. Conceptual art, of course, often lacks a craft component as people usually understand the term."
Not a fine art (Score:5, Insightful)
"I would describe programming as a craft, which is a kind of art, but not a fine art. Craft means making useful objects with perhaps decorative touches. Fine art means making things purely for their beauty."
When you have to take functionality into account, it often kills the artistic side of the creation.
Re:Not a fine art (Score:5, Insightful)
The Picasso programmer: As a whole the system works, but each piece is a warped view of reality.
The Jackson Pollack programmer: Throws code at the system, trying to see what works.
The Georges Seurat programmer: When you step back from the system, you can see the overall pattern, but close up each piece is totally distinct from all of the others. (Actually, this is a pretty good description of OO design).
The Michalangelo programmer: Has a grand, sweeping view of what the system should do, but each piece is done in such meticulous detail that it takes years to finish anything.
Re:Not a fine art (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Not a fine art (Score:5, Funny)
And there's a market for that. Hence, Visual Basic.
Re:Not a fine art (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Not a fine art (Score:2, Interesting)
PERL
The Jackson Pollack programmer: Throws code at the system, trying to see what works.
Windows
The Michalangelo programmer: Has a grand, sweeping view of what the system should do, but each piece is done in such meticulous detail that it takes years to finish anything.
Gravy Trader
Re:Not a fine art (Score:2, Funny)
That's funny (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Not a fine art (Score:5, Funny)
Howard Rourke programmer: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Not a fine art (Score:5, Insightful)
That would mean that architecture, furniture design, etc lacks in the artistic side? I dont think this is the case at all - giving something functionality doesnt remove the artistic side, they complement each other and are not mutualy exclusive.
Re:Functionality? (Score:2)
Don't you mean, marketing?
More of a continuum. (Score:5, Insightful)
functionality mixed with aesthetics in the middle
And at the other end, 100% pure aesthetics with no functionality (apart for the materials used).
Of course, why limit it to one dimension? How about 2 dimensions (a square). In one corner, a bad woodworker who is also a bad artist will make a crappy, ugly chair.
In the opposite corner, you have a very skilled woodworker who is also a very good artist who makes a very beautiful, yet very functional chair.
In the other corners are a bad-woodworker but good good-artist and a good-woodworker but bad-artist.
Re:More of a continuum. (Score:4, Insightful)
It's about focus and the amount of care taken. If someone cares about aesthetics, then they tend to make more aesthetic things. If they care about functionality, then they will make things with greater functionality. If they care about robustness, they will make things that are more robust. If they care about speed, they will make things faster. If they care about cost, they will make things more cheaply. Not all of these things can be combined, of course.
Re:Not a fine art (Score:3, Interesting)
That would mean that architecture, furniture design, etc lacks in the artistic side? I dont think this is the case at all - giving something functionality doesnt remove the artistic side, they complement each other and are not mutualy exclusive.
Well, if I take a piece of wood, place it on 4 other pieces of wood and call it a table, is that art? However if I select a nice big tree and carve an ornate tab
Re:Not a fine art (Score:5, Interesting)
>
> "I would describe programming as a craft, which is a kind of art, but not a fine art. Craft means making useful objects with perhaps decorative touches. Fine art means making things purely for their beauty."
>
> When you have to take functionality into account, it often kills the artistic side of the creation.
Depends on the code. Depends on the art.
I'd consider every entrant into contests like the IOOOC (or obfuscated-your-language-of-choice), to be art. I'd consider any esoteric computer language (a whole line of 'em including INTERCAL, Brainf*ck, Ook, and so on) to be art for art's sake.
But as for functionality "killing" the artistic side of the equation -- sometimes the most functional things are the most beautiful. Lamborghini, Ferrari, Aston-Martin, Rolls-Royce, Bentley, XB-70 Valkyrie, SR-71 Blackbird, Concorde. Very functional machines, designed to perform very different functions, for very different people. And all very beautiful.
Re:Not a fine art (Score:3, Insightful)
Then you'd be wrong. The Miata is a fugly car, IMO. The Z4 is OK looking, but the Miata was definitely built for women. It is far too small, has no spectacular features, and hasn't changed its basic style (which is certainly basic) since it was introduced, except for the depressed hood and headlight restyling in the 2nd Gens.
It looks like a chopped-up Saturn!
Re:Not a fine art (Score:5, Interesting)
Therefore, I would conclude that programming per se is not art, but that it very well can be - if intended. Consider the IOCCC [ioccc.org]. While all competition entries do perform some kind of practical function, the main purpose of each one is to be elegant, beautiful, ingenious etc.; properties which we usually associate with art.[2]
[1] Mukarovsky, Jan, "Aesthetic Function, Norm, and Value as Social Facts.", 1936.
[2] Note to self: I need to learn english grammar and spelling.
Re:Not a fine art (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Not a fine art (Score:4, Informative)
All programming is a craft. Some of it may be crap, and some may be outstanding, but nonetheless, it is craft. Think of it like woodwork. Some pieces are shoddy little boxes nailed togather with scrap. Others are beautiful and extremely strong, with joints so tightly fit that the only way you even know they are there is by the change of the wood-grain.
*Some* programming is art. (Not much in my opinion.)
In addition to being a programmer, I'm a leatherworker. Most of what I do is pure craft, but not necessarily art. Belts, straps, repairs, pouches, etc.
*Sometimes* what I do is art. These are functional pieces with elaborate carving, painting and even occasionally gold leaf and such. They are one-of-a kind pieces that even if another craftsman copied them, would never be quite the same as the original.
That said, the vast majority of code out there is not even up to journeyman standards, let alone master-craftsman level.
Re:Not a fine art (Score:3, Interesting)
Now that is not true, just as many Fashion Designers design cloths that have no practical value outside of being "showcased", I as a programmer can write a program that has no practical purpose outside of showing others a particularly nifty bit of code.
Dance and art (Score:4, Interesting)
Another example is performance art. None of it has practical value, it's not craft, nor is most of it aesthetically pleasing to the eyes.
I won't speak of all performance arts, just Dance, but it can have a practical value. For both the dancer and for the audience. Years ago I was an amateur dancer, having taken some dance classes in college, danced in different dances, and worked on other dance performances. Several years ago I had a bad accident and the first thing I thought of for physical therapy was dance, so I talked with a friend who taught dance including the ones I took and she recommended I take ballet saying it would help with my coordination and endurance. As it was I didn't have the endurance to take the class. The last tyme I went to class, as usual, I stayed there after ballet and watched the Jazz class and I realized that while I could recall the steps for Jazz, I couldn't recall them for ballet, there would of been no way I would of had the energy for jazz. As for watching, like myself I've known others who feel so much better and/or motivated after watching a dance performance.
And no I wasn't an art or dance major, my major was computer engineering.
FalconBoth! (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Both! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:ENOUGH IS ENOUGH! (Score:3, Insightful)
I still can't get the scriptmonkeys around here to grasp the notion of structured programming, let alone OO or functional. The state of the art does not evolve as much as the industry likes to pretend it does. Just because they rev the apps every couple years does not mean the whole industry changes.
Drivel (Score:2, Insightful)
It's like a janitor contemplating whether a clean hall is art. Why not spend your time examining better methods of developing portable/maintainable code or something. I mean really, let's say you get your answer. "It is art" or "It isn't art", what has been accomplished other than the ability to puff up about what you do?
This is no different than a bunch
Re:Drivel (Score:5, Insightful)
How about things like quines, or programs that are valid and working programs in more than one language at once?
Aren't these things art? If not, why not? A programming language is, per se, just a tool - just like a brush. You can use brushes to simply coat things with paint, and there are many people who do just that for a living; but you can also use them to create art. The same goes for programming languages, doesn't it?
Re:Drivel (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Drivel (Score:3, Insightful)
If people only did that which served a useful purpose, life would be a much poorer thing, I think.
Re:Drivel (Score:2)
Re:Drivel (Score:4, Funny)
Geeks without dates.
Re:Drivel (Score:2)
More like an author contemplating what he does is art. I've often thought writing a book and programming are excedingly similar.
"It is art" or "It isn't art", what has been accomplished other than the ability to puff up about what you do?
You get to put the subject under the Art Dept or Math dept at the university. Which is a major thing. My local school treats comp sci as a subset of math, so to get the BS, you have to do ungodly amount
Re:Drivel (Score:5, Insightful)
Have to programs, "Comp Sci", which would remain what is is, and "Programming" which would focus much more on "real world" issues. Think of it kinda like Physics vs Engineering.
Re:Drivel (Score:3, Interesting)
Got myself a Bachelor of Business Computing (they've since renamed it...) from a local school. It covered some Business Stuff, OO, Design Patterns, Project Management, Usability, Extreme Programming, and similar. Had a couple of pure language classes too. Had I done Comp Sci, I think I'd be a more l33t coder, but this set me up to be far more useful in the Real World. We'll just have to wait for the established Universities to make this kind of move.
Re:Drivel (Score:2)
Re:Drivel (Score:2)
If the Janitor created a clean hallway from a filthy one can it not be appreciated by anyone who takes the time to look?
Get two or three programmers to write a small application and you will find, sometimes, stunning differences in the way they achieved the same goal. Which to me implies that programming is something that is very creative and it is also very closly tied to the individual who wr
More Drivel: (Score:3, Insightful)
Well... (Score:5, Funny)
2 more actualy (Score:2, Insightful)
C.) and like art many people seem to actively pursue the work of some of these programmers and place high values on their works. However, they do so with little regard as to weather the works belong to the "crap" or the "skilled" categories.
Emotion? (Score:3, Insightful)
While Windows sometimes makes me cry, to what degree does programming convey emotion?
Re:Emotion? (Score:3, Insightful)
So a book of poems or prose can never be good art?
Re:Emotion? (Score:2)
Re:Emotion? (Score:4, Funny)
It does. More often that not, code inspires in me pure, unadulterated rage
It's engineering (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It's engineering (Score:2)
It's both a science and an art. The science of computer programming dictates that there is at least one optimal way of solving a problem that can be solved algorithmically. Sometimes the one optimal way is actually the only way. Sometimes there are many optimal solutions and it's the artist in us that decides which optimal solution to choose.
There may be many ways to build a bridge, but the artistic civil engineer will choose something cool.
Re:It's engineering (Score:5, Interesting)
Consider great works of architecture... certainly, the simple task of building a bridge, or some building can result in the most straight-forward, brute-force application of a solution, but the results would not be as elegant or noteworthy.
Similarly, code can be kludged to hell, lacking any elegance and as a result, impossible to enhance or even maintain... or a software engineer could architect a system that is elegant and even mostly reusable (or even better build such a system out of a large library of code already written).
Unfortunately, the difference is lost amongst probably 80% of the "programmers"
out there, who have more of an attitude of "get 'r done" and "if it ain't broke...". We talk about patterns, algorithms, processes to developing solid applications and systems, but end up dealing with managers or clients who couldn't give a rat's ass about it until a quality audit is announced.
I know a handful of very talented engineers who can design "on the fly" - elegant design work, and as a bonus, they know the engineering side, as well. Put the two together, the SCIENCE of applying basic engineering principles, along with the ART of intuitively understanding the best flow of an application, and you've got solid code.
To put it another way, I've seen guys who know the process side of software engineering inside and out - but couldn't code their way out of a paper bag, and certainly cannot architect a real software system. They know the science, but lack the artistry (i.e the creative thinking).
Re:It's engineering (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It's engineering (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't think building a bridge can be considered "simple" but that's not my point.
Expanding on the bridge / software analogy, a bridge would not be nearly as beautiful to look at if:
1) The load requirement was doubled halfway through the project
2) To pay for #1, y
Re:It's engineering (Score:3, Interesting)
One of the core differences that makes it so hard to compare software engineering with other engineering disciplines (particularly bridge building and building building) is that software is fundamentally more malleable.
If you build a condominium, then decide you want the first floor to be six feet taller, it is exceedingly expensive to change it. Furthermore it is obvious to the layman why it is expensive to change i
Re:It's engineering (Score:3, Insightful)
Also, engineers h
Similar: Is an essay art? (Score:5, Insightful)
You just have to remember the appeal of art of this sort is MUCH smaller... you need to understand it to really enjoy it... and unlike abstract art or modern art (where very few understand it and very many say they do)
So, yes, it is an art form... for a very small subset of the population.
My two cents, anyway...
What is art? (Score:2, Informative)
If Britney Spears can be referred to as an artist then gees, there's enough computer porn out there for programming to qualify as an art.
Re:What is art? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:What is art? (Score:2)
The Perfect Slashdot Story (Score:5, Insightful)
That's like a story that's titled, "Chocolate Ice Cream, better than Vanilla?"
Art is subjective. If you believe that some part of science is subjective as well, then you understand that there is no easy answer to the question posed. If you think science has no subjectivity, then welcome to the food fight!
Quality: It's a Numbers Game [whattofix.com]
No, it's a craft (Score:3, Insightful)
Art is aesthetic, not useful. While you can use those aesthetics for a useful purpose (e.g. selling it to people who appreciate those aesthetics), that doesn't mean it's intrinsically useful.
Programming is a craft. It is useful, which distinguishes it from art. A certain sense of aesthetics, skill and experience is necessary to program effectively, which distinguishes it from merely being a profession.
Re:No, it's a craft (Score:2)
Re:No, it's a craft (Score:3, Insightful)
Think about a large engineering project like the Brooklyn Bridge. The lead engineer designed the bridge to be not just functional but beautiful as well. Or consider something like the Guggenheim, in which the architect didn't jus
CS is science. Design is art (Score:5, Insightful)
The design of a computer program is an art. There is no defined standard for what is or is not good design, its not falsifiable. And its not something that can be taught by rote in a college course. Picking the right design for your specifications and requirements is an art, and one that too few people really understand.
When will people realize.. (Score:2)
Not to mention the possibilities that computing offers us - I don't think of it merely as science nor merely as an art - to me it's both.
When will people realize.. (Score:2, Interesting)
Now, computer science is an immature field, and has a long way to go. That means it has some challenges to go through as it develops. It also has a different front-end than other fields, sure. There are plenty of differences, but the basic
Of course it is ... (Score:3, Insightful)
Similarly, designing a complex system looks to an outsider like merely writing one line of code after another. It is only when you step back and see how the lines of code merge into a subroutine, and subroutines coalesce into cogent modules, and these modules get connected together to become a useful system that you can see the art. One square centimeter of yellow paint is not art, that square in the middle of one piece in a series of paintings on a theme is.
There are a lot more housepainters than artists. There are a lot more coders than there are hackers.
Re:Of course it is ... (Score:2)
I think this highlights an important difference when talking about whether programming is an art, a craft, or a science. Specifically, it depends on your point of view.
In your
No. (Score:2)
Code as art. (Score:3, Interesting)
Now that code, is art. Most code is just craft, but to make a working perl program, that is an ascii-art of a camel, that is True Art..
Art is as Art does (Score:5, Interesting)
That being said, I think there's a certain intrinsic beauty to the way that I indent my subroutines.
zerg (Score:2)
If you accept my definition of art, then DVD Jon is an artist. Bram whatshisface is an artist.
The Recurring Three Words (Score:3, Insightful)
from wikipedia:
"Mathematical rigour is often cited as a kind of gold standard for mathematical proof. It has a history, being traced back to Greek mathematics, where it is said to have been invented. Complete rigour, it is often said, became available in mathematics at the start of the twentieth century. This relies on the axiomatic method, and the subsequent development of pure mathematics under the axiomatic umbrella. With the aid of computers, it is possible to check proofs mechanically; throwing the possible flaws back onto machine errors that are considered unlikely events. Indeed, mathematical rigour may be defined as amenability to algorithmic checking of correctness. Formal rigour is the introduction of high degrees of completeness by means of a formal language. Most mathematical arguments are presented as prototypes of formally rigorous proofs, on the grounds that too much formality may in fact obscure what is being said."
Robustness [wikipedia.org]
from wikipedia:
"In computing terms, robustness is reliability or being available seven days a week, twenty-four hours a day. Robustness is an important characterists of the internet because network design is a key factor in the availability of data."
This also can translate into portability.
Elegance
from wikipedia:
"The proof of a mathematical theorem is considered elegant if it is surprisingly simple yet effective and constructive; similarly, a computer program or algorithm is elegant if it uses a small amount of intuitive code to great effect."
Euclidean Geometry was long thought to demonstrate all three qualities. If one wants to attribute art to elegance then programming can be said to be art.
Art is about communication (Score:2)
I'm inclined to think that programming- or at least the vast majority of programming- is craft rather than art. The essential difference is that art is itended as a form of communication with others, while craft is primarily functional. In programming, the functional necessity of the job at hand tends to overwhelm the expression of the programmer.
Programming is not Art, unless... (Score:2)
When it comes to art... (Score:3, Insightful)
Bill Budge's poetry in named variables (Score:3, Interesting)
But he did a couple of 6502 tutorials in an Apple magazine just before it went bankrupt (Softalk?), and the way he defined variables struck me as exactly like poetry-- he seemed to have meditated on the deep meaning long enough that he knew how to create exactly the right variables, and name them the right names.
define "programming (Score:2)
If "programming" includes designing what it is exactly that you want the computer to do in the first place (a.k.a. "design"), then programming becomes
It's not art (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe I am a strange software developer, but these are not the questions going on through my mind at night. Maybe "how can I improve the design" or "what does the customer really want from this product" but usually it's "how can I get that cute girl back to my place". Seriously though, these people have too much time on their hands. I didn't RTFA, so it may be brilliant. But programming is definitely a science. The thing is, that as programmers, we can recognize beauty in the design and implementation of a program. In that sense, to us, it can be beautiful. We might say the programmer is so good that he is an artist. But this is true in any field. We have someone install our networks and truly, he is an artist. He takes the spaghetti of thousands of cables and makes it so neat and logical it would make an artist weep. But is it art? No...that's a stupid question.
"Programming" is not an art, but hacking ... (Score:2, Interesting)
define "programming" (Score:2)
If "programming" includes designing what it is exactly that you want the computer to do in the first place (a.k.a. "design"), then programming becomes a form of art. It is "problem solving" with such a large number of possible solutions that it takes a certain amount of inspiration to come to the best answer.
depends on your language (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't want to overstate the point--artistry is found in all forms of programming--but I think it's telling that the advocates of higher-level languages in the interview are more inclined to see programming as art.
Yes (Score:2)
They enrich our lives in that computer programs can do things that people may find either useful or entertaining.
Computer programming is art. No question.
It used to be! (Score:2, Interesting)
Then the dot-com thing happened, and nobody differentiates someone with a mathematics or engineering degree and some kid with a "certification". The result? Lousy software for everyone!
That's why I left the field.
Aesthetics (Score:2)
Programmers come from vastly different backgrounds (Score:4, Insightful)
Unlike a lot of coder geeks I know, though, I got A's in advanced english classes, AND art classes
My boss at my former job used to play football and now codes. Can you imagine?!?! Football! While I spent summers geeking out, he was learning what a button-hook was. The horror. lol. (i pretty much have zero interest in sports. it seems like a lot of pointy-haired types do, though. oh well, to each his own)
Meanwhile, the two coders I know who I used to secretly idolize because they actually WERE cs majors, got tired of coding and are now both getting MBA's (which seems like a boring thing to do, were I to do it). Their complaint was that coders get shit on at corporate jobs, and they were just tired of the whole design/code/test/deploy/debug/support cycle.
Screw 'em, they also liked football
I know what they're talking about in the former case of feeling taken-advantage of (not to mention that I am TIRED, TIRED of working with Microsoft-only technology, from an ideological/stuck-in-the-Microsoft-bubble standpoint!), and my solution to that is probably going to happen soon. Take my savings, quit my corporate job (which has done nothing for my technical development lately) and code freelance for a while. Wish me luck (I'm a little nervous), I have a few ideas and I'll be starting by diving headfirst into Ruby/Rails and seeing where that takes me
Perhaps I'll never be a millionaire (or perhaps I will), but building stuff (the craft of it, and the type of creativity required at times) that someone else thinks is cool really floats my boat.
Who cares what programming "is", as long as people stop frickin' stereotyping us. The only thing that all programmers have in common, is that they program. The rest of it, like the difficulty in dating the opposite sex, is just positive correlation
My definition of art. (Score:2)
So I do not see code as art. I like stallman's view of it as a craft.
However, I think people are saying it in the sense of "more art than science" which means that you can do it in a nifty way which is elegant, smaller, tighter- or in a "machine" way which gets the job done but is ugly, repetative, less efficient but maybe easier to maintain or generate.
In this sense, coding will alway
more than the sum of its parts (Score:2)
For instance, does a nice brushstroke in a painting count as Art? No. It may be considered masterful, but it is not in itself Art. In the same way, a clever line of code is not itself Art.
So, then Art is more than the sum of its parts. While someone's code may be sublime in its composition, but it is only when you take the sum of that code (and therefore, also the execution of that code) can you determine the worth of the a
Since when art and science are seperable entities? (Score:2)
programming is like architecture (Score:3, Insightful)
The vast majority of buildings are just buildings. But every once in a while, a building is a work of art.
One of the things I like about architecture (and computer programming) is that the buildings always serve a purpose. They don't arise out of the ether to express a purely abstract thought, but arise from the need to create something useful.
But don't delude yourself by thinking that you're an artist just because you're a computer programmer. The vast majority of buildings are cinder-block, minimum-cost affairs, and the same is true for code.
What would Mozart have thought? (Score:5, Insightful)
The content of programming is perhaps too instrumental (i.e., interesting for its usefulness more than its inherent qualities) to rise to the level of art. But this may be changing with the state-of-the-art games. In a hundred years, people may look back at today's game developers as the inventors of a new art form!
Art Is What You Can Get Away With (Score:3, Insightful)
View of a BS + BFA (Score:3, Insightful)
Several years later, I went back to college, this time studying graphic design and illustration, with a foundation of ye olde fine arts thrown in. I was only mildly surprised to have an instructor start talking about the Fibonacci numbers and the Golden Section. It learned that there are even objective and verifiable standards for what humans usually perceive as "balanced", "unsettling", and even "beautiful". This doesn't mean that art can be verified quantifiably, but it does mean it isn't 100% subjective, either. (Rob Liefeld is a bad artist. Full stop.)
"What is art?" is a subject that will get even art students into heated debate with each other. But if you include architecture and poetry (and I think most people would), then programming has to be at least within the grey fringe.
Personally, I don't care much for attempts to distinguish between (for example) fine art, commercial art, design, craft, etc. Part of that's because I took classes that arguably included each of these, and what I was doing in one or another them wasn't fundamentally different. My art school has majors in Furniture Design, Sculpture, Illustration, Photography, Painting, Interior Design, Graphic Design, etc. and hardly anyone around here tries to separate them into categories of craft/art/design etc.
There's art in science; there's science in art. That's certainly the way Leondardo approached his life's work, and it's how I try to approach mine.
I grew up in a family of artists (Score:3, Insightful)
SCOTUS ruling on the definition of Art (Score:3, Interesting)
Constantin Brancusi imported his famous metal sculpture "Bird in Flight" and was assessed a 40% tariff by Customs, categorizing it as "Machined metal implements, Kitchen Utensils, and Hospital Supplies" rather than the 0% tariff applied to art objects. Brancusi sued the Treasury Department to recover the tariff.
Eventually the Supreme Court agreed with Brancusi that the object was art rather than a mere machined metal object. The core definition of an art object is: something made with the express purpose of being an art object, made by someone recognized as an artist by other artists.
Well, that is a fairly circular definition, in part, but it does clearly lay out the rules. Artists (those people society generally recognizes as artists) get to define art. The corollary: programmers do not get to define their work as art.
Didn't Knuth answer this already? (Score:4, Informative)
Programming Is Zen Painting (Score:3, Insightful)
The difference is that a painting is not as easily changed as a computer program. So the program may evolve toward perfection (refactoring) over time, while the painting only has one shot at it. But then, when you consider it, they are all perfect...
Misleading Question (Score:3, Insightful)
The programmer as an artist, not as a technician (Score:3, Insightful)
Then one day my boss was chewing my ass off for God knows why, and he complained that the problem with programmers is that they are artists and that opens a huge can of worms. We argued about it for a while but he left me convinced that yes, real programmers are artists, not technicians.
When was the last time you read a bit of hacked together code that looked so nasty that it made you smile? Sure, it looked like hell, but it got the job done. You could probably recognize who actually wrote that particular piece of code because eventually the great programmers develop their own particular style.
When was the last time you read a tiny little bit of code, a really small function that did just one lousy little thing, but not only it did the job, but it took you a split second to figure out what the hell the programmer was thinking when he/she wrote it? That's art.
If programming was purely technical, then we would never get into the zone in the middle of the god damn night, or solve a problem while in the can or taking a shower.
My view of art (Score:3)
Art (Score:3, Insightful)
In truth, art today has merged with marketing and advertising. To be an artist today is to be a master of communication, a master networker.
The question is not is programming art but rather can somebody convince you that programming is art.
Yes (Score:3, Informative)
Well, at least, that is what i think of it as. Anyone can write code. Writing code well and being innovative is an art.
this is also an art
http://gprime.net/images/sidewalkchalkguy/ [gprime.net]
Coolest thing i have ever seen.
...Now if only he could somehow hook it up to google maps..
Art Is Imagination Followed By Engineering (Score:3, Insightful)
The only thing "artistic" about art is the decision what to be "artistic" about. Everything else is engineering - putting together known quantities of known materials to generate a desired effect.
HOW you put together those materials - say, for least cost to greatest effect - might be imaginative, but it's still engineering in my view.
Any programmer who think he's doing "art" is probably a piss-poor programmer - and probably has never documented a single program in his life.
Which is just about every programmer I've ever known, seen, heard about or read about.
Re:dental arts (Score:2)
Don't forget reconstructive surgery either.
Re:programming and music (Score:3, Interesting)