Essay on Open Source as an Art Form

Lilly Tao writes "Here's an Atlantic Unbound essay which takes the concept of open source as an art form (prompted by Linux having won an art prize, Prix Ars Electronica) to partly answer and mostly pose the question "How far can the open source model go?" " I've long since abandoned the idea of Programming as Engineering and taken up the idea of Programming as Art. That theory explains why Slashdot is pretty, but slow anyway (rimshot).

Which part

Which part of the programming is the art? Is it the code, neatly formatted, with creative comments and clever algorithms or is it the finished product? When you look at 'art' in a museum, all you see is the finished product. Contrary to popular belief, great art is not the result of a genius mind and a few hours in front of the canvas or clay, but rather the result of sometimes years of analytical study. The Mona Lisa has no less then nine versions of itself underneath the top layer of oil and color.

So which is the art? The code or the program? I personally think it's the program, and beautiful programs usually have very nice/efficient/clean code.

MHO