Comment Programming and Code: art with application (Score 1) 327
I think that I agree with you. I too believe that code has applications that music and art don't. I see programming as a very amazing form of art. I describe what I do to my liberal arts oriented friends, who see computers as boxes of wires, as painting a Monet and sticking it into the trunk of the car so no one sees it. Then driving the car around. I suppose this could be extended toward the engine of the car also being a work of art that isn't seen, but it is more easily understandable to use an analogy of what most people consider "real art."
So I'm trying to show that code and programming is really art, but it is different than print media and music. Our art is concerned with the process that it accomplishes on its visual side. I think that the computer programmer is probably more concerned with "quality" (as Pirsig would say) than with esthetics. This quality can be anything from speed, to low line count, to clever algorithms. It's all about the art, but the differnce between our art and other art is that people use our art to function in society, so as artists in this sense we somehow owe our audience something. They depend on our approach being "good" so that they get the best product.
With this in mind we programmers realize that it is no longer just OUR art. It is the user's art now also. And anything that can be done to make it more "beautiful" can be seen as beneficial to us as artists and to our artwork. Unlike a painting or a song, our work is never done with out project. We program to make a piece of art, not to claim it for our own. We are a community working on a painting instead of just one person. I'm sure a lot of you don't agree with this, but its how I approach my work and it makes it all so much more enjoyable. I'd rather program with a team of people who appreciate my skills and my artistic expression any day over programming alone.
Sorry for the long post, I just thought it needed to be said.
Thanks,
Random_Task
So I'm trying to show that code and programming is really art, but it is different than print media and music. Our art is concerned with the process that it accomplishes on its visual side. I think that the computer programmer is probably more concerned with "quality" (as Pirsig would say) than with esthetics. This quality can be anything from speed, to low line count, to clever algorithms. It's all about the art, but the differnce between our art and other art is that people use our art to function in society, so as artists in this sense we somehow owe our audience something. They depend on our approach being "good" so that they get the best product.
With this in mind we programmers realize that it is no longer just OUR art. It is the user's art now also. And anything that can be done to make it more "beautiful" can be seen as beneficial to us as artists and to our artwork. Unlike a painting or a song, our work is never done with out project. We program to make a piece of art, not to claim it for our own. We are a community working on a painting instead of just one person. I'm sure a lot of you don't agree with this, but its how I approach my work and it makes it all so much more enjoyable. I'd rather program with a team of people who appreciate my skills and my artistic expression any day over programming alone.
Sorry for the long post, I just thought it needed to be said.
Thanks,
Random_Task
