From: Brian Jolly <brian@...>
Date: 2010-12-18T03:54:19+09:00
Subject: Re: Is programming art?

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The same question could be asked about painting. Is painting art?

Painting a wall white probably wouldn't be considered art, where painting a
picture of fruit on a table would be considered art.


On Fri, Dec 17, 2010 at 10:45 AM, Tony Arcieri <tony.arcieri@medioh.com>wrote:

> On Fri, Dec 17, 2010 at 2:51 AM, Yu-Hsuan Lai <raincolee@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > And... after all, ruby is a language which more often be described by
> "art"
> > than any other language I know.
> > Many people call Matsumoto "great designer". I know programming is
> related
> > to design. But is it "art"?
>
>
> In my opinion, 99.9% programming isn't art.
>
> The primary purpose of art is to communicate ideas between people, often
> times ineffable ideas that can't be put into language. Art is not intended
> to be utilitarian and typically has no intrinsic useful function in an of
> itself.
>
> The primary purpose of programming is to accomplish a utilitarian function
> by providing a set of instructions to a computer. Rather than being
> ineffable, the instructions are given in very precise language.
>
> Ruby has a very flexible syntax that lets people do things solely for
> aesthetic value, even things that might slow down your code or make it
> harder to work with. I've often heard people refer to these sorts of things
> as "poetic" and I like doing them myself. They make no sense when the
> program is interpreted by a computer, only a human reader. I'd consider
> that
> sort of thing artistic.
>
> People who write entries for obfuscated code contents often times do fun
> things with the formatting, making their obfuscated code into pictures and
> shapes. This is particularly interesting with "quines", programs that can
> output their own source code.
>
> As a response to Paul Graham's "Hackers and Painters" essay, I particularly
> enjoyed this essay by an artist/programmer, called "Dabblers and
> Blowhards":
>
> http://www.idlewords.com/2005/04/dabblers_and_blowhards.htm
>
> --
> Tony Arcieri
> Medioh! Kudelski
>

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