From: Massimiliano Mirra <list@...>
Date: 2002-06-05T09:53:14+09:00
Subject: Re: OT:is software eng an art?

On Sun, May 12, 2002 at 03:44:54AM +0900, Phil Tomson wrote:
> So, is software creation an art or a discipline (or a science)?  Opinions 
> welcome.

Greeks thought of art in terms of beautiful technique.  They arguably
knew the field.

A guy named Kant probably meant the same when he said that a work is
of art when not only it fulfills its practical purpose, but goes
farther and creates a pleasure in the viewer that does not stem from
the practical purpose, i.e. an *aesthetical* pleasure.  (Of course,
something like architecture has quite some more requirements to
satisfy before it can go for aesthetical pleasure than, say,
painting.)

Now we know that feeling when we see a problem solved in code with
particular *elegance*.

To those who said there is no art in software creation I'd like to ask
whether they think that elegance refers to the programmer's clothes at
the time of coding. :-)

By the way, Schoenberg compared the process of music composition
(which hopefully everybody accepts as art) to the development of a
living organism, from a core of identity and functionality toward the
outside.  Now this reminds me of something. ;-)

Massimiliano