Slashdot Log In
Is Programming Art?
Posted by
Zonk
on Tue Jul 05, 2005 05:17 PM
from the painting-a-good-program dept.
from the painting-a-good-program dept.
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."
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
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.
Parent
Re:Not a fine art (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Not a fine art (Score:5, Funny)
And there's a market for that. Hence, Visual Basic.
Parent
Re:Not a fine art (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
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.
Parent
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.
Parent
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.
Parent
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.
Parent
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.
Parent
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.
Parent
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.
FalconParent
Both! (Score:4, Interesting)
Well... (Score:5, Funny)
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:4, Funny)
It does. More often that not, code inspires in me pure, unadulterated rage
Parent
It's engineering (Score:5, Insightful)
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).
Parent
Re:It's engineering (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
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
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...
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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...
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?
Parent
Re:Drivel (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Drivel (Score:4, Funny)
Geeks without dates.
Parent
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.
Parent
Re:What is art? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:programming and music (Score:3, Interesting)