Programming is not a craft

Re:Programming is not a craft by shantanubala on Tuesday December 11, 2012 @02:09PM (#4906173)

I'd also argue that it's also art, just with a smaller target audience. Open source software is a great example of this. A lot of open source projects are really just experiments in expressing an idea in a new way, or basically saying, "hey guys, check out this cool thing I did." _why was the trademark example of taking this concept and constructing an entire persona around it, but art is about expression, and programming allows for some interesting forms of expression.

Just like it takes a little training to appreciate the intricacies involved in the construction of a piece of literature, classical music, painting, or other work, it takes training to appreciate beautiful software.

Code is just a much newer canvas for ideas, so it's not as mature.

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Re:Programming is not a craft by pygy_ on Tuesday December 11, 2012 @02:44PM (#4906393)

_why took it pretty far, indeed (these are images):

http://viewsourcecode.org/why/redhanded/images/hpricot-aby.p...

http://viewsourcecode.org/why/redhanded/images/a-personal-ex...

http://viewsourcecode.org/why/redhanded/images/aside-from-th...

http://viewsourcecode.org/why/redhanded/images/gem-mirror-on...

/!\ /!\ Epilepsy warning: /!\ /!\ http://viewsourcecode.org/why/redhanded/images/irb-lex.gif

Ditto, to a lesser extent: http://viewsourcecode.org/why/hackety.org/images/goa-trance-...

And then, of course, Hackety.org:

    Hackety.org is for artful computer hacking. Mind expanding code. 
    Hobbyists & amateurs welcome. Business trends and language wars? 
    None for us, thankyou!
    [More](http://viewsourcecode.org/why/hackety.org/about/)

http://viewsourcecode.org/why/hackety.org/

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Re:Programming is not a craft by hcarvalhoalves on Tuesday December 11, 2012 @06:09PM (#4907533)

You're falling on the same mistake as the original author, that craft implies art.

Craft is about applying creativity and skill and produce some product. Art is about expression, it doesn't have to solve a problem, and can come to life using any medium, software included.

So we could said while all software is craft, some software is art.

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Re:Programming is not a craft by michaelochurch on Tuesday December 11, 2012 @02:33PM (#4906332)

Art is a poor metaphor for software. A bad painting just looks ugly. It doesn't hurt anyone.

A better metaphor is a block of Legos, but where none of the pieces fit together well and 2/3 of them are of such poor quality as to make them almost worthless and, worse yet, you can't choose not to use them because the people setting requirements don't know or care about block quality and "just want it to work".

I'm experienced both in software and creative writing. I've read (and written) some awful short stories and poems. Bad writing is embarrassing. Bad software is a much higher dimension of evil. Bad code kills businesses.

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Re:Programming is not a craft by shantanubala on Tuesday December 11, 2012 @02:41PM (#4906379)

So the question could be rephrased to a better analogy: is architecture art? A faulty building can kill people, but buildings can be expressions of ideas. In other words, there is a utilitarian form of architecture, which involves making the most efficient/simple/effective solution to a problem. But there's also the side that produces iconic and truly beautiful buildings for no other purpose than beauty.

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Re:Programming is not a craft by pygy_ on Tuesday December 11, 2012 @02:52PM (#4906443)

Software is just a medium. A small subset can be thought of as art, just like a small subset of paint jobs, constructions (in the broadest sense possible), and sounds sound can.

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