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.
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.