Being both a hobby programmer and a hobby poet, I concur with the author: yes and no. There are some aspects to programming that have an aesthetic very similar

Being both a hobby programmer and a hobby poet, I concur with the author: yes and no. There are some aspects to programming that have an aesthetic very similar to that of poetry. It is not in vain that we talk of "elegant" solutions to a problem, or say that [your favourite language] is "beautiful". So in that sense, yes, code can be a poem. However, there are other areas where the two are worlds apart. First and foremost their purpose: code is meant to cause action (on the part of a computer). Any beauty is a side effect. Poetry is meant to be beautiful, to evoke feelings. If the reading of a poem causes an action in a reader, that is usually a side effect. So in that sense, no, code is definitely not poetry :D