In college I did a double-major with of Studio Arts and Computer Science. To me engineering (particularly software engineering which is the kind I practice) is

In college I did a double-major with of Studio Arts and Computer Science. To me engineering (particularly software engineering which is the kind I practice) is a craft, not an art. For something to qualify as art in my mind it must define and serve its own purpose. Of course anything can be an artistic medium, a lot of the work in the demo scene or from _why I believe qualifies as art, but not the bulk of programming. I say the same thing for graphic design, or wood-working, or even photography. It's by no means easy to draw this line. It's at the core of the concept of "selling out", and it's fraught on both sides. Many accusations of selling out are due to envy, many defenses of selling out are due to self-justification. Nevertheless, there is a core concept underneath it all that's important: art can derive a lot of meaning from being non-essential and non-utilitarian.