That's only a partial view. I could also say...many paintings that are considered art these days...big whooop they were just work for hire with specifications.

That's only a partial view. I could also say...many paintings that are considered art these days...big whooop they were just work for hire with specifications. Paint that daughter of this rich dude. Same for classical music...we need some new song to wow people at our event...Mr. Bach, we need some new church music get going mate. I'd say most interesting programming tasks certainly have elements of interesting artistic tasks. They usually involve a problem that is hard to put in words but needs solving. Especially in the startup context it's fairly close to art (imo) since your canvas is so empty...often you don't even know if you're working on the right problem to boot and will only find out through a process.