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I don't think the coding analogy holds at all. To me, writing good working maintainable software of non trivial complexity is craft, and to call it that is high

I don't think the coding analogy holds at all. To me, writing good working maintainable software of non trivial complexity is craft, and to call it that is high praise indeed. I'm not entirely sure what art is, but I think it tends to happen when someone wants to create for the sake of creating, rather than maximising commercial gain, status, or whatever. It's orthogonal to craft. I enjoyed the Picasso museum in Barcelona and it was indeed eye opening to see his conventional but excellent architectural drawings ;-)

atoav 3y ago
Picasso for example was a master because he understood that beyond the technical is where the real callenge lies. Now the question would be whether that beyond is part of the craft or not. Ultimately this isn't that important, my point was rather about technicality. Technicality alone doesn't make a great master, just like syntax knowledge alone doesn't make you a great software engineer. But in coding the goal is typically to write good software and the criteria for good software are pretty clear — compared to what makes good art at least. Now as an artist you can totally suck at many things but be good at one specific thing that you did in a very specific and novel way and this alone can make the difference. One could say with our subway painter that the special thing about him are not the paintings but how he medializes their creation. But just painting realistically is something many people can do, and many also can do better.
- sideshowb 3y ago
  > whether that beyond is part of the craft or not Indeed. Without wanting to disappear down a philosophical rabbit hole, I think you hit the nail on the head there.