4 ms·

I agree with all of the sentiments in the article, but the one small thing that I do disagree with is the conflation of the word "creative" with what the author

by dljsjr 14y ago

I agree with all of the sentiments in the article, but the one small thing that I do disagree with is the conflation of the word "creative" with what the author seems to indicate are artistic or graphical/visual disciplines. I believe that all programming, whether or not it's graphical or "artistic" in nature, is creative. Development is just as much a craft as it is a logical discipline. Learning algorithms, data structures, and software engineering techniques is only half the battle. As "coders", we are knowledge workers. Our job is to solve a problem; the discipline of computer programming is nothing more than a tool that we use to solve our problems. And creative thinking can be utilized any time someone needs to solve a problem. Most truly great programmers and/or computer scientists, at least in my opinion, held on to some level of creativity. Dijkstra never developed a single GUI in his life, but saying that the work he did wasn't "creative" would be insulting. You could say similar things about people such as von Neumann, or even more concrete computer scientists like Kay, Stroustrup, etc. The idea that creativity is inherently tied to "emotional" pursuits like art, design, music, etc. is a little reductionist. Creativity, like programming, is a tool. It's the ability to enter a creative mindset and use creative thought processes to approach a problem, and it is also a refinable skill and not a trait. Creative thinking is just as approachable and general as critical thinking, but so often people who aren't "artistic" reduce themselves to also being not "creative", and I don't think that's very correct. One of the best descriptions of creativity I've ever heard was in a talk delivered by John Cleese. If you have 30 minutes, I highly recommend watching it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VShmtsLhkQg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VShmtsLhkQg

minimax 14y ago
I think in this context he's using "creative" in the sense that it's used in the advertising industry. A creative is someone who actually works on developing an advertisement, rather than, say, someone buying up airtime. The companies on the list are almost all advertising agencies. It's just the industry nomenclature and I don't think he meant to say that programmers in the non-advertising world aren't creative.
- timtadh 14y ago
  That may be true but I find the term denigrating towards programmers. This isn't the advertising industry and their nomenclature isn't appropriate here. It implies a "non-creative" type of programmer. It also implies most programmers are of a "non-creative" type. Furthermore, the implication is those programmers, since they are by definition non-creative, don't do their own thinking. The term may not technically mean the above however the implication is there.
  - notatoad 14y ago
    >It implies a "non-creative" type of programmer. It also implies most programmers are of a "non-creative" type. i don't think that's an unfair implication. There is plenty of programming that has no creative aspect, and i'd say the majority of programmers are not creatives. It's a term with a well-accepted industry definition, and if you start defining it as broadly as you want to you could probably apply it to just about any job, anywhere in the world. The guy wiring up power poles outside my office does his own thinking, does that make his job creative?
    - dljsjr 14y ago
      It has nothing to do with the job title and everything to do with the person. And yes, I am saying that the label of creative can be applied to any job in the world. Watch the video.
    - timtadh 14y ago
      > i don't think that's an unfair implication. we will have to disagree there. which is fine. > if you start defining it as broadly as you want to you could probably apply it to just about any job, anywhere in the world. The guy wiring up power poles outside my office does his own thinking, does that make his job creative? Which is my point. I am not saying all programmers to should be called "creative." However, calling a portion of them creative is inaccurate. It also doesn't really get at what OP wanted to get at which is: A programmer with visual arts training/skills.
  - jianshen 14y ago
lowboy 14y ago
Could be that it's just "creative" as design department vs "coder" as development department. Having said that, I agree that there can be great creativity in programming.
jgv 14y ago
this --> "I believe that all programming, whether or not it's graphical or "artistic" in nature, is creative. "
- lowboy 14y ago
  All programming? Hardly. In pretty much every ecosystem I've seen, there are standard patterns for doing things because they've been proven. Even just taking your own experience, you probably have patterns you use to solve problems. Sometimes you can apply these patterns in different ways and that's where "creativity" comes in, but a lot of the time, there's a "best" way to do something to maximize source comprehension, maintainability, performance, etc. There's often nothing creative about adding a jQuery plugin to a page, or setting up a table in a database, or adding a new route to an instance of an MVC framework.
TeMPOraL 14y ago
This naming may come from fact that some libraries for easing creation of programmed graphics and audiovisual displays are called "creative coding" / "creative programming" libs. It's a phrase that has been around for few years. EDIT: From the top of my head, - http://libcinder.org/ http://libcinder.org/ - "Cinder is a community-developed, free and open source library for professional-quality creative coding in C++." - http://www.openframeworks.cc/ http://www.openframeworks.cc/ - "openFrameworks is an open source C++ toolkit for creative coding."
- dljsjr 14y ago
  And I would level the same criticisms at the people who named these libraries.
amix 14y ago
Great comment! I did not watch that talk. But I did watch another talk by John Cleese on how to become more creative ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kH8uYDJlwog https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kH8uYDJlwog - only 10 min). It's a very recommended watch as well. I especially like this quote: If you're racing around all day, ticking things off on lists, looking at your watch, making phone calls, and generally just keeping all the balls in the air, you are not going to have any creative ideas. - John Cleese A year or two ago I also did a presentation on how to become a more creative programmer where this quote is also included, the slides can be seen here http://amix.dk/blog/post/19599 http://amix.dk/blog/post/19599
hanleybrand 14y ago
It has unfortunate, unintended side-meaning sometimes, but groups tend to grab the flag they can. The cinder/processing/max-msp-jitter-pd/demo scene grabbed "creative coder" as their moniker a while back, and it's probably too late to change it - and it does make sense, if you view it from the vantage point that creative coding" is the core activity of making a specific type of audio/visual artifact (or just art, or even Fine Art) - which people usually group with art/Art, so it fits. You can always get bent out of shape about what people end up calling things... I mostly got over it back in the "web master" days. Sites to peruse about "creative" coding &/|| that support for the contention that cc is an established term: http://www.creativeapplications.net http://www.creativeapplications.net http://creativecodingpodcast.com http://creativecodingpodcast.com http://cplus.about.com/b/2010/12/09/what-is-creative-coding.htm http://cplus.about.com/b/2010/12/09/what-is-creative-coding.... http://createdigitalmotion.com http://createdigitalmotion.com But I'll also agree with you, remember & underscore that much programing is inherently creative: http://lifedev.net/2008/07/programmer-creativity-boost/ http://lifedev.net/2008/07/programmer-creativity-boost/ I'm using Fine Art/Art as shorthand for "arts existing within the historical institutional context of galleries, academies, collectors and museums" (which is what most people mean when they capitalize art, I think, even if they wouldn't necessarily say it that way)

by dljsjr 14y ago

minimax 14y ago

I think in this context he's using "creative" in the sense that it's used in the advertising industry. A creative is someone who actually works on developing an advertisement, rather than, say, someone buying up airtime. The companies on the list are almost all advertising agencies. It's just the industry nomenclature and I don't think he meant to say that programmers in the non-advertising world aren't creative.

timtadh 14y ago
That may be true but I find the term denigrating towards programmers. This isn't the advertising industry and their nomenclature isn't appropriate here. It implies a "non-creative" type of programmer. It also implies most programmers are of a "non-creative" type. Furthermore, the implication is those programmers, since they are by definition non-creative, don't do their own thinking. The term may not technically mean the above however the implication is there.
- notatoad 14y ago
  >It implies a "non-creative" type of programmer. It also implies most programmers are of a "non-creative" type. i don't think that's an unfair implication. There is plenty of programming that has no creative aspect, and i'd say the majority of programmers are not creatives. It's a term with a well-accepted industry definition, and if you start defining it as broadly as you want to you could probably apply it to just about any job, anywhere in the world. The guy wiring up power poles outside my office does his own thinking, does that make his job creative?
  - dljsjr 14y ago
    It has nothing to do with the job title and everything to do with the person. And yes, I am saying that the label of creative can be applied to any job in the world. Watch the video.
  - timtadh 14y ago
    > i don't think that's an unfair implication. we will have to disagree there. which is fine. > if you start defining it as broadly as you want to you could probably apply it to just about any job, anywhere in the world. The guy wiring up power poles outside my office does his own thinking, does that make his job creative? Which is my point. I am not saying all programmers to should be called "creative." However, calling a portion of them creative is inaccurate. It also doesn't really get at what OP wanted to get at which is: A programmer with visual arts training/skills.
- jianshen 14y ago

lowboy 14y ago

Could be that it's just "creative" as design department vs "coder" as development department. Having said that, I agree that there can be great creativity in programming.

jgv 14y ago

this --> "I believe that all programming, whether or not it's graphical or "artistic" in nature, is creative. "

lowboy 14y ago
All programming? Hardly. In pretty much every ecosystem I've seen, there are standard patterns for doing things because they've been proven. Even just taking your own experience, you probably have patterns you use to solve problems. Sometimes you can apply these patterns in different ways and that's where "creativity" comes in, but a lot of the time, there's a "best" way to do something to maximize source comprehension, maintainability, performance, etc. There's often nothing creative about adding a jQuery plugin to a page, or setting up a table in a database, or adding a new route to an instance of an MVC framework.

TeMPOraL 14y ago

This naming may come from fact that some libraries for easing creation of programmed graphics and audiovisual displays are called "creative coding" / "creative programming" libs. It's a phrase that has been around for few years. EDIT: From the top of my head, - http://libcinder.org/ http://libcinder.org/ - "Cinder is a community-developed, free and open source library for professional-quality creative coding in C++." - http://www.openframeworks.cc/ http://www.openframeworks.cc/ - "openFrameworks is an open source C++ toolkit for creative coding."

dljsjr 14y ago
And I would level the same criticisms at the people who named these libraries.

amix 14y ago

Great comment! I did not watch that talk. But I did watch another talk by John Cleese on how to become more creative ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kH8uYDJlwog https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kH8uYDJlwog - only 10 min). It's a very recommended watch as well. I especially like this quote: If you're racing around all day, ticking things off on lists, looking at your watch, making phone calls, and generally just keeping all the balls in the air, you are not going to have any creative ideas. - John Cleese A year or two ago I also did a presentation on how to become a more creative programmer where this quote is also included, the slides can be seen here http://amix.dk/blog/post/19599 http://amix.dk/blog/post/19599

hanleybrand 14y ago

It has unfortunate, unintended side-meaning sometimes, but groups tend to grab the flag they can. The cinder/processing/max-msp-jitter-pd/demo scene grabbed "creative coder" as their moniker a while back, and it's probably too late to change it - and it does make sense, if you view it from the vantage point that creative coding" is the core activity of making a specific type of audio/visual artifact (or just art, or even Fine Art) - which people usually group with art/Art, so it fits. You can always get bent out of shape about what people end up calling things... I mostly got over it back in the "web master" days. Sites to peruse about "creative" coding &/|| that support for the contention that cc is an established term: http://www.creativeapplications.net http://www.creativeapplications.net http://creativecodingpodcast.com http://creativecodingpodcast.com http://cplus.about.com/b/2010/12/09/what-is-creative-coding.htm http://cplus.about.com/b/2010/12/09/what-is-creative-coding.... http://createdigitalmotion.com http://createdigitalmotion.com But I'll also agree with you, remember & underscore that much programing is inherently creative: http://lifedev.net/2008/07/programmer-creativity-boost/ http://lifedev.net/2008/07/programmer-creativity-boost/ I'm using Fine Art/Art as shorthand for "arts existing within the historical institutional context of galleries, academies, collectors and museums" (which is what most people mean when they capitalize art, I think, even if they wouldn't necessarily say it that way)