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(Peter Norvig's take on the matter, quoted from "Coders at Work" by Peter Seibel) Seibel: "As a programmer, do you consider yourself a scientist, an engineer,

(Peter Norvig's take on the matter, quoted from "Coders at Work" by Peter Seibel) Seibel: "As a programmer, do you consider yourself a scientist, an engineer, an artist, or a craftsman?" Norvig: "Well, I know when you compare the various titles of books and so on, I always thought the "craft" was the right answer. So I thought art was a little pretentious because the purpose of art is to be beautiful or to have an emotional contact or emotional impact, and I don't feel like that's anything that I try to do... I think craft is really the right word for it. You can make a chair, and it's good looking, but it's mostly functional--it's a chair."

mattxxx 12y ago
...So you can take some paint, and make a mural or paint your garage. One of these things is art and the other probably isn't. As a result, it's what you do with it that makes it art or not. This quote is talking about like what this dude thinks he does; it has no application to anyone else that identifies as a programmer.
- xmonkee 12y ago
  It's Peter Norvig. He definitely paints murals when he's writing code. If his code doesn't qualify as art then there's hardly anyone on the planet who's can.