It's a little unclear whether the question being asked is, "are software creators artists?", versus, "can software be perceived as art by a user?" Seems like th

It's a little unclear whether the question being asked is, "are software creators artists?", versus, "can software be perceived as art by a user?" Seems like the OP's question is more in line of this second version. We should probably refine the question further to: whether there's much out there capable of it at the moment, versus whether it's possible in principle. It's clearly possible in principle, if you concede that it's a medium that can express visual and auditory info with sufficient richness for the creation of art (and of course with a little imagination you can see visual/auditory modes are a small subset of what's possible in principle). As for what's out there at the moment, I'm confident saying my deepest experiences of artistic feeling have been in using software; and I hear similar echoed by others. As far as 'what it is' as a human activity, my feeling is it's kinda like a magnet with one pole art and the other engineering/craft.