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I think there is a fundamental difference between the creative acts of programming and producing artwork. The programmer has a requirement of what the program o
by jorleif 17y ago
I think there is a fundamental difference between the creative acts of programming and producing artwork. The programmer has a requirement of what the program or piece of it should do, and the creative problem, is how to do express this in code. The problem with reading code, is that the original problem is not present in the code, and the purpose of the code is not to express something to a human viewer, but mainly for a machine to execute. In that way the creativity is a lot more like the mathematicians creativity than the artists. The difference to mathematics, is that in programming the resulting code is usually quite long. What one would need is to condense the code in a way similar to how a mathematician does with his formulas, so that only the most essential ideas remain. Some people are very good at that (Peter Norvig comes to mind), but most codebases for actual software are not at all like that.
- GavinB 17y agoMany artists have a requriement for what their art should do. For instance, a film composer has to create a soundtrack that enhances the emotional content of a film. They may have broad discretion, but ultimately their goals are largely defined by the existing narrative and pacing of the movie.