21–30 of 30 posts
I think defining an artform is populist. Therefore, you have to start somewhere. The emergence of "Programming Appreciation" courses would be a tipping point.
Having slogged through the 3 volumes of the 3rd Edition of TAOCP, I came away with 2 impressions: 1) How did Knuth work art into the title? 2) Disappointment that he took so long coming out with subsequent volumes. So long, that I no longer care about reading the subsequent volumes.
I think defining an artform is populist. Therefore, you have to start somewhere. The emergence of "Programming Appreciation" courses would be a tipping point.
Defining an artform is supporting the rights and power of the people in their struggle against the privileged elite? That's the only definition of populist (as adj.) I can find; do you mean that?
When people who are not computer programmers can appreciate the art of computer programming, then you can define it as an art, not before.
I think of programming as something similar to carpentry. A craft capable of producing useful things that can also be appreciated as works of skill in their own right, and must be practiced regularly.
Is mathematics (theorem proving) an art?
But there is a stage where the art finishes, and you have to convert the proof into a communicable description of the proof. This is where you have to create a complete narrative, starting from known and agreed statements and deriving a sequence of statements using agreed deductive principles.
The artistry is in finding the why of your theorem, in selecting your path through the infinitely large set of exponentially branching possibilities, and being guided some sense of "rightness," or beauty.
I've always (for some definition of "always") felt that finding conjectures tends to be a science. You gather data, you find patterns, you form hypotheses, you make predictions, you test your predictions, you gain confidence, and eventually you state your conjecture. So far you've been doing science.
Then you have to proof your result. Without an indefinable sense of a guiding "truth" you are then lost. Mechanical manipulations are of little value, you need a sense of where you are going.
There is the art.
Finally, when you have your proof, you need to give directions, to take others through the steps and thus convince them. That is exposition (of a sort), which is a combination of art and science, but a different art and a different science.
So yes, proving theorems is an art, and as with all arts there is much to be gained from training, but there must be the spark underneath to achieve real distinction.
That's what I lacked, although I have enough to see and appreciate it in others.
Is mathematics (theorem proving) an art?
I like to think of it as Hofstadter suggests; theorem proving is mechanical, but there is a very beautiful art in selection of the axioms.
Demonstrating a proof can be mechanical, which is why proof assistants such as Coq can work, but finding a proof, that's an art.
It would be nice if psychologists would be honest and introspective enough to call their field an Art... at least until the appearance of a Hari Seldon.
When I see articles like this that show a deep understanding on the present state and the future of programming, it makes me sad. Because if these kinds of ideas were articulated 35 years ago, I'd expect that by now we would have progressed much more.
Having slogged through the 3 volumes of the 3rd Edition of TAOCP, I came away with 2 impressions: 1) How did Knuth work art into the title? 2) Disappointment that he took so long coming out with subsequent volumes. So long, that I no longer care about reading the subsequent volumes.
That's too bad, since there's some great stuff in Volume 4. In fact, it's my favorite volume in the series (so far.)
It would be nice if psychologists would be honest and introspective enough to call their field an Art... at least until the appearance of a Hari Seldon.
The Hari Seldon of psychology is John Gottman: http://tinyurl.com/y9952j5
btw, heres a blurb on Asimovs Foundation series fictional character http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hari_Seldon, the founder of mathematical psychology of masses, 'psychohistory'.