131–140 of 183 posts
Being a non-creator, the quote at the end of the article has hit me so hard, I cannot get it off my head for hours now: "When you don’t create things, you become defined by your tastes rather than ability. Your tastes only narrow and exclude people. so create." As for the programming is a science or art debate: It is' of course wrong to make such a dichotomy. People who draw a thick boundary between these two, I thin…
Being a non-creator, the quote at the end of the article has hit me so hard, I cannot get it off my head for hours now: "When you don’t create things, you become defined by your tastes rather than ability. Your tastes only narrow and exclude people. so create." As for the programming is a science or art debate: It is' of course wrong to make such a dichotomy. People who draw a thick boundary between these two, I thin…
programming is neither art nor science, it's engineering.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
programming is neither art nor science, it's engineering.
But engineering is an art that makes extensive use of science.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
But engineering is an art that makes extensive use of science.
Sounds like you're using the "anything done well is an art" definition of art which is... uhh... bull. it just dilutes the term. see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art . "programming" doesn't even make it as a "disputed category". sorry.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If I hack together a web application in Scheme, instead of some Mathemagical, Dijkstra-approved language, does that make me an "artist"? Dijkstra would not have liked this.
:) Was it Dijkstra that advocated writing everything in assembly, or am I thinking of someone else? I know he was big on formally verifying the correctness of programs, but I thought I remember him saying that for implementation purposes, he advocated assembly. Or was that more of a "if you can't write it in assembly, you don't understand all the parts" deal? It seems he hated FORTRAN, APL, BASIC, and PL/1, and only…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I guess we disagree on the definition of art. Those disposable chopsticks still required the search for a satisfactory length, width, smoothness, etc. Not to mention, the label and the marketing which equally requires a mastery of human psychology in order to get their product to sell. In this way, the designers have added something great and unique to the world which many people enjoy and use every day. This is art.…
In that case everything is art and the word loses all its meaning.
He was sort of like a contemporary one-man open source Beagle Bros. Unfortunately there is no place in current programming culture for people like this. Programming is not art. It is certainly not whimsical. It is fun, but only fun like preparing for a rocket launch or hostile takeover is fun. Programming is science, it's engineering, it's methodology, it is bureaucracy. More importantly it is Serious Business. Progr…
Surely there must be more hackers that think like _why, even if they are not as high-profile. Maybe someone should start a (loosely knit) network of such people. Or maybe it already exists. I for one would definitely be interested in joining. :-)
Which is, not coincidently, why _why's detractors tend to feel the need to throw in a comment about how much they dislike Ruby.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
But engineering is an art that makes extensive use of science.
Sounds like you're using the "anything done well is an art" definition of art which is... uhh... bull. it just dilutes the term. see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art . "programming" doesn't even make it as a "disputed category". sorry.
I'm prepared to agree to disagree on this, but I'm not prepared to agree that Wikipedia has the last word on the subject. Sorry.
He was sort of like a contemporary one-man open source Beagle Bros. Unfortunately there is no place in current programming culture for people like this. Programming is not art. It is certainly not whimsical. It is fun, but only fun like preparing for a rocket launch or hostile takeover is fun. Programming is science, it's engineering, it's methodology, it is bureaucracy. More importantly it is Serious Business. Progr…
Good stuff comes out of organization, great stuff comes of inspiration, which only comes from playing with ideas.
Theres a great Feynman quote from just after he got out of the Manhattan project, where he describes his decision to not think about "Serious Problems" and instead just concentrate on playing with interesting ideas.