Who Works With ‘Creative Coders?’
timstutts.com
Who Works With ‘Creative Coders?’
1–10 of 46 posts
Re: Who Works With ‘Creative Coders?’
#2an upvote would probably be sufficient, but wanted to say thanks to the author for making a great list. i've been looking for this!
Re: Who Works With ‘Creative Coders?’
#3This is a very exciting trend, and I'm glad more designers are jumping into code. As an art school dropout who later finished a CS degree, the combination of skills is invaluable.
I honestly believe that the most difficult work in creating something new/innovative is skewed to the design side, so I hope we see a corresponding trend as well: programmers becoming more interested in design.
I like to think of 'creative coders' as great chefs - not only can they dream up a great tasting dish, they can also roll up their sleeves and turn it into an actual meal. A (web/app) designer who shies away from code is like the visionary chef who needs to rely on others to do the cooking, while a programmer who is not concerned with design is little more than a line cook following instructions.
Edit: spelling.
Re: Who Works With ‘Creative Coders?’
#4I agree with all of the sentiments in the article, but the one small thing that I do disagree with is the conflation of the word "creative" with what the author seems to indicate are artistic or graphical/visual disciplines.
I believe that all programming, whether or not it's graphical or "artistic" in nature, is creative. Development is just as much a craft as it is a logical discipline. Learning algorithms, data structures, and software engineering techniques is only half the battle. As "coders", we are knowledge workers. Our job is to solve a problem; the discipline of computer programming is nothing more than a tool that we use to solve our problems. And creative thinking can be utilized any time someone needs to solve a problem.
Most truly great programmers and/or computer scientists, at least in my opinion, held on to some level of creativity. Dijkstra never developed a single GUI in his life, but saying that the work he did wasn't "creative" would be insulting. You could say similar things about people such as von Neumann, or even more concrete computer scientists like Kay, Stroustrup, etc.
The idea that creativity is inherently tied to "emotional" pursuits like art, design, music, etc. is a little reductionist. Creativity, like programming, is a tool. It's the ability to enter a creative mindset and use creative thought processes to approach a problem, and it is also a refinable skill and not a trait. Creative thinking is just as approachable and general as critical thinking, but so often people who aren't "artistic" reduce themselves to also being not "creative", and I don't think that's very correct.
One of the best descriptions of creativity I've ever heard was in a talk delivered by John Cleese. If you have 30 minutes, I highly recommend watching it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VShmtsLhkQg
Re: Who Works With ‘Creative Coders?’
#5This is a very exciting trend, and I'm glad more designers are jumping into code. As an art school dropout who later finished a CS degree, the combination of skills is invaluable. I honestly believe that the most difficult work in creating something new/innovative is skewed to the design side, so I hope we see a corresponding trend as well: programmers becoming more interested in design. I like to think of 'creative…
> while a programmer who is not concerned with design is little more than a line cook following instructions.
I disagree with this and am inclined to take offence. Programming is not at all like following a simple recipe. Perhaps if the chef specifies that the line cooks must raise special chickens to be slaughtered for the main dish, keeps a herb garden that the line cooks have to maintain, puts the line cooks in charge of estimating and purchasing ingredients, and gets them to experiment with genetically engineering food to taste good in the dish, maybe then there is hope for a comparison.
Re: Who Works With ‘Creative Coders?’
#6I wonder if any places like hacker school, et. al. have creative coding projects? I would be inclined to think that hacker school is probably the one that would be closest, as the other places seem more focused on web development.
Re: Who Works With ‘Creative Coders?’
#7This is a very exciting trend, and I'm glad more designers are jumping into code. As an art school dropout who later finished a CS degree, the combination of skills is invaluable. I honestly believe that the most difficult work in creating something new/innovative is skewed to the design side, so I hope we see a corresponding trend as well: programmers becoming more interested in design. I like to think of 'creative…
You know, there is quite a bit of very interesting programming that does not culminate in a web-app or even a GUI. If anything, this is where the most interesting work lies: embedded systems, AI, machine learning, compilers, static analysis, distributed systems...
The problems in these spaces require a significant amount of ingenuity and creativity but no design. (I'm assuming you mean visual design rather than something more general.)
Re: Who Works With ‘Creative Coders?’
#8I agree with all of the sentiments in the article, but the one small thing that I do disagree with is the conflation of the word "creative" with what the author seems to indicate are artistic or graphical/visual disciplines. I believe that all programming, whether or not it's graphical or "artistic" in nature, is creative. Development is just as much a craft as it is a logical discipline. Learning algorithms, data st…
I think in this context he's using "creative" in the sense that it's used in the advertising industry. A creative is someone who actually works on developing an advertisement, rather than, say, someone buying up airtime. The companies on the list are almost all advertising agencies. It's just the industry nomenclature and I don't think he meant to say that programmers in the non-advertising world aren't creative.
Re: Who Works With ‘Creative Coders?’
#9I agree with all of the sentiments in the article, but the one small thing that I do disagree with is the conflation of the word "creative" with what the author seems to indicate are artistic or graphical/visual disciplines. I believe that all programming, whether or not it's graphical or "artistic" in nature, is creative. Development is just as much a craft as it is a logical discipline. Learning algorithms, data st…
Could be that it's just "creative" as design department vs "coder" as development department.
Having said that, I agree that there can be great creativity in programming.
Re: Who Works With ‘Creative Coders?’
#10I'm happy to see this thread on front page. Some of those projects seem to be very challenging and interesting. I would be careful however with the creative coder concept. Most of the work done in interactive installations is highly unusual and takes from graphics programming, computer vision, physics programming and sometimes integration with social media. Solid programming background is a must - I don't really see how knowing processing or three.js suddenly makes you a creative coder. I would rather define it as a all-round developer with loads of ideas on how to make unconventional combinations of technology work together.