> Sure, but the process is "what you do" which directly contradicts what you're saying.
”What you do” was just short for the _activity_ that you’re doing, eg ”I am coding” or ”I am building a car”, which does not determine the extent of how creative it is. Building ikea furniture from instructions would be low on the creative scale, whereas making a chair from woodworking might be higher, for most people.
> Sure but most programmers don't do [side projects]. My point is that you cannot reduce commercial work as not creative just because it's a 9-to-5.
Of course not, some people find that perfect match. That said, employment is not optimized for creativity, so it simply appears unusual that it’s conducive to highly creative work. This is my theory of why many programmers pick up hobbies outside of 9-5 where they have better preconditions, whether it’s side projects (same domain) or woodworking (different domain). Some find it at their 9-5, and some don’t feel much urge.
> we'll still consider them creative since it is a basic requirement at their 9-5. That is my point - both of them are creative. […] Degrees may vary depending on subjective perception but that was not what was being discussed.
I don’t think it’s even meaningful to discuss creativity without acknowledging that it’s both subjective and that degrees may vary. And yes, problem solving is probably always creative to some degree. But the degree is the important part.
So, I wouldn’t call _them_ creative or not, because again I don’t think it’s a personality trait nor binary. Only the person doing it can tell how creative it feels. Personally I felt mostly uncreative when doing corporate work. I would have loved for it to feel creative, but it didn’t.