Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Programming is Art

orchidfiles.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 210 posts

Re: Programming is Art

#181

Post by deaton »

jpswade wrote: post #141

If this were true, there would be a large market for artisan code. There isn't. That doesn't take anything away from the knowledge work that happens when you develop software, but the code itself is not the art. The solution is the art. Perhaps like most popular art, it's more about the story behind it.

There probably will be soon, given the reliability issues associated with vibe software. Whats probably going away is the hand-coded "it technically works" slop we've been cranking out for decades, since companies realized it was cheaper to have bad code.

Re: Programming is Art

#182

Post by Kuyawa »

> They write code simply because they can’t help but write it

Addiction, it's a kind of addiction impossible to fight

I am 60yo and I code everyday for the sake of it. I use AI extensively as it helps me create more apps than before, one every couple of days. I don't sell them, I hoard them like if having more apps makes my universe bigger. My addiction has no sense at all but I don't try to fight it as it produces immense frustration and much greater pleasure, and that extreme change in moods is what makes the addiction stronger, just like a gambler or a fentanyl abuser

That's me, and I don't want to be cured

Re: Programming is Art

#183

Post by renegat0x0 »

For me programming is not art, and it is visible in my code. Code is a mean of achieving functionality. I can accept temporary workarounds, or ugly hacks. I often do them in a way to update them later on. Programming is fluid, parts can be fixed later on.

Re: Programming is Art

#184

Post by snsisnwjxnwjd »

noduerme wrote: post #2

I like and believe in this paradigm, because I'm an artist ... I'm a painter and a musician, fiction writer and coder. Each satisfy something different for me intellectually. I can sink my mind fully into whichever I'm absorbed in. And I'm a perfectionist at each. But I'm 46 and I was never able to make a living painting, writing or playing music, although I spent years trying my hand at those things while waiting ta…

> I'm glad that people who are building their dreams still appreciate the artistry that we engineers and designers put into what we build, but I'm even less sure it's good business for a startup now than I was 20 years ago.

The fact that you are making this a us vs them situation makes you seem like you are more humble-bragging that you belong on the “actually doing something” side while all the other are on the “they need my expertise and my expertise alone”.

C’mon now man. You’re 46. This is the type of talk that belongs in high school.

Re: Programming is Art

#186

Post by xboxnolifes »

bigupthewhole wrote: post #99
Martin_Silenus wrote: post #92

Well, my way of thinking about it is basically that I did not spend my life shiting on over-engineered-bloated-Golberg-machine source code written by so-called programmers to finish my life asking agents to generate these same stuff 10x faster. I love code, you don't, fine. So be it.

While this was true 1+ years ago, the agents don't write bad code anymore. They might not write according to your preferences, but you can also have it adjust to your style. Also, humans didn't evolve to write or read code, even the best programmers are terrible at it from an objective point of view, if we compare it to what is theoretically possible.

Didn't evolve to write or read code? Obviously! Humans designed and created programming languages to be human readable and writable. It didnt exist to be evolved toward.

Re: Programming is Art

#187

Post by esafak »

OtherShrezzing wrote: post #53

I'd say this article is a stronger argument that "programming can be a hobby" than "programming is an art". Lots of people do lots of things for enjoyment without a salary, and we tend not to call all of those things an artform. There's lots of competing definitions of art, but I don't think the article has reasonably linked programming to any of them. Maybe there's a thin & stretched link to the concept of a starvin…

That's why people are so angry. Their livelihood is being reduced to a 'hobby', like stamp collecting. Oh, you code in your space time? How cute!

Re: Programming is Art

#188

Post by _rousbound »

p2detar wrote: post #120

Weaving is art. Should we replace "programming" and "programmers" with "weaving" and "weavers" in this write-up and refer to history and how it worked out for weavers during the industrial revolution, I think it is clear where all this is going. I know some people are mad about this and I am as well. However, as someone that is 20+ years in the field, I feel I've seen enough to say things are fundamentally and irreve…

I think the metaphor is useful to illustrate what can happen in the industry, but reducing the whole matter of AI to this metaphor falls short.

Programs are not clothes that we dress and undress, specially when running on our cellphones, they are more like organs.

Re: Programming is Art

#189

Post by _doctor_love »

luxcem wrote: post #109
trashb wrote: post #46

I am (still) not a proponent for AI, however I hope AI might do to programming what the camera did to painting, and I hope that will be a good thing. What we understand as painting today is very different then what painting meant pre-camera. Now it is mostly a leisure activity and creative outlet. Where back in the day it was a serious occupation for capturing reality, and therefore creativity was taking second stage…

Nobody will go to an exhibition or a museum to stare at code like we do with paintings. The public for creative programming is really thin.

Friend, get yourself down here: https://computerhistory.org/

Re: Programming is Art

#190

Post by trashb »

_m_p wrote: post #143
trashb wrote: post #46

I am (still) not a proponent for AI, however I hope AI might do to programming what the camera did to painting, and I hope that will be a good thing. What we understand as painting today is very different then what painting meant pre-camera. Now it is mostly a leisure activity and creative outlet. Where back in the day it was a serious occupation for capturing reality, and therefore creativity was taking second stage…

> back in the day it was a serious occupation for capturing reality, and therefore creativity was taking second stage Source please.

  The invention of photography had a major impact on painting. In the decades 
  after the first photograph was produced in 1829, photographic processes improved 
  and became more widely practiced, depriving painting of much of its historic 
  purpose to provide an accurate record of the observable world.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Painting

Additionally there is a huge historical precedence for capturing images, basically for money either through being a painter in someone's service, patronage or working for commission. These painters would work and follow the directions of the commissioner, even though they may not have agreed with it. This is one of the reasons for the English "rectangular livestock" paintings.

https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/rectangular-cows/

In dutch there is a word "broodschilder" (literally bread painter) witch means painter who paints for a living (commercial) / hack painter. In history these painters often where seen as doing a craft in the same way a carpenter works with requirements and requests for the picture, make it happen. Often the painters where not even not able to sign their work (for example religious commission).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Court_painter

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_patronage

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commission_(art)

Post reply on HN