Great Software Entrepreneurs Are Artists • Hacker News Board

Re: Great Software Entrepreneurs Are Artists

#11

Post by the-swa » Thu, Aug 22, 2013, 4:16 PM UTC

the-swa wrote: post #10

Don't get caught up on the word "art" or "artists." There's a great article by Carolyn Dean[0] that goes into depth about the history of the word and the problems with it. What I got out of it is that "calling something art reveals nothing inherent in the object to which the term is applied; rather, it reveals how much the viewer values it." As a software developer, I consider software itself art because I understand…

(And just to clarify, I wouldn't consider all software "art", but neither do I consider all paintings "art" - it's really about the user's/viewer's experience interacting with the piece.)

Re: Great Software Entrepreneurs Are Artists

#12

Post by mathgladiator » Thu, Aug 22, 2013, 5:44 PM UTC

jaegerpicker wrote: post #4

my3681 wrote: post #2

Great software entrepreneur MAY be artists, but it isn't a necessity. Just because you craft or make something doesn't inherently make you an artist. Are the people who make sandwiches at Subway really "sandwich artists"? That said, an appreciation for the arts most certainly affects one's eye for design and taste. It is the difference between a good looking/feeling app and a great one. So much can and should be borr…

On the other hand I think this definition of art is too limited. Are sandwich's art, of course not but art is about creating and communicating beauty/emotion from were it didn't exist. Is software art, it's hard to say. I tend to think software/code is something else. Some that is newer and different than art but that borrows heavily from art. I guess the difference is that I think the code itself is the art rather t…

> Are sandwich's art, of course not

Obviously, you have never had a masterful sandwich.

Re: Great Software Entrepreneurs Are Artists

#13

Post by Zigurd » Thu, Aug 22, 2013, 11:29 PM UTC

Excluding the most rarified fine art, every creative endeavor is a balancing act of money, materials, time, and effort. Good taste and a sense of art is going to guide you to the best result that balances all those factors. What's different about software is that everyone who makes software for public consumption needs taste and artistry.

Once you have your creation, you just flip a switch and as many editions as anyone would want can be created. This makes the boundary between art and commerce in software almost friction-free, unlike, say, designing a car where a factory costing hundreds of millions of dollars is interposed between design and replication.

There are only a handful of big car producers and they only collectively need something on the order of hundreds to low thousands of trained designers. To these designers, art is part of their education. That's just not going to be the case for software developers.