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

191–200 of 214 posts

Re: Programming is Art

#191

Post by spankibalt »

camblomquist wrote: post #175
stein1946 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nothing, ever, is just a tool. Are you going to expand on this or should we stand in awe?

It didn't receive much attention on HN but someone recently wrote a blogpost that elaborates on the idea. https://deadsimpletech.com/blog/no-such-thing-as-just-a-tool

No need to go to Heidegger's Sein und Zeit, once required reading in many a school where I'm from; the logical conclusion and application of polysemy [1], amongst other things, should get the ball rolling just as well.

1. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polysemy]

Re: Programming is Art

#192

Post by Martin_Silenus »

teaearlgraycold wrote: post #119
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.

I have some lines of code I’ve written that I quite cherish. I’ve posted about such excerpts many times online. So we both like code quite a bit. I think you’re letting your pride get the best of you. Writing software should not be about ego. It’s about making something helpful, or something beautiful, or at the very least financially useful. Interacting with software through a natural language interface does not man…

It didn't click, did it? You're a kind person, you know, but I'm not. I'm a misanthropic megalomaniac guy.

> I think you’re letting your pride get the best of you. Writing software should not be about ego. It’s about making something helpful, or something beautiful

The things I'm the proudest of are, by far, the most useless and unhelpful ones. The ones I did for myself. The ones that made me think "wow, now I rock!" and the machine spit its guts crying "mummy help me". That's what the demoscene (to name one subculture) was all about. That's what hacking is all about in the first place.

> or at the very least financially useful

These have always been the ones I'm the most ashamed about. These were the things I would not have done for myself, but for other people. The ones that kept me living, not the ones that made me feel alive. What did you think I was talking about?

> But I am sure if you were sufficiently motivated you’d learn how to make it work for you.

I'm motivated to code. I'm not an architect, a QA tester, or whatever, I'm a coder. Now, wanna know what kind of person I am and how I made LLMs work for me long before you suggest it here? Read that:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48072319#48073350

Then, come back and we can talk. I WILL NOT ASK A MACHINE SOMETHING I LOVE TO DO MYSELF, WHICH I TAKE PLEASURE FROM. If that looks like an idiotic and stubborn stance to you, FINE.

Re: Programming is Art

#193

Post by Twey »

_doctor_love wrote: post #189
luxcem wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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/

Or here: https://this-museum-is-not-obsolete.com/

Re: Programming is Art

#194

Post by createful »

Kuyawa wrote: post #182

> 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 i…

This!

This is exactly why I can't understand the AI mental health stuff about it being demotivating. I find it exciting to build apps in the same way, I don't pump out apps like a machine gun, but I do manage to make high quality apps I can maintain myself, as I've discovered. It just takes effort, which I'm willing to put in with AI. Never understood the hate around that. It's possible to have "soul" or anything that normal, "artisanal" apps have if you put in effort, and AI made it easier, at least for me, to put in effort.

Re: Programming is Art

#195

Post by rafaelRiv »

WCSTombs wrote: post #6

> I love building startups, and they love writing code. For me, building projects is a way to make money. For them, programming is art. At its very high points programming approaches art, but programming is primarily problem solving, which isn't fundamentally artistic because its main goal is correctness and fitness for purpose, not aesthetic value. I'm pretty sure for most of us the choice to use LLMs or not has not…

> programming is primarily problem solving

It is more than that in the sense that I have a lot of obligations to understanding the code. The reason is that if I don't understand the code, I will not be able to answer questions that are asked to me. And those answers are generally very important for the future of the business.

Code is art in the sense that I need to arrange it such as I can actually make it maintainable, readable, easy to add new features and make it that I can answers questions very easily.

LLMs remove this ability because it doesn't let me the time to absorb the change as such that I can guaranties those 4 requirements. It just concentrate on adding new features without making sure it doesn't break the other 3 requirements.

To guaranties those for 4 points, I need a mental map of the code which llm generally remove. The more we use llms, the less of a mental map you have of the code

Re: Programming is Art

#196

Post by hackable_sand »

123816 wrote: post #136
bluebarbet wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Excellent analogy which I'm annoyed I didn't think of myself.

That is a sharp observation! It is the true North Star of analogies!

I've literally never heard of a better analogy for any other idea ever.

It's absolutely amazing.

Re: Programming is Art

#197

Post by bluebarbet »

hackable_sand wrote: post #196
123816 wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is a sharp observation! It is the true North Star of analogies!

I've literally never heard of a better analogy for any other idea ever. It's absolutely amazing.

I'm glad we all agree (i.e. you, me, and the bot you're replying to).

Re: Programming is Art

#198

Post by hackable_sand »

bluebarbet wrote: post #197
hackable_sand wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've literally never heard of a better analogy for any other idea ever. It's absolutely amazing.

I'm glad we all agree (i.e. you, me, and the bot you're replying to).

I would make some miniscule edits though.

Replace the "photography" in this instance with a clay pigeon and the "painting" with a real pigeon.

Re: Programming is Art

#199

Post by [deleted] »

trashb wrote: post #190
_m_p wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 f…

[deleted]

Re: Programming is Art

#200

Post by drTobiasFunke »

giancarlostoro wrote: post #159

The best code I've ever seen written were friends who don't code for a living, they code for the love of it, and you can tell they love what they are doing.

Are you sure thats not because there is no concern of a deadlines, time to get things out faster than competition, politics, cross team opinions and competing business goals?
Post reply on HN