coding as an art form
Two of my most time-consuming passions are coding and songwriting. (Yes I was once the frontman of a small alt rock detail – I assure you that you’ve never heard of us). Maybe because of that i find a lot of parellels between the two – especially between crafting lyrics and building code.
As much as we call it computer science – and there is much science to it – programming shares much with poetry – and I mean that literally, not in a fancy poetic way. Both have a (generally) limited set of words to use. You put all those words (or keywords) together to produce a larger meaning. The devil is in the details. As a perfectionistic lyricist it’s easy to generally convey an idea, but I would often tweak each word of a line until I felt they expressed exactly what I desired. The same occurs with code – where the same function can be coded thousands of different ways – yet we each strive for our own “perfect” permutation of code.
In my short coding experience – this has led me to the conclusion that coding is in many ways an art form. And I thoroughly enjoy that. It’s not just functionality. It’s creativity. Increasing vocubulary (keywords) and really understanding the grammar (syntax) of the coding language will not just allow for more efficient code, but more beautiful code. In many ways efficiency and beauty work together in code. When you come across a succinct powerful set of code – it’s pleasing to the eye; not to mention how an application that “just works” is pleasing to users.
You may this is a load of bull, that’s ok. It is a bit cheesy. Still I think everyone takes value in creating something pleasing. Create something beautiful with your code.
