My answer to all of these is yet another question---'How not?' Before I became a programmer, I'd spent most of my life as an art major. The last thing I did before the switch was a honorable mention in that years Sterling Silver Today competition. I would certainly have continued except for the small matter of making a living! Not wanting to do things by halves, I walked across the campus and sat down in front of a model 029 keypunch machine and 'never looked back'! Needless to say I got a lot of 'cross discipline' questions, mostly along the lines of 'how could you do that?' My answer over the years has gradually distilled down to the observation that all things considered, I hadn't really changed anything.

To me, all there is an addiction to creation. The desire to create something that hadn't existed before by the exercise of ones mind and body is at the basis of everything I do. I've know this since I was capable of reflective thinking. For me writing a program and running it provides exactly the same 'fix' that designing a drinking cup in gold and silver does. There is no discernable difference between casting bronze and cutting code. In physical detail the design of a program in Perl and a painting in mixed media may differ by the process of traveling from concept to actuality is the same. No matter how you dress it up, design is still design. It doesn't matter if you call it an art, a science, a craft or voodoo---it is still the same thing. Obviously the 'subject' may change, but all of the rest stays the same. And frankly if you don't enjoy design and creation, I really wouldn't recommend either programming or being an art major!

--hsm

"Never try to teach a pig to sing...it wastes your time and it annoys the pig."

In reply to Re: Fun in Programming by hsmyers
in thread Fun in Programming by artist

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