Christopher Pitt asked a simple question: Can a developer be called a creative?
I am talking about whether systems architects or PHP developers (like me!) can be called a creative, even though we predominantly deal with code, and our grasp of colours, layout and iconography is limited to the unicode characters we appropriate for console and log messages.
To be honest it never crossed my mind that programming was anything but a creative pursuit, and I’m happy to call myself an artist to anyone that will listen, but I understand why civilians (non-programmers) could see things differently.
A girlfriend once told me programming “looks boring” when I suggested learning a bit of JavaScript and HTML, and many years ago I was roommates with a painter, who, on hearing me proclaim my code was artwork, replied with a condescending, “Yeah, uh huh, sure!”
Yes, I get it. To the casual observer it may appear terribly dreary staring at a monitor all day and night, with the steady drone of click, click, click coming from a keyboard, and I understand why a classic artist (writer, painter, musician) may scoff at the idea of programming as an art form. No one is going to look at my finished work in a gallery, and discuss the artist’s soul while sipping expensive wine.
What people don’t see is the explosion of activity happening in my head while I stare at those bright monitors with my bloodshot eyes. I’ve never surfed the waves of Hawaii, but I get an adrenaline rush from conquering problems. I’ve never played a hit single to a crowed of adoring fans — and certainly never had a hot groupie throw their bra at me — but I know the feeling of being taken to a higher conscience level when I get into a groove.
I know passion and excitement, and I know what it’s like to feel drained, exhausted, high, and elated when a project is finished. Most importantly though, I know how nerve-racking it can be to finally give my work to the world. Will people love it or hate it? Will people understand and appreciate the nuance of my work, or will they think it’s boring and stupid?
Make no mistake about it, programming is a creative pursuit, and I am an artist. I may work with a keyboard and IDE instead of a paint brush or guitar, but I have the same passion and dreams as an artist, and I live and die by the acceptance or rejection of my work by fans. My work may never be seen in a Soho art gallery, but it will be seen by millions of people.
Heck, I even occasionally sit back and admire my code while sipping expensive wine.
Top comments (9)
I am also feel the programming is some kind of art. For example when I created a mordorjs which is my hope is try to dig into javascript deeps and the attached mordor-project code format may answer in this AI heavy ages. But when my wife saw my color codes in IE, she is also proof to me this is a same kind of art pattern, so I am completly agree with your point!
Donald Knuth famously titled his major multi-volume work The Art of Computer Programming. Not as a rhetorical flourish, but to emphasize that programming is not just about correctness and efficiency, but also about judgment, structure, and elegance in how problems are expressed and solved.
Today, with higher-level abstractions, frameworks, and even AI-assisted coding, the question becomes less about whether programming is art or engineering, and more about where human intent, taste, and creativity still meaningfully shape the outcome.
Originally mechanical engineering in the Dark Ages was considered both an craft and an art.
Then, through revisiting the ancient dogmas with the lens of scientific method, mathematics, and really heavy measurements, standardization by non corporate entities, the art and craft turned into a profession which is truly Engineering.
Software is on the right path to grow up.
Until then, it is an art, a craft, a sort of snake oil salesmanship, and we must be aware of that.
So I agree with the article:
Software is in its infancy and does not live up to proper Engineering professions.
But.. one day it might become a reasonable, adult and trustworthy profession with actual de jure standards, and we get rid of those really sneaky and conniving EULAs. I hope.
I've always regarded coding as an art form: there is a beauty in an elegant loop or map, there is form in a well-structured switch and that is even before the code hits the browser. That is why, as a teacher of programming, I put such emphasis on algorithms and structure because it shapes the code into an elegant prose. Bravo.
I believe programming is an emerging art form. The way it is expressed is completely different from traditional art, and it doesn’t provide a way for people who don’t understand programming to appreciate it. It is appreciated primarily among programmers themselves, and it’s even somewhat like a subculture.
Sorry. Art requires an "experiencer" (beholder). It does not exist in the artwork or in the beholder. It is an emergent property (unique to each experience). One person's art is another's crap. Art lives in the interstice.
The experience that the beholder takes from the "artwork" is almost never what the "artist" intended. How then can the artwork be "art"? Want evidence? Look at all the various "song meanings" that users contribute online (or films, etc.). When do they ever match the "artist's" intent?
But it doesn't matter. What matters is what the beholder took from it. If you see Jesus in your morning stool, well, good for you. Rock on.
Coding is a craft. Craft involves both skill and creativity, but the product is craftwork whether anyone sees it or not. Quality, despite what many believe, is fact not opinion. (Taste is opinion, but many confuse the two.)
A piece of code could be an artwork (intended to produce the art experience), and thus might create art when viewed by the right person. But it is not art. At best it is artwork — intended as art.
As for artists, they are generally people who are trying to create the art experience. But they often fail. And the truth is, anyone can create art (and we all do so regularly). When most people say "artist" what they mean is usually not about art but commerce — people who are trying to create "artworks" that will evoke the "art" experience in the right audience (i.e., those with more money than sense). Sadly.
Just sayin'.
Love this. It reminds me how often we try to force programming into either "art" or "engineering," when in reality it's both.
What's interesting is how many of the classics have hinted at this for decades—The Art of Computer Programming, Hackers, The Mythical Man-Month, The Pragmatic Programmer... they all describe software as something that's as much about taste, creativity, and expression as it is about correctness.
The twist today is that AI is changing where the artistry lives. It used to be in every line of code. Increasingly, it's in the architecture, the intent, the constraints, and the ability to shape complex systems into something elegant.
The syntax may become easier. Good taste never will.
But it has been ART ever since. Just imagine ALL the cool projects from glassmorphism to, well, the Aluminium curves of Your programming box (Or plastic on Your Mobile Devices), aren't they art?
This is something I've thought for many years. I completely agree and recognise much of your artistic experience. I can look at someone's well written code and see beauty and even feel moved by it. It's nothing to do with how complex or powerful something might be. Some code just seems to have a sense of awe inspiring style. It's quite a hard thing to describe so well done on putting it into words! 😊