I usually ask myself questions about the most trivial things. Among these there is also investigating why I like a given thing or why I don’t.
I have often wondered why I like coding and, writing music since I was a teenager, I think I have identified several things that these two have in common.
The first similarity I found is that inspiration is needed. Although it seems counterintuitive for those unfamiliar with the world of coding, inspiration is a very important help. In music is even essential. The inspiration you need to fix a bug and the one you need to complete a chorus are really very similar because the two draw on both experience and creativity.
Creativity is another aspect in common as well as the fluctuating state that can affect: many times, in both writing music and coding, a person can feel stuck, without creativity, remaining unproductive for a long time, even ending up thinking that he/she is not made to continue writing code or music, while other times creativity flows copiously, and he/she becomes extremely productive.
In addition to inspiration and creativity, in writing music and coding you need to know how to get out of the lines and know how to adapt, to improvise, but always staying within the rules because, if you violate the basic rules, in music you’ll get a note out of tune or something unlistenable, while in coding... well, I certainly don't have to specify what happens.
Furthermore, both for music and for coding, you need to study and practice a lot, you need to learn and execute. In both cases discipline and repetition (even boring) of the basics is necessary but all this is still fun and rewarding if you have passion. Here, even passion is an element in common: if you write music or code, you need passion, otherwise... it shows.
Finally, when you complete a large section of code or a song you get a great satisfaction: I clearly feel a “completeness” feeling, having created something of my own and that works as I imagined.
So, is coding like making art? No, it is certainly not the same thing because they are very different in a lot of aspects but, as I have described, they have some interesting similarities.
Do you agree with my thinking? Is there any other similarity I missed?
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