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Yeah, I've come across my fair share of developers, who you might consider to be artists - if you think abstract squiggles are art! And in amongst those squiggles, are some lovely, (artistic?) booby-traps, that the rest of us have to watch out for.
In my experience, the developers with genuine practical abilities are the ones that develop code I would be most happy to pick up. I would take someone who can build a house over someone with a degree in Art, every time.
Good developers are artisans, not artists.
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5teveH wrote: Good developers are artisans, not artists.
Perfect wording, I will remember it.
GCS/GE d--(d) s-/+ a C+++ U+++ P-- L+@ E-- W+++ N+ o+ K- w+++ O? M-- V? PS+ PE Y+ PGP t+ 5? X R+++ tv-- b+(+++) DI+++ D++ G e++ h--- r+++ y+++* Weapons extension: ma- k++ F+2 X
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Even a artisan is an artist, not known in the world, but known in his "little" country world 
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This is inspiring me to start a related thread.
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took the words right out of my mouth. I think early on in their career, every developer needs to be assigned to a maintenance project. They get a bonus if they stick it out. It will make every piece of their future code scarred with the sins of the past.
You analogy - the bad developers take a perfectly good landscape and sling red paint on it. Some of the most "artistic" developers I've worked with cannot comprehend the results of their "red paint."
Charlie Gilley
“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
Has never been more appropriate.
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Some of the most "artistic" developers I've worked with cannot comprehend the results of their "red paint."
Yep! Nailed it. 
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I concur, good developers are artisans.
Reading well formatted logical code, with adequate, not overlong,
identifiers, producing something that reads almost like natural language,
is a bit like admiring a skilled weaver's fabric. 
Cheers
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This would be my preference as well!
I know, I know - a bad workman blames his tools - but given half decent graphics editing tools I'm not incompetent at graphics stuff. This editor though ... it's a PITA.
Bob is now up to two arms and one hand, but that took me an hour and my eyes are bleeding again. 
* I use Corel Paintshop Pro and have for decades now, back when it was still the "Yet Another Software Company" product. It's pretty damn good and gets better when you learn how to fly it (even if it is a Corel product: company motto: "Add bugs and complicate")
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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Programmers are creative, at least the good ones. To be creative you need an artistic component, but you also need a lot of know-how and, in many of the fields we operate, science.
So I'd say either 50% art and 50% practical knowledge or 33% art, 33% practical knowledge and 33% science. The remaining 1% is for profanity.
GCS/GE d--(d) s-/+ a C+++ U+++ P-- L+@ E-- W+++ N+ o+ K- w+++ O? M-- V? PS+ PE Y+ PGP t+ 5? X R+++ tv-- b+(+++) DI+++ D++ G e++ h--- r+++ y+++* Weapons extension: ma- k++ F+2 X
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den2k88 wrote: The remaining 1% is for profanity.
Or craziness 
M.D.V. 
If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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Years ago I worked for a company that would only employ people with degrees as programmers. So we had programmers with degrees in history, geography, literature etc., who could not program their way through a door.
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Interesting publication. But one who wrote like me can also be considered an artist
10 CLS
20 Print "Your Name (N for exit)";: Input "",W$
30 if W$="N" goto 100
40 Print "Good morning"; W$
100 END
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I think you forgot:
50 GOTO 10
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You are in right
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Creatives certainly, not necessarily artists.
But mostly we fall into the "other professional thinking persons" category.
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In the past yes. But the industry has "evolved" to a point where everyone uses a library for everything, understands nothing, and Google's stack overflow to get their job done. It's not being an artist to let ChatGPT do everything for you. And, most coders are already doing that - just with stack overflow.
Jeremy Falcon
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Jeremy Falcon wrote: everyone uses a library for everything, understands nothing, and Google's stack overflow to get their job done
I beg to differ. I can think of quite a few people, some of them even CPians, whom I would call artisans. They certainly do not write their code by stitching together bits and bobs from SO.
That is not to say that there aren't plenty of incompetent programmers out there, just as there are incompetent doctors, lawyers, etc. etc.
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.
-- 6079 Smith W.
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Daniel Pfeffer wrote: I beg to differ.
You're being entirely too literal. If you read the next part after your quote, you'll see I also used to the word most. Which while, if I were being pedantic too, sounds contradictory. But, in your typical, every day, colloquial conversation peeps shouldn't be that literal with one solitary part of the entire post with a word like "everyone" when the entirety of the rest of the post "contradicts" that. Also, refer to the title of my post for the further context.
Daniel Pfeffer wrote: That is not to say that there aren't plenty of incompetent programmers out there, just as there are incompetent doctors, lawyers, etc. etc.
Which is my point Daniel. Context...
Jeremy Falcon
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Jeremy Falcon wrote: And, most coders are already doing that - just with stack overflow.
I have not really seen that. If for no other reason then I would expect some of them to do a better job if they were just pasting existing pieces together.
Jeremy Falcon wrote: to a point where everyone uses a library for everything
Nothing wrong with any practical endeavor to seek short cuts. For example pre-constructed housing even with custom designs are increasing. Manufactured wood is also being used more extensively. Absolutely no one that does any modern civil engineering does it on a an easel with pencils and paper. CRISPR allows one to create new biology and analyzing existing biological products can be done perhaps in minutes now versus years (decades) that it took before.
No doubt those new tools can be misused. Probably some that use them do not even understand what they are doing. And that could and probably does lead to problems. But ability to do much more complex projects makes it worth it.
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I've already asked you to leave me alone... more than once. Clearly you don't listen and enjoy abusive relationships. If CP had a blocking feature you'd be blocked. But, all you're doing is showing the world just how little you value healthy relationships.
Jeremy Falcon
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There's nothing inherently wrong in using libraries.
A photographer is using a camera instead of paint and a brush. But doesn't need to know how the camera works to be able to produce beautiful pictures.
But as with all things, a good camera doesn't make a good photographer.
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Going out on that sidetrack (You invited to it! And, I will stay within the creative realm).
Jörgen Andersson wrote: But doesn't need to know how the camera works to be able to produce beautiful pictures.
Doesn't have to, that is true. If you want to use motion blur as a creative effect, you should have a good understanding of shutter speeds, and in the silver days: The differences between a central shutter and a focal plane shutter. Also, when using a flash, the shutter mechanism is/was essential.
Understanding how the aperture affects depth of field is very useful if you want to use out-of-focus as a picture element.
In the silver days, understanding graining was essential if you wanted to use it creatively. In principle, we have the same todays, but the pixel resolution is regular, not random like the grains. So you can deliberately use low resolution (i.e. enlarging only a small part of the image) and use the 'staircase' effect creatively.
And so on. Like, you can become a composer without going to any music school, but some training in music theory sure helps! (You may be surprised by how many composers of even the simplest popular music tunes actually have a formal music education!)
But as with all things, a good camera doesn't make a good photographer. Most certainly true! Then: I've heard too many (amateur) photographers using shortcomings of their equipment as an excuse for their photos not being quite what they allegedly could have been, given better equipment. So I very early decided that the requirements for my equipment is that it should be so good that I could never blame the equipment for my poor pictures.
I have stuck to that since my late teenage years. I never blame my equipment.
A curious case:
My first digital camera didn't have a very sensitive sensor. In low level light (i.e. 'highest ISO setting', in modern terms) it created a lot of noise; the image was speckled with multicolored dots. In one of my favorite photos (it show an old man in a wheelchair in front of a grave, I guess it is the grave of his wife or children), the specks create an "impressionistic" character, like that of a few painters that created their pictures from thousands of small dots. This character adds a very special touch to my photo. Lots of my photo friends are eager to point out the 'noise', and I stop them in the track: That is exactly what I wanted for this picture. The veil of color specs create a 'dreamy' distance to the subject, carries it over from a concrete, material world over to a world of memories, thoughts and feelings. Once I explain this, most of the respond with an acknowledging nod.
This is an example of using the weaknesses and limitations of the camera in a creative way. To do that, you certainly should know something about how your equipment works.
As a youth spending a fortune of both time and money on my photo hobby, I came across a golden rule: 'A photo should never show something - it should be something'. I try to live by that. Modern auto-focus, super-sharp and super-sensitive cameras are very good at showing whatever you point it at, but to make images that are something. That takes a little more.
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You totally conveyed the point in a very detailed way. It's ok to lean on others (libraries) but that's no excuse for knowing nothing about it. To bring it back to development, I can't begin to tell you how many frontend developers know nothing about CSS, color correction and spaces, etc. There's always some UI library to do the grunt work and they barely know how to use that and call themselves devs.
I suppose on one hand that would be ok, but don't call yourself a developer. These days everyone is an "engineer" because they learned how to bold text in a spreadsheet.
Jeremy Falcon
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