On Programming and the Artist

Hello all,
First let me apologize for the incorrect date attached to this post. I posted this on October 21, 2008. The reason for the error is because I am an idiot with blogs :)
Now,
I often like to post about this particular subject because, it has fascinated me for years and I have noticed that attitudes and concepts are changing.
I posed the question "How do you perceive the programmer and programming, and how do you define the roles of the artist/ non programmer, as part of the the process?"
I asked this of a few people I met from Carnegie Mellon University who are programmers.
This is their (combined) answer;

""I've always felt that there's a strong aesthetic aspect to programming. 'Beautiful' and 'elegant' solutions and APIs, but in the end those aspects are subjective, and the objective measure is, how well does the code solve the problem?
So aesthetics are important, but pragmatism overrides. Some people get hung up on the aesthetics and the code suffers for it, but when beauty and efficiency can coexist, so much the better.
I lived with both artists and programmers for about five years and the mindsets are so very different as to be virtually mutually exclusive. Artists tend to be concerned with emotion while programmers tend to be concerned with logic. One is concerned with form, the other with function.
Artists are invaluable, though, in that they can advise the programmer how to best present his software to an audience of non-programmers.
The best programmers are often horrible at user interface design. emacs is amazing software, but for Joe the Plumber (forgive me), it is incomprehensible.""
""I like to view each function i write as a poem, and try to stick to 'haiku' sorts of things rather than long epic sagas, although the occasional sonnet is good too!
It really depends on the project, I like to work on back-end things more though, so I've never had to work on a project where I really needed to interact with artists on a regular basis.
To be fair, I definitely appreciate it when there is some artistic forethought into any program with an external interface, but how to incorporate art, industrial engineering, and computer software is a complex issue.""


In my opinion, although many will disagree, the statements above are indicative of the the modern programmers coming up!
Having worn both shoes, being trained as a fine artist and doing some programming for personal use only, I can speak with some confidence, and hopefully, some insight on this topic.
The tools are certainly different, yet, both require the identical amount of concentration and dedication to the job at hand. Although, I will argue to the death that it is far easier, and realistically more profitable, to train a fine artist to be a fine programmer than it would be to train a fine programmer to be a fine artist, that scenario is not the norm nor will it be any time soon, but for a few individuals who may have taken both paths.

Still, it is clear that the gap in perceptions continues to exist, but also that it is narrowing! Slowly!

thanks for reading

coz