The Static Page

The Art of Computing

What makes art Art?

Hang on - what kind of question is that? I didn't take Art amongst my electives at high school. The sample I did of it in year 7 didn't appeal, and I'm not really a conventionally arty type of person. I'm sure you know the type. They tend to stand out at Uni.

But I did watch my younger sister go through the trials of a Senior High Art course. And I have read a little about what Art tries to be for society. It can be rebellious, it can be a commentary on society, it can be merely escapist. There's no doubt it is creative and I would say it is definitely self-expression of some sort.

But just what does this have to do with IT?

One of the most influential and well-known set of books in IT are called "The Art of Computer Programming", written by Donald Knuth. I confess haven't read through any of them, but the idea of programming, or indeed mere computing, as art rather than science has an appeal. It seems right. Solving a problem by writing a program is a kind of self-expression. Depending on the problem, it will require a level of creativity. It can even comment on society. Napster, for instance.

So what do you think about computing as art? A lot of it seems to be a kind of magic (potentially another manifestation of art) to make things happen. Such as making an NT server stable, or correctly configuring some Cisco routers. Even mere shell scripting can require a kind of art just to make it maintainable. Writing elegant code, for instance, is usually an effort in creative expression.

Is this your experience? How arty have you gotten in making computers compute correctly? Or are your creative talents going to waste in IT?

Wade Bowmer, aka Static.

Comments? Email me at static dash page at yceran dot org.