Is Programing Art or Science?

[Pascal J. Bourguignon]

ccc31807 <cartercc at gmail.com> writes:

> Programming is neither an art nor a science, but a trade.
>
> It's not an art in the sense of painting, music, dance, poetry, etc.,
> because the objective isn't to make a beautiful something, but to give
> instructions to a machine to accomplish some useful task.
>
> It's not a science in the sense of either physics and chemistry
> (experimental) or geology or astronomy (observational) or cosmology or
> psychology (theoretical) because the objective isn't to test
> hypothetical s against data, but to give instructions to a machine to
> accomplish some useful task.
>
> Obviously, it's very much connected with art (e.g., user interface
> design) and science (e.g., artificial intelligence) but the practice
> of giving instructions to a machine is more like assembling machines
> in a factory than the pursuit of an art or the practice of a science.

This is a narrow-minded definition of programming.


Watch:  http://www.infoq.com/presentations/We-Really-Dont-Know-How-To-Compute


Read:    Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs
         http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/full-text/book/book-Z-H-4.html
         http://swiss.csail.mit.edu/classes/6.001/abelson-sussman-lectures/


-- 
__Pascal Bourguignon__                     http://www.informatimago.com/
A bad day in () is better than a good day in {}.