Make yourself a coffee, turn on the computer, and put on your headphones. Your favorite playlist starts playing and you open Wappler. You have an idea, something that has to go out of your mind and through your fingers as you type. You feel the need to take it out of yourself and show it to the world, but you do not do it in a conventional way, but by programming. Programming is an art.
When we start a new project we are faced with a blank canvas, an empty file that needs to be edited, painted with code. It is the hardest part but also the most beautiful, that of laying the foundations of what will be our creation. The process that takes place from idea to product is impressive. Spend sheets and notebooks making diagrams, drawings, logos and brushstrokes classes, methods, loops and variables and then write them on the computer, execute, and see the work.
People tend to have a somewhat pigeonholed concept of art. Normally the exhibition of paintings or sculptures in museums is understood as art, but for me art is much more than that; it is anything by which something is expressed, whether in paint, concrete, light, or code. When we go to a museum and look at a painting, we see what the painter has done. When we are dealing with software from an open source project, we can also see how it has been developed, from the idea to the product.
There is a duality between the software engineer and the artist. A painting’s ultimate goal is to be observed; it has no practical use other than to decorate or make the observer think. However, a computer program is intended to solve a problem or need. Perhaps this is why many people do not consider programming an art, but the truth is that a lot of creativity is necessary during development.
When I say that programming is an art, I mean the evolution of the project. Escape from everything, get into a bubble that nobody can get you out of and be so focused on typing that you no longer even hear the music coming out of the headphones. You merge with the code and you create. Yes, believe. You don’t paint a canvas; You program and write code, a lot of code. You are hooked on the keyboard and you always carry your laptop in your backpack to snack even in the spare time you have. Without realizing it, you end up creating a work of art. It is true that some are better than others, but the beauty is in the eyes of the beholder.
And you? Do you consider yourself an artist?
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