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Re: Is Programing Art or Science?

Cross-posted to 4 groups.

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ccc31807 <cartercc@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 {}.

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Is Programing Art or Science? Xah Lee <xahlee@gmail.com> - 2012-03-30 01:27 -0700
  Re: Is Programing Art or Science? ccc31807 <cartercc@gmail.com> - 2012-03-30 11:49 -0700
    Re: Is Programing Art or Science? "Pascal J. Bourguignon" <pjb@informatimago.com> - 2012-04-02 23:48 +0200
      Re: Is Programing Art or Science? Jürgen Exner <jurgenex@hotmail.com> - 2012-04-02 16:52 -0700
        Re: Is Programing Art or Science? Emile van Sebille <emile@fenx.com> - 2012-04-02 17:04 -0700
        Re: Is Programing Art or Science? Tim Bradshaw <tfb@tfeb.org> - 2012-04-03 10:42 +0100
      Re: Is Programing Art or Science? ccc31807 <cartercc@gmail.com> - 2012-04-03 10:00 -0700
        Re: Is Programing Art or Science? "Pascal J. Bourguignon" <pjb@informatimago.com> - 2012-04-03 20:27 +0200
          Re: Is Programing Art or Science? ccc31807 <cartercc@gmail.com> - 2012-04-03 12:39 -0700
  Re: Is Programing Art or Science? Chiron <chiron613.no.spam.@no.spam.please.gmail.com> - 2012-04-03 04:26 +0000
    Re: Is Programing Art or Science? Devin Jeanpierre <jeanpierreda@gmail.com> - 2012-04-03 06:05 -0400
  Re: Is Programing Art or Science? Torsten Mueller <dev-null@shared-files.de> - 2012-04-03 12:17 +0200
  Re: Is Programing Art or Science? Alan Mackenzie <acm@muc.de> - 2012-04-03 10:42 +0000
    Re: Is Programing Art or Science? Alec Taylor <alec.taylor6@gmail.com> - 2012-04-03 22:43 +1000
  Re: Is Programing Art or Science? Peter Davis <Peter.Davis@mathworks.com> - 2012-04-03 09:20 -0400
  Re: Is Programing Art or Science? Rainer Weikusat <rweikusat@mssgmbh.com> - 2012-04-03 16:22 +0100
    Re: Is Programing Art or Science? Xah Lee <xahlee@gmail.com> - 2012-04-03 14:39 -0700
    Re: Is Programing Art or Science? Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz <spamtrap@library.lspace.org.invalid> - 2012-04-04 03:33 -0400
      Re: Is Programing Art or Science? Chiron <chiron613.no.spam.@no.spam.please.gmail.com> - 2012-04-04 17:52 +0000

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