Comments on: Programming Creativity

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sat, 14 Dec 2013 06:28:14 +0000

Consider a novel, say, "Siddartha". Herman Hesse wrote it. When I read that book for the first time, I actually didn't know who wrote it. I just read it, and in the end I enjoyed it very much. It had such an effect on me that from time to time I went back to it. During my revisits I came to know that Herman Hesse had written it. The same happened with "Facebook", the social network. I didn't know who wrote it. But the first time I used it, I felt magic. It had such an effect on me that I revisit it frequently, and now I know who wrote it. Why do I go back to "Siddartha" and "Facebook"? I go back to *experience* them. Creating experiences is the spirit of creativity. So "writing" or "programming" in themselves may fail to qualify as creative pursuits, but crafting beautiful stories or software surely qualify as creative pursuits.

By: Rick Henderson

Rick Henderson — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 21:03:31 +0000

I'm asking myself this exact question because I'm trying to think of ways to bring creativity into an (almost) beginner programming course and to get away from doing just plain lecturing. I'll definitely have to think more about how I want creativity defined and what I really want from my students, but there seem to be some great comments posted here.

I've always though musicians and programmers were very similar because they make bigger things out of a collection of small things, and was also intrigued by how many programmers I knew in university were dating music students :)

By: What a college programming class should be | Chimeloke

What a college programming class should be | Chimeloke — Sun, 13 Mar 2011 19:49:34 +0000

[...] on creativity Source control lets you identify what code was written by what student. Grade on creative solutions [...]

By: Muhammad

Muhammad — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 15:43:52 +0000

You cannot compare programming with painting. The purpose or end goal of painting is to create something; a piece of art. Programming, on the other hand is a means to create a product. You do not program for the sake of art. You program to achieve a goal. The goal would normally be to create an application or a module. How you create that module/application with different programming styles should not affect the end product. Furthermore, in real world you never write a program from scratch. You use other people code / libraries and mix it with your logic to achieve that end result. To me, this seems more like a worker working in an assembly line to build something. If that worker assembles parts a different way, does that make it creative? Similarly, if you write a neat code or tab your lines properly, does that considered creative? There is no difference between writing a spaghetti code and a well organized modular program. In the end if it works, thatâ€™s all people care about. Most of you would say, what about the piece of code that you come up with? Isnâ€™t that something creative? Yes, I agree that given proper conditions (time, resources) you can and do come up with a better and more efficient solution to a problem. But its not the programming that creative. Itâ€™s the solution that you came up with is. In other words, the algorithm to solve a particular problem can be considered creative, not the code itself. 99% of the time your code is optimized by the compiler / interpreter into a more efficient code. Your code/ nested loops are turned into ugly assembly finite state machine with multi-pass compilations.

Programming, in essence is not creative. It is merely a tool, just like hammer is for a carpenter. Itâ€™s never meant to be creative (The Intent of programming). Neat piece of code with proper formatting and separate include files or proper comments does not fell into the realm of creativity. However the algorithms that you comeup with to solve a perticular problem can be considered creative and usually are.

By: techcommprof

techcommprof — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 17:44:18 +0000

Let's not also forget the individual choice in the external representations programs are made to define? In other words, a calculator program isn't necessarily a calculator, just a series of functions and an interface that creates what we use as a calculator (insert any example here). But the programmer's conception of what a calculator is, or should be, is what defines the resulting program.

The same is true, even more so, on larger scales. If we were to model a car through a program, we would each come up with our own unique idea of what that car should be, or is supposed to be. Such representations of abstract elements (mathematical laws in the case of the calculator, or physical objects in the case of a car) are completely creative. They are actually more likened to metaphors, which are used constantly to help us describe the world and communicate. There are many more examples, I believe, that establish programming as a creative enterprise.

I'm actually working on a publication that compares programming to writing, and argues that programming is a form of writing, with all the subjectivity and creativity such a definition allows, but that's to come later (assuming it gets published). Great topic, though.

Oh, and as a reply to infraguy's point, it is true that with contraints anything loses its creativity. Take for example the "starving artist" art shows so popular here in the US. In such shows–sales really–people can purchase paintings for very low prices. The paintings are crude, often replicas of original masterpieces, that were hand painted by someone. However they were done so in a factory somewhere as mass productions. Thus, the fact that they are paintings does not suggest they are artwork, but something else.

Hence, in your context, because your coding is so constrained you see programming as being not creative. But, were you free to write whatever code you wanted, programming becomes much more like art and less like rote assembly-line work.

By: infraguy

infraguy — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 10:43:59 +0000

Creativity comes from freedom irrespective of any field like painting or programmming. As a software professional in india look and feel, functionality and other aspects..than coding are already finalized. And what ever room is left while coding is further constraint by client or company standards.Some might think of it exaggeration however my own experiencs have incidents where data structures or nested looping enhancements are not allowed despite showing performance gains with tools widely accepted.

By the way programming is not an art..its a skill which can be easily picked up…..in india we have millions that can code complex modules however give them a chance to think or take decision they will rarely ever….as they dont have freedom…and without freedom no creativity takes me to whole circle :)

By: 5566

5566 — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 10:31:19 +0000

very interesting topic.
Let me try to define what is creativity.

Creativity is a process of coming out a product/idea/process which is not a duplicate of any existing ones and it has to be a better solution and the process must be able to be duplicated by others in the future.

Inventions are not creative. Because inventions cannot be duplicated. You can't invent telephones twice.

Discoveries are not creative either. Same reason as inventions, because they can't be duplicated.

Most of the things listed in Guinness records are not creative because they can't be really duplicated either.

By: Doug Smith

Doug Smith — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 19:42:06 +0000

Programming is creative when the programmer expresses some or all of the following when the program:

- solves a problem in a new and distinctive way
- is appreciated for its individual look and feel
- provides a seemingly simple yet elegant solution
- changes the fundamental way of looking at a function or field
- is pleasing(or attempts to be pleasing) to one's artistic "sense"

There are many other ways, I'm sure. Creativity is an intent and skill we bring to an activity, and certainly programming lends itself to liberal amounts of that creativity.

Doug

By: Peter Bell

Peter Bell — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 12:19:34 +0000

To me, programming is a fundamentally creative endeavor. For any non-trivial problem there are an almost limitless combination of approaches that will solve the problem and the programmer has to choose such approaches.

Just as with poetry, writing and music there are elements of taste (both widely shared and more personal) that affect whether a given solution would be considered good or bad (beyond the baseline requirement of implementing the required functionality – things like elegance, maintainability and the like).

You are absolutely expressing taste and judgment when writing a program. The fact that looking at the outer form of the program will not always expose that doesn't make it any less valid. It's hard to tell the quality of the writing in a book without opening the cover, and I can't say anything about the quality of something written in Japanese because I don't understand the language, but that doesn't mean that there is not both good and bad Japanese literature.

Best Wishes,
Peter