I’ve been working programming since I was 12, I’m 29 now, been working professionally for more than 7 years.
Programming in general is not an art.
Algorithms were. Nowadays “substandard programmers” make use of those who really were artisans of the software.
Don’t put this words to new programmers or they will have their ego as high as the sky itself and will be untreatable resources in any project.

As a theatre maker (performer, director, stage hand, lighting and sound tech) who has recently returned to uni to study IT majoring in Programming, I absolutely applaud this post. I also agree with much that has been said in comments above; your points are not mutually exclusive. Derek and IceBrain, when you’re working full time on a show (an exceedingly rare treat if you expect to be paid), you do switch your creative brain off as soon as you leave the rehearsal room. Shrutarshi, your points about programming apply equally to theatre and film and other collaborative arts; yes, there are best practices for telling stories (if you think a tale can’t be told inefficiently or inelegantly you haven’t seen a poorly told story) and yes often you must work within the “house style” that is proscribed to you that may differ from your personal style, so that there is consistency between the work done by the individuals involved.

Just because something is an art, it doesn’t mean that there aren’t rules. There’s always a tug of war between what you want to do and what practicality demands is possible. Own your art and enjoy it, it’s rare to be paid to be creative in any field.

I’ve always seen strong parallels between programming and arts. When I was in school, the parallels between writing and programming were always very striking to me. I wouldn’t personally want to be embroiled in the debate about “what is art” that inevitably bubbles to the surface whenever anyone claims something to “be an art,” but programming is certainly creative. It is true that many people don’t realize how much creativity and personal expression goes into writing code.

IceBrain wrote:

Well, some programmers. There’s plenty out there whose job is mostly a strict application of “good practices”.
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That said, I still feel all you described when I’m coding as a hobby, but I’m afraid we’re exceptions; none of my coworkers actually enjoys programming on their own. To them, it’s a job, nothing more.
So, yeah, your post is true, but only for a subsection of all programmers, and it may be smaller than we’d expect.

Totally agree with IceBrain. I really enjoy programming as a profession, but I can say that I very, very rarely get big moments of inspiration outside of work. The same goes for my coworkers – we all seem to do a pretty good job at shutting off work in our brains once we step outside the doors to our building. I don’t doubt that there are very passionate programmers out there who are as you described Luke, but they are those rare individuals who enjoy, for example, coding open source frameworks in their spare time. I don’t think you do a disservice to the programming professional with this article, but you are really overly generalizing the nature of programmers.

“We are artists. We are digital virtuosos. We are the singers of digital songs that drive our civilization. But unlike artists, we are expected to perform consistently and every day.”

Love this. As a writer and poet, I write every day. One thing I do is to give myself permission to write badly. Almost everything good I’ve ever written started as something bad. I wonder if it’s the same for code.

I love programming. I spend hours a day at it and most days I find myself wishing there were more hours in the day so I could learn and code more. I try to fashion my code in the most elegant, efficient way possible. That being said, I’m coming to deeply mistrust the analogy of code as art. It suggests that there is much more room for personal preference than there should be and many people will view it as an excuse to write sub-par code that meets their own artistic tastes rather than stricter specifications.

There is no one true way to create software. And perhaps there shouldn’t be; diversity is good. However there are some things that are more important than self-expression when it comes to code that will deployed and worked on by other. Your code must be efficient as well as elegant. Your code will be read and called far often than it will be read. That means you should stick to common style guides and practices even if they go against your own preferences. You must remember that writing code is not the point and never has been — the point is to solve the problem. Never forget that.

It is a careful balance to maintain — between imagination and pragmatism. But it’s one we’ve been making throughout our history. We should love our work. We should get up each morning fueled by the joy of creation and inspiration. We must take professional pride in our work, but it is the pride of engineers and architects, not painters and musicians. The code should have more in common with a Rolls-Royce engine than it does with a Mona Lisa.

Not to mention the seminal book “The Art of Computer Programming” that is around since 1962 to prove your point. :)

In my experience, most anything can be elevated to an art. I’ve seen plumbing I would consider “artistically done” and I’ve seen paintings I thought must be the result of someone throwing random crap at a canvas and calling it art. There is a continuum for all things; but some lend themselves more readily to artistic expression than others.

Well, some programmers. There’s plenty out there whose job is mostly a strict application of “good practices”.

Take my case: my job is mostly doing plumbing addons to an ERP platform to connect it with external APIs, or applying simple business rules to the process.
Don’t get me wrong, I actually like my job for various reasons – it pays (I don’t mean a lot, I mean at all), I get to wear different hats, the coworkers are nice, etc. But it barely requires real creativity, just work.

That said, I still feel all you described when I’m coding as a hobby, but I’m afraid we’re exceptions; none of my coworkers actually enjoys programming on their own. To them, it’s a job, nothing more.

So, yeah, your post is true, but only for a subsection of all programmers, and it may be smaller than we’d expect.