Regardless it seems Graham drawing a synthesis between hackers and painters worked well as a generative metaphor to accomplish what he explained the books purpose was: "This book is an attempt to explain to the world at large what goes on in the world of computers."<p>In the end can your antithesis exercise as many readers' imaginations and share as much insight as his book has?<p>What I got from your blog post is that there are better books for one interested in the similarities between art and computer science and that is helpful information but I own a copy of Gödel, Escher, Bach and it's certainly not a light read.<p>Maybe your right, "Hackers and Painters" doesn't belong in the same category as the other books you mentioned but then the authors of those books probably had different intentions for their material.
PG and idlewords had it out in the comment section here: <a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=984475" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=984475</a> PG definitely gets the best of the argument, IMO.
I paint and I code, and this made me laugh:<p>* Computer programmers cause a machine to perform a sequence of transformations on electronically stored data.<p>* Painters apply colored goo to cloth using animal hairs tied to a stick.<p>It's funny, and maybe a little ironic, to look at this and see both a hacker's cynicism and a painter's habit of looking at things objectively.
I thought this was worth upvoting because I was stung by how the author views programming. It's worth remembering that "hacking" is typically ill-liked, even by some of those claiming to practice it.<p><i>Start with purpose. With the exception of art software projects (which I don't believe Graham has in mind here) all computer programs are designed to accomplish some kind of task.</i><p>I suppose this guy is a Java programmer?...<p><i>No one cares how pretty the code is if the program won't work.</i><p>...that or Perl.<p><i>Great paintings, for example, get you laid in a way that great computer programs never do.</i><p>#%$hole...<p>PG could have alluded to the similarity between Math and hacking. The thing that I feel both share is that there is an underlying beauty to a well-crafted result. Truly beautiful results (like original self-printing program in Lisp) withstand the test of time, like a universal truth. Thus a program is not like an egg made by a chef, or even a Porsche made by an engineer.<p>The flip side is that there's no "way" to write a program. There actually isn't even really a notion of truth. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. The only constraint I have as a programmer is to (1) not run out of memory and (2) not run out dough (which would force me to quit hacking and get a "real job"). There are some people who think that obfuscated C is art, and there's FP folks like me who would fire someone for writing anything in that godawful language (Which might be unfair. People should only be fired for writing Java on the job). I think this is pretty strong support in favor or programming as an art.<p>The other piece of evidence I cite is that the academic form of hacking is called Computer Science and we know what they say about anything that has the word "Science" in it...<p>Basically, the only premise of idleword's argument that holds up is that artists get laid and programmers don't. I will resist fighting fire with fire on this point.<p>But maybe PG should allude to poets or composers next time. Apparently some painters are real jerks.
Curious that Maciej should cite John Ruskin, who could be utterly dogmatic. Henry James, Italian Hours, writes<p>I had really been enjoying the good old city
of Florence, but I now learned from Mr. Ruskin that this was a scandalous waste of charity. I should have gone about with an imprecation on my lips, I should have worn a face three yards long. I had taken great pleasure in certain frescoes by Ghirlandaio in the choir of that very church; but it appeared from one of the little books that these frescoes were as naught. I had much admired Santa Croce and had thought the Duomo a very noble affair; but I had now the most positive assurance I knew nothing about them. After a while, if it was only ill-humour that was needed for doing honour to the city of the Medici, I felt
that I had risen to a proper level; only now it was Mr. Ruskin himself I had lost patience with, not the stupid Brunelleschi, not the vulgar Ghirlandaio. Indeed I lost patience altogether, and asked myself by what right this informal votary of form pretended to run riot through a poor charmed flaneur's
quiet contemplations, his attachment to the noblest of pleasures, his enjoyment of the loveliest of cities. The little books seemed invidious and insane, and it was only when I remembered that I had been under no obligation to buy them that I checked myself in repenting of having done so.