If you want someone "waxing lyrically about beautiful code and its sensibilities", get a poet-in-residence at your software company.<p>If you want art and engineering in programming, think of the way architects bring art to the world's most impressive buildings and bridges. It doesn't count if the bridge falls down.<p>Similarly, your program can't ignore "memory and runtime".
How are we exactly defining the term <i>artist</i> here? This term varies so much in scope that it can quickly become misleading.<p>If I try to conceive of an <i>artistic</i> programmer the first thing that comes to mind is not the language or the platform it's running on, but the result of the work. . .programming is just a means to an end like many of may already know.<p>It is projects like <a href="http://processingjs.org/" rel="nofollow">http://processingjs.org/</a> and video-games like <a href="http://tinyurl.com/sotc4ps2" rel="nofollow">http://tinyurl.com/sotc4ps2</a> that don't appear to solve anything in particular, but are merely an implementation of some [one's/one else's] artistic vision.
He's right about there being two kinds of programmers, and we might as well use 'engineer' vs. 'artist' even though it's not entirely accurate.<p>However, <i>all</i> programmers need to be professionals, at least if they have any intention of interacting with non-programmers.
The title here is a little misleading - it sounds to me like the term 'artists' is being used to describe professionals who are simply more laid-back and friendly than the traditional uptight, nose-to-the-grindstone ideal of a working stiff.
> People willing to trade the hard scientific measurements such as memory footprint and runtime speed for something so ephemeral as programmer happiness.<p>I'm sorry, but I just can't take this seriously. Runtime speed and memory footprint are not important anymore?<p>How will you justify to your customers why the software you just delivered takes several hours to perform simple operations? I'm sure they don't care about programmer happiness one single bit.<p>(I don't have anything against the guy who wrote this. I'm glad he found something he loves doing.)
I would change the phrasing - we need professionals in programming. People who approach their work with serious craftsmanship, own their work (both the good and the bad), and do the last 5% that distinguishes good stuff from the rest of the lot.<p>Do we always have time to do this? No. Is it always appropriate to do this? No. But when it is mission critical work, deliver the goods.