Recently my colleagues and I had a discussion if
developers can be "rockstars". Although developers
have to be very creative, and software development
is really sometimes an art, as Dave West argued
recently, software products themselves have not
the same effect on people as paintings or songs.
Leo Tolstoy argued in his essay "What Is Art?"
that art must create a specific emotional link
between artist and audience, one that "infects"
the viewer. And Maya Angelou said "People will not
remember what you did, they will not remember what
you said, they will remember how you made them feel."
In other words, stars are famous because they
arise strong emotions. We enjoy literature, art,
music and movies - even if they are imaginative
experiences - because at some level we don't
distinguish these experiences from real ones.
In this sense, developers can only become stars
in their own community - among the developers
themselves. The rest of the world will only see
the surface of their products, which will barely
arouse any emotion (except anger and frustration).
Do you agree?
-J.
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