On 23 March 2010 13:55, Lindsay Marshall <lindsay.marsh...@newcastle.ac.uk> wrote: >> I think that the role of creativity in programming is vastly >> overestimated. > I have to disagree, I think it is vastly underestimated.
I think I am with Lindsay here, but perhaps we are working with different definitions of the (rather difficult to define) word `creativity'. >> Most algorithms are very simple and frequently used. >> In fact developers seem to have a small repertoire of techniques >> they use most of the time. > > Which is also what composers do (since that has been used already, but also > painters - a better analogy in IMHO). It's what makes your style. A very good point. A style is like a dynamic set of constraints or ways of building, and it's the development of style that signals creative behaviour, I think. However, my example wasn't an analogy, you can improvise/compose music by programming (e.g. http://vimeo.com/2433947 ). The same goes for painting (e.g. AARON, Aikon). You don't have to like these works, but I think you have to admit that they are music and they are paintings, made by programming. > Painters often exhibit a work and then later repaint parts of it, or leave > them sitting in corners and keep going back to them over and over again. Yes, my sister has painted circular paintings over a year, slowly turning them. Best wishes alex -- http://yaxu.org/ -- The Open University is incorporated by Royal Charter (RC 000391), an exempt charity in England & Wales and a charity registered in Scotland (SC 038302).
