It strikes me that perhaps we emphasize the role of creativity too much in the arts. How much of what we term creativity is due to insane expertise and breadth of knowledge? Cezanne had not only a new take on capturing light, but also tremendous ability with the medium he'd chosen (both learned and inherited, I would assume).
The film "It might get loud" shows three guitarists, all of whom I would deem creative geniuses, demonstrating very clearly the importance of repetition and hard work in their success. In a similar vein, I think there are journeyperson programmers and master programmers. If the latter are fortunate enough to be in the right situation (I think the App Store for IPhone is a good example of a 'creative ecosystem' for software), truly inspired creations can arise. Perhaps another interesting question can be posed: who is responsible for creativity in physical buildings (an overused analogy in software, but perhaps relevant here)? Is it the architect, who sketches the shape on a napkin? Or the engineer, who determines how to make the bulging metal protusions watertight? Or the metalworker who derives a new tool to weld the pieces together? On Tue, Mar 23, 2010 at 11:54 AM, Alan Blackwell <alan.blackw...@cl.cam.ac.uk> wrote: > And that reminds me of the many years of great work that has > been done by Gerhard Fischer at Boulder: > > http://l3d.cs.colorado.edu/~gerhard/ > > See, for example, his work with the NSF Create IT programme: > http://swiki.cs.colorado.edu:3232/CreativeIT > > Alan > >> Another interesting take on this is creativity vs. rationale in design. >> >> Jack Carroll hosted a workshop on this, one report of which can be found >> here: >> >> http://john.daughtryhome.com/publications/DAUGHTRY_BURGE_CARROLL_POTTS_SEN_2009.pdf >> >> >> >> >> >> >> On Tue, Mar 23, 2010 at 10:37 AM, Alan Blackwell < >> alan.blackw...@cl.cam.ac.uk> wrote: >> >> > >> > steven.cla...@microsoft.com said: >> > > I've always found the following essay quite inspirational in >> > > the way that it describes two different styles of programming. >> > > http://www.papert.org/articles/EpistemologicalPluralism.html >> > >> > I agree that essay raises interesting points, but I believe it >> > also has some significant weaknesses, as explained here: >> > >> > http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~afb21/publications/Bricolage.pdf >> > >> > (Their argument is one originating in gender studies, but more >> > recent work in gender and programming suggests that their sample >> > may have been too small and too specific to carry the weight of >> > general conclusions that they draw). >> > >> > Alan >> > -- >> > Alan Blackwell >> > Reader in Interdisciplinary Design, University of Cambridge >> > Further details from www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~afb21/ >> > >> > >> > -- >> > The Open University is incorporated by Royal Charter (RC 000391), an exempt >> > charity in England & Wales and a charity registered in Scotland (SC >> > 038302). >> > >> > >> > > -- > Alan Blackwell > Reader in Interdisciplinary Design, University of Cambridge > Further details from www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~afb21/ > >
