Programming is neither an art nor a science, but a trade. It's not an art in the sense of painting, music, dance, poetry, etc., because the objective isn't to make a beautiful something, but to give instructions to a machine to accomplish some useful task.
It's not a science in the sense of either physics and chemistry (experimental) or geology or astronomy (observational) or cosmology or psychology (theoretical) because the objective isn't to test hypothetical s against data, but to give instructions to a machine to accomplish some useful task. Obviously, it's very much connected with art (e.g., user interface design) and science (e.g., artificial intelligence) but the practice of giving instructions to a machine is more like assembling machines in a factory than the pursuit of an art or the practice of a science. CC. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
