September 1, 2009
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The Art of Code
If you're an artist and do a painting, or maybe a sculpture of some sort, you get to display your work for everyone to enjoy and admire when you're done. Maybe you're an architect, and everybody gets to admire the beautiful building when its done. Or maybe you're a great cook, and everybody gets to enjoy your food. Et Cetera.
But if you're a programmer, your most beautiful artistry, the code that is woven into a perfect tapestry like some sort of a fantastic musical, gets compiled into a simple little file that nobody sees. Nobody cares. In fact, its probably even copyrighted, and maybe even trade secret. Users only get to see the boring part, the user interface. They don't get to listen to the real music.
When was the last time you've seen some sort of algorithmic process printed out and hung on the wall? Yup, I didn't think so.
My wife is asking me if I feel slighted. Yes, very.
I should post a beautiful little piece of code I created over the last two late nights of code and iced tea.
But I can't. Its trade secret.
Comments (3)
ahh... but the artists have their own crosses to bear... they don't get any money... ever heard of a starving computer programmer?
Money or glory? That is the question.
Alas and only the trained eye can fully appreciate it. To the uninitiated of which I am member, it appears as mere gibberish.
You know, I am curious. How did you learn your trade?
@penrodjashber - The answer to your question is rather lengthy. It started by sitting up in bed at night with a 2" thick GWbasic manual, figuring out how to make my computer beep the 4 parts of the Hallelujah Chorus over the built-in speaker. There was no sound card. Every note had to be converted to its mathematical equivalent in hertz, and the time length converted to a fraction of a second as well. Even worse, I didn't know of such things as variables. It got to the point where I knew the mathematical value of a note and could simply write the code without manually converting each note.
Over the years I've continued to do a lot lof learning on my own, but have a few friends who do a lot of software development, and that has really helped me along too.
Today I use my coding skills to write software which is increasingly becoming the engine that monitors most of what happens in my business.
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