

Beautiful software - muriithi
http://humanize.it/2008/02/23/beautiful-software/

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edu
I don´t see why software can be art and solve a problem at the _same_ time.

I hate when people sees software only as a tool. Yes, of course it is a tool.
But, what is not it? Of course, you can see software as a tool to sell cars.
But for me a car is only a tool to go from one place to another! Please, stop
being obvious! _Everything is a tool_ , but some tools are _beautiful_ while
other not. Antoni Gaudi´s Casa Batlló was built for people to live in, like a
lot of buildings. But the Casa Batlló is beatiful, it has an ethereal artistic
background that most buildings lack. A report is nothing more than a bunch of
text, just like a novel or a poem. But it lacks something that makes a novel
or a poem art.

Most pieces of software are ugly and not artistic at all, of course. But it
does not mean that a certain piece of software could not be art, and
beautiful, and clever.

And what about demos? They are not tools, but they are beautiful. Usually
beatiful in two dimensions: the code and the images and music produced. They
are not art?

~~~
wallflower
+1 for mentioning one of the most visually stimulating apartment buildings in
the world. I saw it on a trip to Barcelona and it makes you realize how boring
all buildings are designed to be.

Have you read "How Buildings Learn" by S. Brand? I think you would like it -
premise is the manner in how buildings are constructed influences their growth
and ability to change.

