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From: ccc31807 <carte...@gmail.com>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp,comp.emacs,comp.lang.python,comp.lang.perl.misc
Subject: Re: Is Programing Art or Science?
Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2012 11:49:23 -0700 (PDT)
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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.