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Science without art is no fun

October 9th, 2008

I just encountered a great article on Ward Cummingham’s wiki. It’s called Programming Is Not Fun. The section that I enjoyed is called “Programming Is Not Fun without Philosophy”. You can find it near the bottom of the page.

I’ve always considered programming/engineering/development to be more art than science. I guess you can chalk it up to my background in the arts. What hit home for me was the assertion that any kind of work done without an underlying philosophy is wicked boring and unfulfilling.

The article notes that other arts have established and accepted schools of thought and philosophy. For instance, painting has Cubism, Impressionism, etc. Do we have schools of thought and philosophy? Do we have Waterfall, Agile, Do-Whatever-It-Takes-To-Ship, TDD, BDD?

What about you? Do you employ any sort of philosophy in your work?

XP , , ,

  1. October 13th, 2008 at 15:28 | #1

    I have a number of philosophies I work by, but a lot of the philosophy depends on the project or group philosophy. When I first start I ask a lot of questions prefixed with “Philosophy speaking . . . .” just to understand the current philosophy.

  2. John E
    November 20th, 2008 at 10:33 | #2

    "Sometimes, programing can be boring…" slipped out of my lips during a phone interview with a HR person. I found out later that it was the cause for that company not to proceed with further interviews. One of my philosophical thoughts is: Truth will ALWAYS surface given enough time, why not surface truth now? This is one of the reasons I like agile methods.

    As far as programming is concern, I do it for the money… otherwise I would be outside leaning on my shovel as a landscaper.

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  10. August 23rd, 2010 at 05:39 | #10

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  11. September 1st, 2010 at 05:53 | #11

    Unexpected intersections of two seemingly different disciplines — art and science.

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  13. September 6th, 2010 at 19:28 | #13

    Do we have Waterfall, Agile, Do-Whatever-It-Takes-To-Ship

  1. May 3rd, 2010 at 03:06 | #1
  2. July 1st, 2010 at 05:33 | #2

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