The other day I described programming to someone. I pointed out that it's actually pretty easy to teach yourself programming languages, especially since after a while you start to carry over concepts from other languages. But what surprised me most about my own explanation(!) was when I compared programming to art: it's the kind of thing where you can just try stuff out and see what works and what doesn't, with no real consequences.

Since I said that, I've actually been thinking about it quite a bit. Programming is traditionally described as an activity closely related to mathematics, and to a certain extent, this makes a lot of sense, because of the logical skills that go into programming. You have to be able to reason your way through situations in order to effectively debug a program, which means logically eliminating possible points of failure. This is where math skills become very important.

But coding isn't just about logic. At OSBRIDGE this year, I attended a session about the beauty of code - it's hard to describe to someone who doesn't live and breathe code, but we all know it when we see it. We as a community value elegance in code; clever algorithms; thinking outside the box, and as I said in my Just Do It slides, the mere existance of Ruby proves this. So when I described programming as being like art, part of where I was getting that is the analogy I actually said (being able to easily mess around), but part of it was coming from my appreciation of the beauty of code. Part of it was coming from my sense of the aesthetic properties of programming.

I want us, as a community, in both our regular coding but also our educational outreach, to stop pretending that programming is so logical that it is math. Yes, there are elements of mathematics in coding. Lots of it, even. But to treat programming as a branch of mathematics is doing a disservice to the practice. So in addition to treating programming as a form of math, I want us to start treating programming as a form of art. There is such a thing as ugly code. The entire concept of refactoring would barely exist if that wasn't true. So let's start truly appreciating the aesthetic beauty of code, and let's start teaching that. To be honest, I'm not sure how you would teach that. But it couldn't hurt to try.

But even if we can and should treat it as both of those things, that doesn't mean that we should make that the be-all-end-all of how we describe programming. I truly believe that programming is not a branch of mathematics. And it's not an art form, either. Programming is neither of those things and both of those things; it is something entirely new, and we should treat it as such. If this isn't true, why do people swear by certain software? Why do people (including myself) aggressively sticker their laptops to showcase what software they use? And if this isn't true, how is it possible that people love their code?