During the trip to Bolzano Rasmus asked me a question about which programming language I felt was the most beautiful. My answer was quite quickly Assembly. In particular I feel that Motorola 68K assembly is very beautiful. The simple reason for that is that I grew up with it.
Ever since I got the question I’ve been thinking about it in the back of my mind. The question evolved into this: Is code art? It has many parallels. It’s easy - when you know how to. It’s beautiful - if you’re into that sort of beautifulness. It can be very complex - and it can be very simple. Simple code (and simple art) can be more estetically appealing because of the simplification.
C, PHP and other higher levels of languages is in my mind not that beautiful. Programming in a high level language makes you feel in control of the source code itself, not the computer. Assembly (and only assembly) is more of a conversation with the machine. You talk about what it should do, in baby steps and it follows. You’re the director, the producer and the machine is the actor. There is no middle man, there is a clean conversation between the two parties that are involved — or three, if you’re into handling more processors. It’s stunningly beautiful when you get it to work and you can trust it to always work because you’re agreeing upon what will happen at any stage in your conversation.
With higher level programming the control and the conversation is lost – but can it still be art? It has to be, otherwise I don’t know why I’m smiling when I see my smart solutions. It’s another layer of the art of code. Instead of participating in a direct conversation, it offers you to reply to it. The end result can be just as good.
The conclusion — code is art, art is easy and it doesn’t matter how you participate as long as you do.
15 comments ↓
word!
remember the discussion from polar pirate prize 2!
I can recommend a column from the MSDN Magazine with a different conclusion: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/cc163546.aspx
whoa. deep.
I would say any of the script-languages! Come on!
Shell scripts are absolutely my favourite kind of poetry. Few lines.. gets thee work done and you don’t have to manhandle flags, registers hex-binary conversions.
But then again… I suck at Assembly…
10 PRINT “HELLO WORLD”
20 END
basic was my first kiss. now my computers do what I want them to do…like a well trained woman.
art is defined by me as anything that stirs interested and gets a reaction or at least evokes a feeling internally. hello world is an iconic example.
Longword!
I’m so jealous of you who can produce art directly to the actor! I lived with my Amiga a long time before I switched to x86… But I still sometimes dream about (and miss) the things I saw… Lucky you!
I pretty much agree despite understanding how assembly is hardly ever needed these days. In the good ol’ 68K-days it was not only needed but a necessity to get things done. I have a small but dormant project which will bring some nostalgia to mind as to what this concerns. Some day it will hopefully air and I will add a comment here… Btw, here’s from the back of my mind:
moveq #0,d1
lea FRA, a0
move #666-1, d0
maintain_democracy_loop:
move.l d1, (a0)+
dbf d0,maintain_democracy_loop
.
.
.
FRA: dc.l 666
Cheers!
I think that’s the first time I’ve heard C being called a high-level language.
Ruby > *
APL (now J ) got to love those multi dimensional arrays, instant processing. tried to do the same with SAS but it wasnt made for it.
A dude from sweden talking about 68k and posting a captured dreams snapshot… which group were you affiliated with?
The picture with the yellow/orange pill… I remember that from one of the old skool Amiga demos.
scener: I was (maybe I still am?) in TRSI (TriStar & Red Sector Inc) and some other groups that I can’t mention for legal reasons
Najkbajk/Kräjz, din gamle spjuver. Räckte det inte med en elitbas?
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