Well I definitely tried pressing all the buttons when I plugged it in, didn't try the mouse though. I guess i'll dig the mouse out and try it, although it might take a while as I have no idea where I put the mouse. Haven't played Mario Paint in years guess i'll have an excuse now.

Not a programmer, are you?

Yes he is.  He's actually made 1 Sega genesis game already and has #2 in the works.

Yes, I'm a programmer. Been coding for nearly 15 years now. How is programming an art? The final product of a video game is art since it incorporates audio and visuals that are someones creation. Are you saying the programmers of internet explorer are artists? What about Firefox? Programming is a set of instructions. Is typing a legal document considered art? What about the publisher of a book - they type up the content that the author wrote, so are they artists as well? Programming (at least good applications) require intelligence. You don't have to be intelligent to make "art".

Taken from dictionary.com:

art
1 ? ?/?rt/ Show Spelled[ahrt] Show IPA
–noun
1.
the quality, production, expression, or realm, according to aesthetic principles, of what is beautiful, appealing, or of more than ordinary significance.
2.
the class of objects subject to aesthetic criteria; works of art collectively, as paintings, sculptures, or drawings: a museum of art; an art collection.
3.
a field, genre, or category of art: Dance is an art.

Programming doesn't fit into any category. You could argue that it fits into #3, but if that's included, so isn't answering the telephone, or playing center field, or watching TV, and then everything is considered art, thus making trying to make "art" is a pretty silly phrase. Can you program a game without an artist or art direction? No. Be it text based or graphical, you still need someone to present the art direction (sometimes the programmer does this as well), however the actual "programming" isn't an art form. Game creation is an art form, but not the programming side - the story creation, graphical creation, and musical compositions are.

As if well commented code doesn't bring tears to your eyes after trudging through a few million lines of FORTAN...

Need a picture from the other side of the cart, the back half doesn't do any good.

The back half is just a parallel port. But if you mean the board, yes. That's help, and the chip numbers.

I didn't expect a serious essay on art in response to a quick jab, but I would argue that the experience of creating a painting is similar to that of coding a program. There are multiple right and wrong ways to get the job done, there are different styles, and there is no objective way to determine if it is finished. Even if there is a list of criteria to meet, the author must subjectively decide whether the implementation is good enough. Going from the conceptual phase to the actual implementation, there is plenty of creative - artistic- freedom.

The example you gave, of typing up an author's work, is completely different from both, for the same reasons. There's no "style" of copying work verbatim. It's either right or wrong, either finished or not. There is no room for creativity.

My post on NESDev seems to agree that most believe it's an art: http://nesdev.parodius.com/bbs/vi...

But anyway, any findings with a mouse plugged in at all?

Again, going by your logic, being a couch potato is art. The difference between art and something that is a skill, is that art and creativity don't require an education. Programming does. The programmer doesn't define when an application is done for the client - the client does. Does that mean the client is the artist for painting a picture so that the programmer can make it happen? Or is the artist a term now shared between 2 people - the one who gave the creative ideas, or the one who programmed it? Programming is a science. The only people who consider programming an art are programmers, and only a small majority. Church it up however you want for whatever reason you want, but logic is not art.

Arguing on the forums is an art.

With all due respect to programming and programmers, 'art' has specific characteristics that programming just don't fulfills. It's just a manner of language to call everything you like and need special skills an 'art', like, 'golfing is an art'. This could not be more wrong.

jone - exactly
guillavoi - not sure if you're saying calling programming an art is wrong, or just the whole thing

Basically, I agree with you that it is not correct to call programming an art.