Ask HN: Is there any job more creative than programming? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Is there any job more creative than programming?

4 pointspedrodelfino22 comments

Painting, design work (web design, print design, product design, architecture), poetry, fiction writing, composing music, theater acting... Do you want me to continue?

Yes, programming is a creative job. But to claim it to be "the most creative" is rather short-sighted.

I just wanted to think about other creative jobs, didn't say programming was, actually, the most creative.

The other guy mentioned cooking. I wouldn't think about this hypothesis alone. You asked if I would like you to continue. I actually would like to ask you about consulting. Like being a Mckinsey's consultant. Would you consider it as very creative job?

> I [...] didn't say programming was, actually, the most creative.

Then you need to rephrase your question. In normal conversational English, "Is there any job more creative than programming?" implies that you consider programming to be the most creative job.

I think we should need to step back and define "creative" before we move on with this discussion. For me, being creative means doing things that have never been done in this way before. Writing a poem no-one has ever written, painting a picture no-one has ever painted, singing a song that has never been sung. The opposite of creativity is doing things "by the book". If I am just following a set of instructions, or applying a bunch of rules, that is not being creative.

Two examples: if I am cooking a meal from a cookery book, that is not very creative. But if I made the recipe up myself, it is. If I implement quick sort, that is not very creative - thousands of people have done it before me, there are plenty of instructions out there. On the other hand, if I come up with my own, original algorithm, that is being creative.

Being creative means exploring the universe of possibilities. The further away you get from the comfy planet of "it's-been-done-before", the more creative you are.

After 2 decades of programming, I rarely feel creative while programming. While designing an app or UI/UX sure, but rarely while coding.

For me, 90% of coding feels like being a human constraint solver. Take the intersection of tech being used and defined business rules, and figure out the path to implement a feature. It's rare I have to get overly creative to solve a given problem in an out-of-the-box manner.

Maybe I just need to work on more interesting things.

The question inside the question is "Job for who?"

My sister dances and teaches and makes music and art. She's smart enough to program, but I doubt it would suit her temperament. Her muse is her muse, not my muse.

Architects can design buildings that last many years...much longer than most code. Does that make architecture more creative? Architects tend to design fewer buildings than programmers write programs. Does that make architecture less creative?

This is a subjective question. Depends on the individual performing the action. To him anything may or may not be more "creative" than programming.

Why do you say creativity is subjective? If that is the case, anything could be creative - even working on a production line in a factory.

Why do you question it's subjectivity? Do you have any metrics you would use to measure it objectively?

I would argue that any task can be done with creativity, even working on a production line in a factory.

Creativity, as I've said above, has to do with doing things apart from the norm, doing them differently to how they are usually done or how they have been done before.

Using that definition allows a relatively objective comparison of the creativity involved in various tasks. Of course, just how much creativity is involved depends on how the person concerned actually executes a task. (It is perfectly possible to write an incredibly uncreative poem, for example.) In that sense there is some subjectivity involved, but the subjectivity depends primarily on how the subject executes his task, not how he perceives it.

Going back to the production line: production lines were invented specifically to get rid of creativity. Ford wanted to ensure that every single car coming out of his factory was identical. The production line was his way of forcing equality, sameness - thus, the production line is the very antithesis of creativity. Of course, you might find a worker here or there who will work creatively on a production line. But I dare say he won't keep his job for long...

You would need a meta-creative job, one job where you have to create your own job. Perhaps enterpreneur would be it.

perhaps you can get a bit more creative if you discard the constraint of "job" and pick some other objectives not commonly valued / pursued by society

Writing fiction, writing poetry, translating fiction, translating poetry, debating things on the internet.

The cool point in your answer is that you gave 5 activities and they all involve "writing" in a certain extent. Coding is also writing, so the conclusion we might draw here is that writing, in its various forms, is a very creative task. About "debating things on the internet", though, I would disagree. Debating things on the internet definitely demands more resilience, but I really don't think you need to be very creative. Actually, besides being resilient, you need to be good at rhetoric.

I guess it's probably closer to creative writing than debate on the internet, but I'd say this is pretty creative: http://www.adequacy.org/stories/2001.12.2.42056.2147.html

I wouldn't consider programming creative at all, it's the opposite for me. Each problem has a unique solution and do only one thing. None of what you code can be interpreted in differents ways depending of the person looking at it or using it.

There are some in theoretical physics.

UX/UI designing

Interesting. Why it would be more creative to work on UI/UX than building tough algorithms on the back-end? Just due to the aesthetic characteristic in the UI/UX tasks?

Cooking?

Cooking can be a creative task, but I do not think normal people do creative things on the kitchen, they just follow recipes... In my life, for instance, I cook the same things all the time. On the other hand, most of the time when I am programming I do creative stuff to solve problems. It is quite normal to think outside of the box while programming, but not while cooking. Most people must have a similar feeling.

True but in the professional cooking world, I think it's probably comparable to programming. In some cases, it may be more creative.

At home, you can experience more creativity by looking up lots of recipes for the same dish, start understanding what the core ingredients/flavors are and venturing out from there. Eventually you get a handle on ingredients and cooking methods like they're the syntax of a programming language.

Many people cook with creativity, just as many people program without creativity.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com