briancarper.net (λ) (Tag: Art)

Drawings

Sun, 15 Mar 2009 21:21:58 -0700

These are some old drawings, most from before 2005. They're all drawn freehand, most based on some reference image, most in pencil but some on a Wacom tablet.

Cats

Flowers

Others

Anti-climactic!

Tue, 29 Jan 2008 03:09:50 -0800

My origami gallery / photo blog.

I won't call it finished, since I plan to keep working on it and the code needs a major cleanup. But hey, it's up and running and it displays photos, so it has fulfilled its purpose. It's all Common Lisp top to bottom, too. (Aside from JQuery.) I need to make it so that it degrades nicely if you don't have Javascript enabled. But that's all just HTML tweaks, very easy at this point. Tested on Firefox2 and Firefox3, Opera9 and IE7. Currently a tad broken in Konqueror but I'm getting there. IE6 can bite me.

I've been so busy working on the code for that site that I haven't had time to really start folding models to post there, other than a few to start off. That'll change now. It'll be nice to have some folding time.

My current art/origami gallery on this site has some really, really bad photos in it, so I plan not to re-use most of those for the new site. I am not a photographer, sadly. But I found some tutorial somewhere about how to make a "light box". Essentially, cut a hole in a cardboard box, cover the hole with something translucent like white tissue paper, put a lightbulb over the hole, and curve a nice white piece of posterboard in the bottom of the box to use as a backdrop. So easy even I could do it, and it cost me a total of $7 for a tiny desk lamp and some light bulbs. But it's immensely improved the quality of my photos. (Which isn't saying much.)

Now the test is whether the server is still running tomorrow morning when I wake up. Tomorrow or the next day, I'll post a summary of things I've learned on this trek into Common Lisp.

Programming: art?

Sat, 12 Jan 2008 23:22:36 -0800

numerodix wrote an entry about programmers expeding lots of effort for seemingly odd reasons, and mentioned me as an example. So I'm kind of proud. It's a good post and I think the quotation he posted from The Mythical Man Month is largely accurate.

But I disagree that programming isn't art. Of course not all code is art. Probably most isn't. Sloppy get-the-job-done code written by someone who's doing it for a paycheck, without passion, is probably not art. Any more than a mass-produced badly-rendered copy of the Last Supper is art. But I think good code can be art.

Of course it's hard to define "art". One definition (yes I looked up "art" in the dictionary; yes I'm a nerd) is something "beautiful, appealing, or of more than ordinary significance". That's as good a definition as any, so let's run with it.

Code can be beautiful. There is a regularity and symmetry about good code that can invoke an emotional response in people who really understand it. Code is often talked about in aesthetic terms, and I don't think that's an accident. What word do people often use to describe good code? "Elegant". Bad code? "Ugly".

We often talk of a programmer's coding "style", as though we're reading poetry. Some people take this idea literally.

I think code can easily be something "of more than ordinary significance". Sure, a program is in the end something that's designed to be used as a tool. But the same can be said for example about buildings, and architecture is considered art by many. Something can be functional and still be art.

On those rare occassions when I produce good code, I do feel like I'm doing more than pushing buttons on a keyboard. I'm creating something unique. There is an element of emotional fulfillment when I happen upon a simple, elegant solution to a complex problem. There is the joy of having created something, something which is wholy mine, a product of my mind, and having that in front of me in a form in which it can be shared with other people.