the death of pride
mei happs - 2025-04-22
what aspects of yourself are you proud of? this is a question i often struggle with. and it comes up a lot! maybe not necessarily phrased or framed in that way, but the overarching message is there, and the reason i struggle is that i only really pride myself on one thing: my programming ability. i can do maths just fine, but i wouldn't say im proud of it, it's just a natural talent i was lucky to have. i enjoy puzzles, but once i've finished a puzzle i don't think about how proud i am of it, or how it could be improved, i just move on.programming is different though, this is a craft i have honed for over a decade. when i make something, i am proud of what i have made. my first thought after finding a solution remains to be "how can i improve it?". while maths is simply a means to an end to me, and puzzles are an entertaining distraction, programming is an art.
now, just to eliminate any differences in opinion as to the definition of art, for the duration of this post art will be defined as:
the making or doing of something whose purpose is to bring pleasure to people through their enjoyment of what is beautiful and interesting
this is a very slightly paraphrased definition from the cambridge dictionary.
to make it abundantly clear, i do not believe all programming is art! that would be an insane take to have, but some programming definitely is. here are some examples of programming that i would not consider art:
- most uni computer science coursework (with exceptions for things like "final year project" and other similar things where you have a lot of freedom, but only if you exercise it)
- boilerplate code
- anything ai generated, you didn't make or do this, even if you find it beautiful and/or interesting (which i do not)
and some examples of art!
- this is a solution i wrote for leetcode 2601: prime subtraction operation. there will be some debate here over whether this would be deemed beautiful, and that's entirely fair! beauty is subjective but i believe this solution's blatant disregard for readability in favour of showcasing some abhorrent quirks of the python programming language, while trying it's best not to compromise on standards (as written, not as intended) quite beautiful. while i am incredibly proud of this code, i don't believe it's high quality. if i encountered code like this in a professional setting i would do everything in my power to ensure i never worked with the person that wrote it again! but even still, there's beauty in how much effort it takes to understand this code.
from typing import Generator
primes: list[int] = [] #hardcoded list of all primes up to 1000 and 0
class Solution:
def primeSubOperation(self, nums: list[int] | Generator[int]) -> bool:
prev = -1
nums = (prev := (num - max(filter(lambda x: max(prev + x, x) < num, primes))) for num in nums)
try:
for _ in nums:
pass
return True
except ValueError:
return False
i guess my main point in all of this is that art is about the process. the tiny decisions that go into the production of the piece, not the end result. when i wrote my silly little leetcode solution, i wasn't making decisions based on what would solve the problem, i was making them based on what would be interesting. there were countless easier ways to do it, but they simply didn't bring me as much joy as knowing that i could use these evil design patterns.
when the process is stripped away, left to something or someone else to worry about, the art is gone. i'm proud of my programming, but when i write some corporate looking code for a university assignment and all the micro-decisions are laid out in a brief for me to follow, i'm not proud of what i produce. pride is rooted in art and for every bit of work that is done solely for the sake of getting it done, pride is dead.