@izzy@social.shadowkat.net I wonder... I always naively insisted that programming is art. But the words you used "use it to work through some shit" made me think I might be wrong, and that programming is not art. I suddenly feel that "craft" is a better word, I definitely see my programming as a craft. But unlike writing or drawing or even dancing, I never used it to "work through some shit". I can write to self-reflect and solicit empathy for my mind, I can draw to face my demons, I can dance to enact my flow of thought into my body and the physical world, but I never program to have any such emotional effect. I do feel "art" when I'm programming, but it's usually the /result/ of programming. Calling programming art is like calling a paint brush art. There is a craft of paint brushes, their making and behavior and methods and techniques of usage, but it is not a tool for human and emotional connection and understanding in of itself; its product, the painting, is. So I feel like the products of programming, such as video games, programmatic music, graphical demo scene stuff, application UIs, websites, can all be art, but the programming itself is only a meditative craft. I find joy in typing and text layout, and in systems, contract, network, and graph thinking, so I find shaping and structuring my programs to be very rewarding and joyous work, but I don't feel like it provides me any connection to the human condition in of itself. In fact, it kinda has an opposite effect to writing and drawing, with the latter you feel more connected to other people, but with programming I feel like I only go into darker and darker obscure corners and pseudo-OCDs that I lose almost all connection with the collective human experience.