There is "code as art" where the code itself is art. A while back there was a program floating through the nerd community that was C code laid out in the shape of a giant C, which actually compiles to a valid program.
Then there is "code as an artform". Think code golf, or other such challenges that encourage incredibly creative solutions.
Then my personal favorite is simply "beautiful code". Sometimes an algorithm or a function will just be elegant in its construction or simplicity. Sometimes you have a real hairy problem that seems very complex at first, but the solution ends up as a small, clean function with no frills, no bugs. It's about beautiful solutions more than the text of the code.
Code can be art, but it usually isn't. The first two categories are something done intentionally as a form of expression, but the last is more akin to a sunset or a rainbow. Sometimes beauty appears when we don't intend or expect it. But I think that still qualifies as art.
"Art is a diverse range of human activity, and resulting product, that involves creative or imaginative talent expressive of technical proficiency, beauty, emotional power, or conceptual ideas.
There is no generally agreed definition of what constitutes art,...":
It's a good day to reflect on code recently pushed, or a PR submitted, to retrace the lines and marvel at it (in one's head, on the commute home, or underneath a watery drone).
If programming itself isn't art, the cognition of its product surely is. Art in a gallery asks to be observed again, studied again, brought to the context of each discovered age, again.
Then there is "code as an artform". Think code golf, or other such challenges that encourage incredibly creative solutions.
Then my personal favorite is simply "beautiful code". Sometimes an algorithm or a function will just be elegant in its construction or simplicity. Sometimes you have a real hairy problem that seems very complex at first, but the solution ends up as a small, clean function with no frills, no bugs. It's about beautiful solutions more than the text of the code.
Code can be art, but it usually isn't. The first two categories are something done intentionally as a form of expression, but the last is more akin to a sunset or a rainbow. Sometimes beauty appears when we don't intend or expect it. But I think that still qualifies as art.