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by my3681 4682 days ago
Great software entrepreneur MAY be artists, but it isn't a necessity. Just because you craft or make something doesn't inherently make you an artist. Are the people who make sandwiches at Subway really "sandwich artists"?

That said, an appreciation for the arts most certainly affects one's eye for design and taste. It is the difference between a good looking/feeling app and a great one. So much can and should be borrowed from the arts to build products, but perhaps such a loose definition of "artist" is unhelpful.
3 comments
jaegerpicker 4682 days ago
On the other hand I think this definition of art is too limited. Are sandwich's art, of course not but art is about creating and communicating beauty/emotion from were it didn't exist. Is software art, it's hard to say. I tend to think software/code is something else. Some that is newer and different than art but that borrows heavily from art. I guess the difference is that I think the code itself is the art rather than the output. That said I may be to close to have a fair viewpoint, I've named two companies based on variants of the name Code art.
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mathgladiator 4682 days ago
> Are sandwich's art, of course not

Obviously, you have never had a masterful sandwich.

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vonical 4682 days ago
All great points. Software is regarded by many as a science, art, trade, and craft all in one. Some software does have a wow factor. Games are like that, but much other software is deeply utilitarian. I wonder, too, about the usefulness of distinguishing art from craft, or artist from artisan. The fine arts, whose end is the beautiful ("that which, being seen, pleases"), and the other arts, whose end is service to people.
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unz 4682 days ago
Agree with that.

I'd say there's two types of software - better experience and novel functionality. You can in be a competitive business and win by offering superior service/design or go into non-competitive markets and offering functionality you can't get anywhere else.

Personally I prefer the noval functionality, being an engineering type, and slide a little on the design, but there's equally as much money in going the artistic route.

There's great technical risk in the functionality route, but there's great market risk in going the artistic route. Steve Blank talks about this in his writings.

The Lean Startup movement is about this market risk. To get a handle on technical risk you'd be better off listening to Elon Musk.

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