The Art of Programming

Presented at the PHPBenelux 2015 unconference - 24 Jan 2015

Transcript

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2. whoami
   ●
   (PHP) Developer Advocate at
   DigitalOcean
   ●
   Working with PHP and Linux
   for 10+ years
   ●
   Author of Vagrant Cookbook
   and phansible.com
   

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3. A BRIEF STORY...
   

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5. She liked cats before it was cool
   

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8. “So, did you people see that layout
   contest thing from BliG where you can
   win a book?
   I think I'm gonna try it. I'm interested in
   the book about PHP and also in
   the Javascript one.”
   - me, Dec 2002
   

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10. Programming:
    IS IT ART
    OR IS IT
    SCIENCE ?
    

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11. BACK TO THE
    EARLY DAYS
    

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12. Margaret Hamilton
    Lead software engineer,
    project Apollo
    

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13. The Early Days
    "Software during the early
    days of this project was
    treated like a stepchild and not
    taken as seriously as other
    engineering disciplines, such
    as hardware engineering; and
    it was regarded as an art and
    as magic, not a science.”
    - Margaret Hamilton
    

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14. DEFINE:ART
    

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15. What is Art?
    ●
    Google:
    – "the expression or application of human creative
    skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such
    as painting or sculpture, producing works to be
    appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional
    power."
    ●
    Wikipedia:
    – "the word art may refer to several things: (i) a study of
    a creative skill, (ii) a process of using the creative skill,
    (iii) a product of the creative skill, or (iv) the audience's
    experience with the creative skill."
    

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16. What is Art?
    “The aim of art is to represent not
    the outward appearance of
    things, but their inward
    significance.”
    - Aristotle
    

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17. What is Art?
    “Art is the most intense
    mode of individualism that
    the world has known.”
    - Oscar Wilde
    

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18. What is Art?
    ●
    Keys:
    – Expression
    – Individualism
    – Creativity
    – Audience Experience
    

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19. What is Art?
    the expression of human creative
    skill and imagination, generating
    an output that can be possibly
    experienced by someone
    other than you
    

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20. What is Art?
    ●
    Not an adjective
    ●
    Doesn't need to be good
    ●
    Doesn't need to be beautiful
    ●
    Artist is not an adjective either
    “Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes.
    Art is knowing which ones to keep.”
    Scott Adams
    

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21. NOW,
    BACK TO
    SOFTWARE
    

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22. Software Engineering
    "I fought to bring the software legitimacy so that it
    (and those building it) would be given its due
    respect and thus I began to use the term
    “software engineering” to distinguish it from
    hardware and other kinds of engineering.
    It was an ongoing joke for a long time.
    They liked to kid me about my radical ideas”
    Margaret Hamilton
    

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23. Software Engineering
    ●
    Still very young compared to other engineering
    fields
    ●
    Strongly based on trial-and-error, instead of
    formulas / mathematical proofs
    ●
    Tests are the closer we have to proofs, but they
    are also written by us
    

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24. Programming languages
    

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25. The blocks have specs, are well tested
    

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26. Going “vanilla” Using a Framework
    

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27. But the rest is up to you
    

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28. But the rest is up to you
    

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29. But the rest is up to you
    

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30. ART&SCIENCE
    Programming is art
    built on top of logic.
    

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31. CREATIVITY IS
    THE PIPELINE
    

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32. “Logic will get you from A to B.
    Imagination will take you
    everywhere.” 
    — Albert Einstein
    

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34. There's no challenge for creativity!
    

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35. CODEARTISTS
    

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36. THEMYTHOF
    CREATIVITY
    

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37. The myth of creativity
    “It lives on because it appeals to romantic
    prejudices about invention. There is a myth
    about how something new comes to be.”
    - Kevin Ashton, The Creativity Myth
    

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38. The myth of creativity
    “If people knew how hard I worked to get my
    mastery, it wouldn't seem so wonderful at all.”
    - Michelangelo
    

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42. RIDE THAT
    FUCKING
    UNICORN
    

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43. “Don’t think about making art, just
    get it done. Let everyone else
    decide if it’s good or bad, whether
    they love it or hate it. While they are
    deciding, make even more art.”
    - Andy Warhol
    

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44. THANKS!
    https://joind.in/13411
    

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