Ask HN: Critic as Artist
All fine imaginative work is self-conscious and deliberate. No poet sings because he must sing. At least, no great poet does. A great poet sings because he chooses to sing. It is so now, and it has always been so. We are sometimes apt to think that the voices that sounded at the dawn of poetry were simpler, fresher, and more natural than ours, and that the world which the early poets looked at, and through which they walked, had kind of a poetical quality of its own, and almost without changing could pass into song.
With some license, should you substitute poet for developer and song for program, you end up with a nice description of the art of programming :-) Here's my shot at it:
All fine imaginative work is self-conscious and deliberate. No programmer develops because he must write code. At least, no great programmer does. A great programmer develops because he chooses to write code. It is so now, and it has always been so. We are sometimes apt to think that the code that was written at the dawn of programming was simpler, fresher, and more natural than ours, and that the world which the early programmers looked at, and through which they walked, had kind of a programmable quality of its own, and almost without changing could pass into code