Ian Betteridge on programming and creativity
Ian Betteridge writes about “The myth of ‘programming is the only creativity’”:
[Mike Loukides, writing about Google’s App Inventor, conflates] “creativity” with programming, and “passivity” with, well, everything else. Mike isn’t the first to do this—I think my friend Cory Doctorow is responsible for the meme. I’d argue, in fact, that the history of computing teaches us the exact opposite: the less people are required to learn programming in order to be creative with computers, the more creative work you get.
Loukides compares iOS devices to the “crafted experience” of a cruise ship tour, saying that “you won’t find out anything about the local culture” that way. Betteridge retorts:
I’d argue that the approach he’s taking, which encourages users to get deeper into the hardware and software to “find out about the local culture” is actually more like requiring the passengers to do their stint maintaining the engines of the ship. The price they pay for getting on the ship in the first place is to become engineers.
Betteridge suggests, with gentle acid, that a lot of the wailing from technonerds like Doctorow and Loukides—and, as much as I respect him, Loukides’ boss Tim O’Reilly, when Tim gets on board with John Battelle’s NMDish ranting about Apple’s nefarious plots to control the web and lock out poor little put-upon Google—boils down to fear: fear of no longer being treated like high priests of technology.
