Creativity and Computers?

Yesterday, I wrote about the creative juices that allegedly flow wildly when programming a computer, or generally working with digital devices. This is partly true, when you have to move swiftly between files and folders, tabs and temporary clipboards,when you have to program in various languages and just challenge your brain constantly to be precise enough. Every geek with a little bit of experience knows what I'm talking about here.

I once studied computer science because I thought it'd be the most creative thing in the world. Unfortunately, that turned out to be an illusion. Of course, there are the events like I described yesterday, and I enjoy programming the computer like playing chess or making an origami flamingo, things that also bolster our mental dexterity.

The thing is, 90% (or rather 99%) of the time, we are looking into things that others have done and decides for us. And there's nothing creative about that. We have to learn how to use libraries and APIs, and so on. And even our own code and ideas, they have to be debugged and checked, a weary, not at all creative process.

I estimate that when I write (for example this blog post), I am creative 20% of the time, and the rest is repetitive taks like filling in gaps, spell check, or sitting around waiting for inspiration. What I wanted to point out today is that this 20% is a lot higher than the 1% of creativity while I'm programming.

Posted in: boring,creativity,exercise,programming