The pattern I read for this week was “Craft over Art”. It was about how you should value the usefulness of an object you are creating over the beauty of it as the program can be beautiful, but it needs to be useful. I found this pattern very interesting to read as it is something that I really agree with. I have always seen usefulness as the true beauty, and have always valued something working over it looking the best. Would it be cool if the program was also nice to look at? Yeah, there is a sort of professional feeling to making a program that looks good and works, but you should never try to make code look better if it decreases its usefulness. There is always room for beauty, but not if it comes to the cost of the program itself.
The pattern did not cause me to change my way of thinking, but it did strengthen it, as I have always agreed with what is said in the pattern. To me, I always looked at the beauty of a program as something that can be worried about in the end, when the crafting of it is done first. When it is finished, then I can focus on making it look as neat and clean as possible without ruining its purpose. I have always been someone that wanted the better equipment no matter how it looked, so I think that has rubbed off on my programming.
Looking back at the pattern, it is hard for me to find something that I disagreed with. I agree with everything said in the pattern, and see it as common sense to me. I would rather make that 50 line game that is simple yet fun over the groundbreakingly beautiful unplayable game. I can see how some people can disagree with this though as some people value beauty over usability. An example of this is with kids, as some kids would rather have the worst Superman toy over the better Batman toy just because of looks. Other than those moments though, most people would agree that craft is over art.
Anesti Blog's 