It's a fascinating discussion. Maybe we can meet half way?
> I definitely believe that there is value in artists learning to think with the rigor that code encourages. It's a fascinating cross-pollination...
I agree!
> Design is remarkably accessible...
But this... Well it depends on the point of view. Design can be as intimidating for geeks as programming is for artists.
I have nothing against making programming tools more user or artist friendly. In a sense Photoshop is such a step - it allows many creators make sophisticated images without learning to draw and without learning to program. And certainly many many amazing works were created with it and similar tools.
The point I am trying to make here is that the visual/artistic power or possibilities of generative art and design are very much driven and dependent on the artist's fluency to program. There were many attempts to create programming tools [1] that let you avoid having to slog through typing the code, but seems like none of them would match the expressive possibilities of 'raw' coding and gain any wider adoption. In other words all of them have significant limitations and this would be a step back from the point of view generative artist.
And just to make it clear, I don't think that using any of these higher level tools is wrong or produces works of lesser value. It's just that these works are outside of unique possibilities of generative art driven by traditional coding.
Have you seen the "Stop drawing dead fish" and other Bret Victor talks? Those are not high level tools, they allow you to build generative animation and graphs from scratch.
Photoshop-like visual tools are indeed limited to pre-built concepts, but Victor has found a way to make coding possible without textual syntax; that's a powerful idea that may be the basis for a tool allowing artists to program without requiring the programmer's skill to keep the parse-tree-plus-AST in your head while building automations.
Take a look at the topic of End User Development and Programming by Example[1], it's a quite comprehensive research field dealing with ways that programming-like activities can be done without any traditional "raw coding".
> I definitely believe that there is value in artists learning to think with the rigor that code encourages. It's a fascinating cross-pollination...
I agree!
> Design is remarkably accessible...
But this... Well it depends on the point of view. Design can be as intimidating for geeks as programming is for artists.
I have nothing against making programming tools more user or artist friendly. In a sense Photoshop is such a step - it allows many creators make sophisticated images without learning to draw and without learning to program. And certainly many many amazing works were created with it and similar tools.
The point I am trying to make here is that the visual/artistic power or possibilities of generative art and design are very much driven and dependent on the artist's fluency to program. There were many attempts to create programming tools [1] that let you avoid having to slog through typing the code, but seems like none of them would match the expressive possibilities of 'raw' coding and gain any wider adoption. In other words all of them have significant limitations and this would be a step back from the point of view generative artist.
And just to make it clear, I don't think that using any of these higher level tools is wrong or produces works of lesser value. It's just that these works are outside of unique possibilities of generative art driven by traditional coding.
[1] http://blog.interfacevision.com/design/design-visual-progarm...