Jiro Dreams Of Sushi — https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1772925/

A Programmer Is An Artisan

Robson Porto
Sep 6, 2018 · 2 min read

The demand for developers keeps growing each and every year. We continue to see people changing careers to pursue another one in development (and ain’t nothing wrong with that), but I think that programming is a lot more than a career.

Programming is a form of art.


Some can see programming as just a way to earn money, go home and that’s it. While proper rest and money is important, programming shouldn’t be seen only like a 9–5 job, but actually as an art that should be actively worked on in a daily basis. In other words, a programmer should behave like a shokunin:

“The Japanese word shokunin is defined by both Japanese and Japanese-English dictionaries as ‘craftsman’ or ‘artisan,’ but such a literal description does not fully express the deeper meaning. The Japanese apprentice is taught that shokunin means not only having technical skills, but also implies an attitude and social consciousness.”

— Tasio Orate

It's saddening when I see programmers (even good ones!) that program not because they actually like and care to improve, but because they see programming just like a paycheck at the end of the month. Good code and how to write it is hard and it takes time to master. How are you supposed to improve in a significant way if you only see a line of code in your 9–5 job? A good quote to resume this is one from Uncle Bob:

“You should plan on working 60 hours per week. The first 40 are for your employer. The remaining 20 are for you. During this remaining 20 hours you should be reading, practicing, learning, and otherwise enhancing your career.”

— Robert C. Martin, The Clean Coder: A Code of Conduct for Professional Programmers


I think that we, as programmers, should try to change our own mentality and of our colleagues that programming is a form of art and should be treat as so.

Also we must practice actively how to write good, clean and readable code, just like a musician practice his instrument or a painter train his painting techniques. Remember: we work in a STEM field, but we still write code for humans to read.

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