Do you think programming is form of art?

Jon Randy raises a good point

1. Is the act of programming an art?
2. Can you consider the end result of programming art?

I would say yes to both.

One definition of art is -
"the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power."

I see creativity and imagination used all the time in programming, even when the end result is something dull and boring.

With point number two, there is no end to the examples of beautiful content generated by code. For one, the example you used in the question. A great example is all of the images coming out of DALL-E 2.

If there are people who disagree I would like them to have a look at the examples on the three.js homepage and tell me they don't make the cut

I think the first sub-question is, is a pencil art? Not a depiction of a pencil, but a pencil itself. There can be situations in which the answer is yes, since it's always been an open question exactly where the line is drawn. When talking about Fountain, though, it's important to remember: Duchamp was explicitly making a commentary on art with that piece. In a sense, it's Duchamp's commentary that makes the urinal art.

When we're talking about your reproduction of Girl with a Pearl Earring, the first thing that jumps out at me is that CSS and HTML are the medium. Hence the question, is a pencil art? Or more broadly, is the art the medium? I would say, as a general matter, no.

This all has to be caveated, because someone's probably made some sort of mixed media piece that somehow includes programming. Or more broadly, you can absolutely do subject-medium inversion.

The reason I went on this tangent is to say, don't succumb to the idea that anything can mean anything. Yes, "what is art?" is one of those big questions where a dictionary isn't gonna help you much. Do you have to be trying to say something for it to be art? Is Meredith Monk an artist, or is Yoko Ono? Is a dog barking at three in the morning a mixed media piece commenting on how capitalism makes time our enemy? You have to draw your own lines.

Now, for why I don't think programming is artistic in itself...

Programming is fundamentally about process engineering. The world is full of process engineering that nobody would call art: mechanized assembly lines, the rules of blackjack, and the department of motor vehicles, for some examples.

Indeed, architecture is another way of looking at this distinction I'm trying to draw out. When I say architecture you're maybe thinking of Frank Lloyd Wright, but in reality most architecture is about building code compliance. That ugly warehouse on the outskirts of town was still architected and engineered, and that definitely wasn't an art project. Architecture-as-art is the exception, not the rule.

Or to go back to that old standby, Oscar Wilde: "We can forgive a man for making a useful thing as long as he does not admire it. The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely. All art is quite useless."

This cover image was made using html and css only.

Does that relate to your question? Are you asking if programming is a form of art, or if art can be created with programs? The answer to both is 'yes', but they're very different questions.

Programming is kinda like cooking. Part art, part science 🤪