Code as Art

Reposted from a TIGForums discussion, in response to the assertion that programming is more frustrating than other creative endeavors

I actually find similar challenges in writing code and composing music. I start with a basic idea in my mind of something I want to create. How a system should work, or how a piece of music should sound. Then I start building it, writing code or arranging chords and melodies. On a good day, it all just works, but sometimes things don't fit together so nicely: my interfaces aren't well-architected, or a harmony sounds dull and trite, or a matrix transformation isn't working the way I thought it should, or I can't find the right chord change to segue into the prechorus the way it sounds in my head. If the problem gets really hairy, I step through one line at a time in a debugger, or try every combination of notes until I find the right ones. And in both cases, I find that the more I practice, the more it comes naturally and I learn to anticipate and avoid the tricky problems in advance.