I totally agree with the concept of "programming as an art". Personally that's how I look at the code I write. It's a matter of balance between black and white, complexity and simplicity. The way the code looks (literally) always is an important aspect in the code I write. Is it balanced (in many aspects)? Well indented? Not cryptic? The size of names is not too small or too big? Are the naming rules consistent? Is it well documented (inline documentation explaining whys and whats)? Is it easy to understand by other developers? ... All these things influence the look of a piece of code. For me, the look is also highly correlated with the quality of the code, because it shows the care the programmer took in every aspect of it. Generally speaking, for me, "the preetier the better". Ok, ok. I know performance is very important. But being performant does not necessarily exclude being "full of art". Most developers I know (sorry: any coleague seeing this) never even worry about many of the stated aspects of programming. They only know how to criticize the code (written by others) they have to mantain, ignoring that their code might be even "worse"... The proper balance between "looks" and performance is itself an art. "Art in programming" is not a "nice to have" or an "if there is time" thing. It must be taken into account in every line you write, in every variable you name. It's not something to leave for a later "refactoring" phase, because almost certainly there will be no time for that. For me, this kind of attention given to your code is necessarily tied to loving your work. Loving to code and think. I surely do.