Thought of the Day - Random Thoughts

Thought 1 - Only The Good Die Young
A lot of the best TV shows don't seem to last more than a season; Is it because they are so niche that most people don't get them? Is it because they are ahead of their time? Is it because the networks are just plain stupid?
For a long time i was pissed off when great shows got canned and thought that i would rather they had not been made at all so they couldn't be taken away prematurely. Now i'm just glad they were made at all, shows like; jPod, Dead Like Me, Firefly, Jericho, Odyssey 5 etc have really changed my outlook on things, made me think in different ways and i would be different without them. Sure i would have liked them to continue on for longer but when is enough is enough, at what point would they have jumped the shark? For me a TV show should have an endgame, maybe not a prescribed number of seasons but the writer should have and idea of where things are going and how they will progress. It is good to know that Lost isn't going to continue asking questions forever (though i'm not sure we will ever get all the answers) and i think limiting it to 7 seasons might be a blessing, you know where you stand.
If you look at other media; films, books, albums, theatre, they all have an ending obvious to the reader/listener, maybe TV should be that way too. I suppose the big difference is that a book is less likely to get cancelled mid-read due to bad ratings.

Thought 2 - Coding As Art
Douglas Coupland mentioned that he thought coding (computer programming) was art. I totally agree but it raises an interesting question, is the code itself the art or is it the program at the end that is art?
If it is the former it is the ultimate elitist art, firstly 99% of people will never see the code and even if they did 99.999997% of people wouldn't even know what they were looking at.
If it is the latter then a lot of the creativity is lost, the end user is never going to know that the programmer came up with a really eloquent way to achieve their goals. They will never know what could have been, although at least they should appreciate the end product.
Thinking about it coding really is art; hundreds of thousands of people dabble in it, you can go to school to learn the basics, people do it for fun, very few people ever stand out though. Where i think it differs from traditional 'art' is that it can be so immensely complex, to the point where even experts in the field might not understand it, but can still be successful and people appreciate the outcome. That and the fact you can make a decent living as a fairly poor programmer but would be out on the street if you were a similarly poor painter ;-)
I'm sure there are programmers out there who are some of the most creative people on the planet, coming up with solutions so simple and elegant that other coders are in awe. But for every Bill Gates, Steve Wozniak, Larry Page and Sergey Brin there are tens of thousands labouring in obscurity. At least they can comfort themselves with cash and the knowledge that they are helping people.

Quote: "Always remember you are writing for someone to read."
Douglas Coupland - CBC Podcast