A long time ago, I think back in 2003, Richard P. Gabriel proposed that universities should offer a Master of Fine Arts in Software.
Is there any university that has adopted this proposal and is offering this degree? I would also like to hear your opinion on this degree.
Thanks
Ever since Richard got that MFA in Poetry he's been on this. I don't think anyone seriously is doing this kind of degree. I like Richard's idea there, because (as a programmer and writer myself) I do see real similarities between creative programming and creative writing. But at least in the US, the Fine Arts and Computer Science departments are separated by high walls, metaphorically and physically.
If you really wanted to do something like this, you'd probably be best off to go somewhere like MIT or Stanford that has a history of doing odd things, and compose a "nontraditional" program of your own. You might also contact Richard (here's his home page) for his advice.
I personally have not heard of any school offering this program before.
My thoughts on this program according to the description is that I believe that this should be how all CS courses should be taught. Right now, I do not think that design is stressed as much as it could be until you get into the upper level undergraduate core classes or graduate classes. While it is more important, it is never talked about, and many of the students are expected to learn this when they get to work, and get their feet wet.
I think that maybe having a software engineering class or two would be very important, and teach most of what seems to be required in this major. I do not think that this is enough substance to warrant a Master's Degree, though, IMHO.
Doubtful, because such a degree would be a misnomer. A fine art is, according to Wikipedia, "any art form developed primarily for aesthetics and/or concept rather than utility." Software doesn't fall into this category -- software is developed to do something, not express the creativity of the creator. I can see some merit in adjusting the way in which universities teach the writing of software, but even modeling such a program on a fine arts curriculum does not make it a "fine art".
Charlie Martin,Huckphin and mipadi thanks for the input. I found there is some early effort to make this idea a reality , found these links
http://simonwillison.net/2003/Oct/3/mfaInSoftware/
http://afongen.com/blog/archives/000563.php
I also thinking to contact Richard as suggested by Charlie Martin.
Thanks again for inputs.
I don't know why I have already done double bachelors, one in B.Sc-computers and other in B.F.A- painting. i simply could not abandon one of them, i really like both fields and in Nepal i didn't find any universities offering course nearly resembling one like B.F.A in software.. when i came up with idea of Richard P. Gabriel i was very interested. but don't know if the University of Illinois have developed such course.
Hi I know I'm way late in replying to this, but I was looking through the masters-degree tag and found this. It's of particular interest because I just finished an MFA in digital media. The program I did definitely comes from the arts - most notably from the 60s conceptual art movement (the last paragraph in the history section of the wikipedia page brings up net.art and electronic/digital art)
I realize this is not what R Gabriel was talking about, but it certainly approaches software from a non-cs angle, and encourages experimentation. There is also a PhD program in Software Studies - this one is kind of a theory-heavy liberal arts type approach to software - but still, it centers around software.
Other software-related MFA programs:
Also, there's "Interaction Design" MFA programs which may actually be closer to what R Gabriel was talking about, for example, The School of Visual Art Interaction Design program.