> Memorization in programming gives us architecture astronauts and design-pattern soup rather than elegant code.
Elegance is probably orthogonal to creativity, and likely follows from some kind of minimization principle, like minimum program length. You are effectively distilling the "essence" of something from all of the noise.
Creativity seems different, more like novelty, and creativity following some kind of remix of memorized elements + some randomization seems very plausible.
You can create something novel but not elegant, and something elegant but not novel, and you can distill an elegant version of something novel that your or someone else created and that's the best of all creations.
Elegance is probably orthogonal to creativity, and likely follows from some kind of minimization principle, like minimum program length. You are effectively distilling the "essence" of something from all of the noise.
Creativity seems different, more like novelty, and creativity following some kind of remix of memorized elements + some randomization seems very plausible.
You can create something novel but not elegant, and something elegant but not novel, and you can distill an elegant version of something novel that your or someone else created and that's the best of all creations.