I don't think this is necessarily true. My personal belief is that any functional thing can be turned into art if it is made with deep respect and intimate knowledge of the telos of the object. You make something so well that you see something really beautiful or important in it/with it/through it that you can't help but capture.

Technical communications serve mostly functional purpose but there were technical documents that ascended their pure function. One of the most famous drawings in the European art history is, in fact, a technical document[0].

I also really love looking at arcitectural drawings, there are a lot of architects and drafters whose technical drawing carries so much artistic quality to it (and not merely quality of execution) that I personally call them artists[1].

And before I get mocked about whether code that makes a spreadheet software is art now -- I don't know, I am not a programmer but I think it can be -- surely there is something else to code than just the software it produces? Speed? Efficiency? Balance? Elegant architecture of ideas that says "yes, I know you, the next maintainer of this codebase, will need to extend it one day, and this is why I made it very simple for you"? It might not talk to an accountant who ends up using the spreadsheet but it can talk to another programmer.

0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitruvian_Man

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marion_Mahony_Griffin

> A programmer should care a lot about the program, and a little less about the code

This gives me vibes of like saying to artists "you should care about the painting but less about the brushes and paints"

The tools you choose and the lines you scribe all contribute to the whole. It all matters to some extent