Will.i.am is 'giving up' music to learn computer programming

Many aspiring producers admire Will.i.am for his musical success. He admires Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg.

It's in all the news so I don't know which is the primary source to credit, but apparently Mr. am is turning away from music and towards computer programming. Yes, not just using Pro Tools, Logic, Ableton or whatever it is he makes his hits with (Emu SP1200 perhaps?), but actually writing the code the computer runs on.

This is a topic I know something about because as well as being a fairly average musician I am also a fairly average coder. Yes, I can write a song, but probably not a very good one. And I can write code. Probably not very good code but it works, mostly.

Admiration?
Science vs. programming
Musicians to coders or coders to musicians

So in a sense I admire Will. (I'm not sure if his first name ends on the 'l' or on the dot). Coding is a challenge that is every bit as big as music. It's easy to strum a few chords on a guitar, but devilishly difficult to create music that people will pay to hear (without getting drunk at the same time). It's easy to write a 'hello world' script, but very hard to match up to the genius that a top coder will apply to a tricky programming problem.

I also admire Will.i.am for making a positive statement forsubstance, to which I am sure he will bring his flair for style [explanatory link].

It is a wise person however who properly understands the difference between computer science and computer programming. If you can see how the halting problem lives in a rather different space to the use of regular expressions, then you will understand what I mean.

To me, coding is a means to an end. I can make my website do something useful without having to spend a lot of money on it (or any money at all).

 I do enjoy it to a certain extent - it gets my head to a place where life's problems and irritations fade away into the far background. And when my project works, there's a sense of satisfaction. But I have to say that I don't enjoy it even a tenth as much as playing my musical instruments, writing a song, or playing around with an arrangement in my DAW. Perhaps I'm not a natural-born coder. Maybe Will.i.am is.

My feeling is that there are a lot more coders who wish they could become musicians than musicians yearning to become coders. But there are a lot of people who lack any particular direction in life who look up to Will.i.am for his undeniable (even if you don't like it) sense of style. If these people could come to see coding as 'cool', then we all as a society stand to benefit. (As long as they write 'good code', but that's another issue entirely.)

I can't sum it up better than one newspaper's probable misquote of Will.i.am, but it gets right to the point...

"The world needs geeks, not musicians!"

I'm going to say "Good luck" to Will. It'll be interesting to see how he gets on.

P.S. I may be exaggerating a little to say that Will.i.am is 'giving up' music. He's going to take a computer science course at theCalifornia Institute Of The Arts. It looks quite interesting...

William James Adams (born March 15, 1975), professionally known by his stage name will.i.am (pronounced "Will I am"), is an American recording artist, songwriter, entrepreneur, voice actor, DJ, record producer, and philanthropist, best known as one of the founding members of the hip hop/pop band, The Black Eyed Peas. He is the recipient of seven Grammy Awards, eight American Music Awards, a Billboard Music Award, a Teen Choice Award, two Video Music Award, and three World Music Awards all won with the Black Eyed Peas.

Will.i.am has also released four solo albums. The first, Lost Change was released in 2001 on Atlantic Records. The album itself is the original soundtrack to the movie of the same name. A music video was made for the song, "I Am", however, no singles were released from the album. The second solo album Must B 21, was released on September 23, 2003. Track seventeen on the release, "Go!", was regularly used as the theme for the NBA Live 2005 and Madden NFL 2005 seasons. 

A video for the track was also recorded for use within the sports, however, no singles were released from the album. The third album, Songs About Girls, was released on September 25, 2007. The first single released from the album was a club track titled "I Got It from My Mama" which peaked on the Billboard Hot 100 at #31 on the 17th of August 2007. The album also featured singles "Heartbreaker" and "One More Chance". He is set to release his fourth studio album, #willpower in 2013.

will.i.am is also a music producer. He has produced with other artists including Michael Jackson, Justin Bieber, Eazy-E, Britney Spears, U2, Rihanna, Usher, Justin Timberlake, Earth, Wind & Fire, Nicki Minaj, Cheryl Cole, 2NE1, SMAP, The Game, Nas, Bone Thugs-n-Harmony, Daddy Yankee, Wolfgang Gartner, and Juanes. He is a coach on The Voice UK. In collaborations and with Black Eyed Peas, he has a total of 34 Top 40 entries on the UK Singles Chart since 1998, and has sold 9.4 million singles in the UK.