Towards An Ontology Of Software: A Requirements Engineering Perspective / quote 16 of 28
Code is not necessarily an artifact
In the light of these observations, a code is not necessarily an artifact. If we acci- dentally delete a line of code, the result might still be a computer code. It will not, however, be “intentionally made to serve a given purpose”. Moreover, we can clearly conceive the possibility of codes generated randomly or by chance (for instance, sup- pose that, by mistake, two code files are accidentally merged into one). In contrast, a program is necessarily an artifact. A computer program is created with the purpose of playing a particular proper function.