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Does Programming make you THINK Different?
And I'm not talking in the Apple Computers sense of the word.
Do you find that since learning programming, you tackle normal "real life" problems in a different way. Such as breaking down on the side of the road, or balancing your checkbook or doing your taxes? Are you more procedural? Do you view things in terms of inheretance?
Opinions, ideas, commentary?
Full name:
Tuesday, November 25, 2003
nope, not really.
mostly I find that my enjoyment of, and participation in, other types of intelluctual pursuit has rather abated.
(translation, if a problem doesn't have to be solved, and requires some deep thought...Ill avoid it altogether now..)
FullNameRequired
Tuesday, November 25, 2003
Sure it does.
What hasn't got an impact on you if you are involved 10 hours a day?
I'm hopefully not become a strict logical minded boring techie who always knows things for better.
I see programming as an often frustrating but stimulating profession.
It sharpens as chess or science your feeling for complex implications.
And it is a small world with its own heroes and bastards, beauty and ugliness.
Hugh :-)
Sven Hohage
Tuesday, November 25, 2003
yes it makes you dellusional.
Cold somewhere in time
Tuesday, November 25, 2003
Maybe I'm not so analytical about things because I program all day; maybe I got into programming because I'm so analytical about things.
Kyralessa
Tuesday, November 25, 2003
No, it hasn't. I've always been pathologically logical, anal retentive (should there be a hyphen in that?) and detail oriented. :)
sgf
Tuesday, November 25, 2003
Yes, there should.
Anal-retentively yours,
Kyralessa
Tuesday, November 25, 2003
string answer;
answer = 'I don''t think so?!';
return answer;
--
ee
eclectic_echidna
Tuesday, November 25, 2003
I find that programming very seriously changes the way I interact with the world around me. It allows me to expand into and understand other sciences and gives me a framework for applying them.
The best way to explain this is with a few examples:
I was at the grocery store the other day, and noticed that the customer receipt prints out before the store receipt. So I have to wait for two receipts to print before I sign one. Small detail, but any process expert will tell you that printing the receipt that requires an action first would increase the throughput of the process.
I was working on a project involving a rather remote and boring type of machine. My job was to produce a series of customer reports that would explain the cost savings of certain products being put through the machine. This required the construction of a statistical model for monitoring and controlling machine cost, which could then be applied to both the customer report and to fine tuning other services. When I walked away from that, I started to see the applications of such modeling in everything I did, down to the coffee counter at the local Starbucks.
Perhaps it is best to say that structural coding doesn't have much of an impact on ones perceptions, but the things that can be accomplished with it do.
Just my 2 cents.
Dustin Alexander
Tuesday, November 25, 2003
No, it makes me think differently.
Michael Eisenberg
Tuesday, November 25, 2003
Since I started programming I make as much errors in real life as I make in my source code.
Slashbot
Tuesday, November 25, 2003
In the beginning I used to have to wait overnight to see if my code compiled, I was edgy, smoked a lot, drank a lot of coffee, drank a lot of beer tried to meet women.
Now my code compiles so fast I have to surf the internet, drink even more coffee, don't smoke, drink wine, so am fat so no women (apart from being married).
Simon Lucy
Tuesday, November 25, 2003
8+ years in software dev.
Yes, I'm more confused and more stupid. Also it killed my motivation in different hobbies.
After a party, I calculate if I should take the bus or the taxi. If I take the bus, it cost me 60 minutes, the taxi 10 minutes. I check where would I save money. Let's say I'm doing 100$ an hour,
a) So if I take the bus, I spend 60 minutes, which is a loss of 100$ (theoretically)
b) If I take the taxi which costs 20$, I save 50 minutes, which is 83$ possible income.
In case a) I loose 100$, in case b) I win $63, so I choose the taxi.
Then of course I arrive at home and go to sleep, so my total is -$20. Grhhh
name not available
Tuesday, November 25, 2003
It used to affect my thinking and my way of doing things.
After a while, I understood that programming requires skillset A1 and state of mind A2, while living requires skillset B1 and state of mind B2.
So I don't mix them anymore.
Hope you grok what I'm saying.
It's 2 AM and I have to do an emergency shutdown of my brain - which is v. sleepy now!!!
BYE
Bob
Tuesday, November 25, 2003
name not available, I share in your sickness.
Do the cost of commuting (Bus, for example) vs Driving to work - don't miss any of the little factors - it's a fun one.
Matt
Tuesday, November 25, 2003
I often notice things that I do differently, though I seldom remember it.
I find that I am far more obsessive about matching parentheses and such than other people.
Perhaps I am wierd for it, but I find that my choice of words and phrases is often precise so that I think that it must be influenced by programming. I often make arguments of the form "there is at least one case where...", or "It could be argued that XYZ, though I will not argue that".
I fail to see how it wouldn't affect the way you think. After all, you spend a significant amount of time engaged in an activity that is 1) purely mental, and 2) purely logical. I say logical and not creative because while much of the design work is creative, and much problem solving is creating, you are manipulating essentially logical structures. I don't think that it could possibly not affect your thinking, even if you don't notice it, or if it has been completely assimilated.
- Only a programmer says 'don''t reimplement the wheel'
Mike Swieton
Wednesday, November 26, 2003
Yes, I've noticed that certain words and idioms tend to creep into your every day speech. Definitely during college all that reading started penetrating my brain, and now I find myself saying things are "trivial" a lot, and I'm not even sure if regular people know what that means. I think they do, but I can't remember. : ) A lot of math stuff has crept into my vocabulary too because for awhile the longest things I would write were all proofs. e.g. "Consider...", "Suppose that...", "exactly one of", etc.
Roose
Wednesday, November 26, 2003
I do not code all of the time, but I do notice some short term effects.
When I have been coding all day I am less social:
- I want to jump straight to the point instead of letting people build there case.
- I am more edgy, and become more of a selfrighteous wiseass
- I am less imaginative, more focussed on details and more reluctant to take a longer view
- I have a more "mechanical", confrontational "If it doesn't bend I'll break it" mindset
Just me (Sir to you)
Wednesday, November 26, 2003
"I was at the grocery store the other day, and noticed that the customer receipt prints out before the store receipt. So I have to wait for two receipts to print before I sign one. Small detail, but any process expert will tell you that printing the receipt that requires an action first would increase the throughput of the process."
I notice nitty little things like that, too, and sometimes I just have to point them out to the poor girl behind the desk/wherever. Very confusing moments, because I know that he/she never understands what I mean, and I can not stay there and explain, and the next day when I come to do my shopping she/he will look at me strangely... :-)
Antti Kurenniemi
Wednesday, November 26, 2003
Found something quite interesting, if tangentially related, which suggests that the language you program in affects the way you think about solving the problem - http://www.fpgacpu.org/index.html#021110
Wednesday, November 26, 2003
To follow Just Me's approach:
- I'm more analytical than ever.
- I'm more reluctant to take longer view.
- I notice interface problems and crack comments about these 'bugs,' even though it's not software.
1/4 Ain't Bad
Wednesday, November 26, 2003
I thought it was the other way around. People who thought differently (logically, systematically etc) became programmers.
chris
Wednesday, November 26, 2003
"I was at the grocery store the other day, and noticed that the customer receipt prints out before the store receipt. So I have to wait for two receipts to print before I sign one. Small detail, but any process expert will tell you that printing the receipt that requires an action first would increase the throughput of the process."
If the machine screws up during the transaction, then at least the customer will have a record of it, something to check against the bill when it arrives. The shop doesn't need to keep the receipt because it has the machine, which remembers the transactions.
I don't know for sure that's the reason, but it's the kind of thing they think about.
Pat Galea
Wednesday, November 26, 2003
yes it does
Tapiwa
Thursday, November 27, 2003
Like Chris has stated: I program because of the way I am and therefore progamming hasn't changed me. If programming wasn't available it would be some other logical pursuit I'm sure.
Greg Kellerman
Tuesday, December 2, 2003
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