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Conversely, I have a tough time understanding anyone that spends inordinate amounts of time tinkering away on nothing, just because. You can "love" to program
by run4yourlives 16y ago
Conversely, I have a tough time understanding anyone that spends inordinate amounts of time tinkering away on nothing, just because.
You can "love" to program but that doesn't mean you want to do it all day long. The love can come from the act of solving a problem, not the act of admiring how elegant the code works.
You need to disassociate the enjoyment from the purpose; they are not linked.
- jamesbritt 16y agoSuppose I rephrase this, with a twist: "You can 'love' to paint but that doesn't mean you want to do it all day long. The love can come from the act of solving a problem, not the act of admiring how elegant the results are." Many people are drawn to hacking as others are drawn to painting or playing music (and these groups often overlap).
- run4yourlives 16y agoMany people do in fact love music or painting though specifically because of the admiration others give them for it. You're getting awfully close to a "no true Scotsman" fallacy. I know I'm not going to evaluate whether the guy who paints for himself or the guy who paints for a spot on the museum wall has a higher degree of "pure" love for an action. It's irrelevant, really.
- jamesbritt 16y ago"I know I'm not going to evaluate whether the guy who paints for himself or the guy who paints for a spot on the museum wall has a higher degree of "pure" love for an action." Right. There are no Scotsmen here, true or otherwise. My point is that some people do assorted things for the sake of doing them, for some intrinsic reason, not to solve some specific problem or address some external need. Few people seem surprised when this is what motivates people to paint or play music, but when people say they feel that way about writing software, eyebrows go up.