7 ms·

The way I read grandparent is that the game feels so much like real work that you might as well get something out of it. I have the same problem with a lot of p

by Swizec 8y ago

The way I read grandparent is that the game feels so much like real work that you might as well get something out of it. I have the same problem with a lot of puzzle games: I already solve puzzles all day every day, might as well go work on those.

taneq 8y ago
Not the gp but that's exactly how I feel about these kinds of games. They're fun, but they're too close to what I actually do for a living and I might as well just go do some work. It means they're not relaxing.
- OberstKrueger 8y ago
  Along those lines, as someone who just programs as a hobby and not a career, these games are just as much fun as any side project. They're a puzzle that uses similar logic, but I never feel like it's wasted time, since a lot of programming hobbies are "wasted time" in that they are fun for me to work on and sometimes produce something tangible, but it's mostly just about messing around with something new.
TeMPOraL 8y ago
I have the opposite feeling - solving "puzzles" for real-life work is tedious and boring (and the end result is just money), while Zachtronics games let me exercise the same mental muscles with much less frustration. EDIT: Urm, sorry. Zachtronics games let me actually exercise my brain, just like side projects. Real on-the-job programming these days is mostly gluing, which has nothing to do with technology, and is essentially navigating bureaucracy created by other people. You have state A, you know state B you want to be in, you have to discover the appropriate forms to fill in and stamps to collect on the way, and often perform kafkaesque dance around public keys and OAuth flows and related concepts. It's getting about as fun as tax forms.
- xyproto 8y ago
  Embedded programming usually don't have the same byrocracy. Instead of OAuth flows there are flawed hardware specs and long lists of security requirements, though.
  - monadgonad 8y ago
    > Instead of OAuth flows there are flawed hardware specs That sounds... a lot like a Zachtronics game. How feasible do you think it is for a gluing web developer with a full-time job already to move into embedded?
- pjmlp 8y ago
  Yeah, but you can do the same with demoscene competitions or competitive programming, while using actual languages.
  - TeMPOraL 8y ago
    True, and I do usually go for side projects instead of playing. There's a difference though, that I can't articulate, that makes Zachtronics games alluring, particularly when I get stuck on the side project and lose steam.
    - pjmlp 8y ago
      Sure to each its own, not everyone of us has fun the same way. My side projects on github are a joke vs actual FOSS contributors, because I very seldom touch them for any meaningful time, given there is no pressure to finish anything. Which goes back to what you mention as alluring.
- selestify 8y ago
  > Real on-the-job programming these days is mostly gluing My God, are we working the same job? Have you ever found a job that was not just gluing things together?
  - TeMPOraL 8y ago
    Not yet. I hear that these jobs exist, but I seem to be consistently unable to find them.
    - smolder 8y ago
      Companies with the interesting jobs are not as profitable as those with glue-things-together jobs, and aren't hiring. In fact, I hear they're looking to get out of that business entirely. It'll soon be glue, all the way down, with university partnerships so kids can pay tuition to invent new stuff before they graduate to glue land.
  - imranq 8y ago
    Real programming jobs exist and pay a lot. You have to be extremely good though - more like a mathematician or a CS researcher. Some examples: C++ Latency programmer for HFT funds, Staff Research Engineer at Google, AI Research at DeepMind/OpenAI
- vinceguidry 8y ago
  I'm sorry, I simply cannot buy this idea that any kind of coding can't be made out to be fascinating. I was asked today what about working with websites I found so fulfilling. The reason boils down to the fact that, more than any other domain out there, I feel like I'm working directly with the future. I'm working directly at the intersection of technology and business, driving real value for real people. Anybody who is making a website for dev money is doing this. It's just way too expensive to waste money on something that's not. I feel like if you consider your job as 'just gluing', you're missing out on something amazing. Friday we were having a team discussion about data modeling and how we wanted to structure a particular concept. When does it become worthwhile to introduce another database to accommodate a new data flow? What precisely is the criteria you use for determining when to denormalize? Our Postgres database worked just fine with little consideration towards perf, until we needed to use analytics. Now all of a sudden all those joins matters. How do you work effectively with designers to produce a great-looking, functional website at the speed that a media company wants to work at? The whole team has had to really level up their CSS knowledge and code organization because things change really really fast. Layout goes from being a chore to a matter of fair urgency that you get right the first time and fast. Say you don't work for a fast-paced media company. Great, now you have tons of spare cycles to devote towards maintainability and code quality. Just how far can you golf your job down to? At my last job I was touching a code editor twice a week. I refuse to buy into the mentality that says that any programming job can be meaningless. There's always something neat you can be doing there.
  - TeMPOraL 8y ago
    I agree that anything can be made fun if you try hard enough. It's a kind of mental hack. Some people are better at it than others. I'm very happy that you feel passionate about your work. I envy that. This comment is not an attempt at making you less passionate; I'm trying to point out differences in perspective. One phenomenon I observed is that people who just learned programming are fascinated by everything. People on their first or second job. People just learning their first or second programming language. They're so full of enthusiasm. I envy them. For me, that moment was many years ago, way before I was able to join the job market. Because of that, I sometimes think that there's a disadvantage to learning to program before adulthood - your first jobs won't be as exciting. You've already seen 90% of the problems you're about to face, and your attention is thus focused not on the technical aspects, but on the fact that you have this problem in the first place, likely for no good reason. > The reason boils down to the fact that, more than any other domain out there, I feel like I'm working directly with the future. I'm working directly at the intersection of technology and business, driving real value for real people. Yeah, for me - and many others - that "future" is a disastrous dystopia, a perversion of what computing could be, a land of corporate riches, total surveillance and great waste of resources, instead of the promised efficiency and empowerment of individuals. The web of today - from the tech stack to dev communities to popular business models - is a tragic reminder of how "worse is better" can be taken to an extreme, resulting in all the compute being mostly wasted on software bloat and glitter. Consider e.g. Moore's law, and then consider that the software of today doesn't usually offer new user-facing features that are actually useful (i.e. not glitter) over the software from 15 years ago. Sure, most of it is the same old thing but networked!, but that's arguably more of a business model change than something meaningful to end users. And the web is unfortunately driving all that bloat, glitter and user-hostile business practices. Yes, I very much don't like the cloud. > (...) driving real value for real people. Anybody who is making a website for dev money is doing this. I question the "real value for real people" part of this. In fact, I believe it would be better for everyone if a lot of those web jobs were not done at all. After all, the dominant model of the web is to waste people's time (result of optimization for engagement) while making money off advertising (i.e. wasting more time), plus building surveillance infrastructure to make extra buck off data collection. I do not subscribe to the view that just because some money changes hands, it's automatically a good thing. But then, maybe I'm just burned out. I've noticed I've become increasingly depressed about this industry, and the typical jobs that are available.
- monkeynotes 8y ago
  If you really feel like your software job is just routine sticking bits together, maybe start to look for another job. The one thing I like about my dev job is it's always something new and interesting, and the stuff I am building is overall not interesting at all, but I enjoy what I do within it. After 15+ years of front end development I still get a kick out of plugging together features and seeing the results. I hate routine and repetitive tasks and I would quit if I was bored every day (there are certainly some boring days). I read somewhere once that new developers coming into the industry just for the money are in for a shock. Software is boring to a lot of people, you have to be the right kind of person to actually enjoy the tedium of reloading, recompiling, debugging, just for that one short lived smirk to yourself when it all works and you check it in.
jhbadger 8y ago
The thing in puzzle games is that (assuming they are well written) that the puzzles have a logical solution. Many real life puzzles don't.
fake-name 8y ago
This is basically correct. I like shmups/FPS games, but the enjoyment I get out of them is very different then how I enjoy programming. Zachtronics games feel, at least to me, just like programming, only without the useful end-result. If I'm going to play a videogame to relax, I don't want to feel like I'm working without actually doing anything. Maybe, if I didn't have a bajillion hobby programming projects that all have lots of things that I can tinker with, I'd have more interest.

by Swizec 8y ago

taneq 8y ago

Not the gp but that's exactly how I feel about these kinds of games. They're fun, but they're too close to what I actually do for a living and I might as well just go do some work. It means they're not relaxing.

OberstKrueger 8y ago
Along those lines, as someone who just programs as a hobby and not a career, these games are just as much fun as any side project. They're a puzzle that uses similar logic, but I never feel like it's wasted time, since a lot of programming hobbies are "wasted time" in that they are fun for me to work on and sometimes produce something tangible, but it's mostly just about messing around with something new.

TeMPOraL 8y ago

I have the opposite feeling - solving "puzzles" for real-life work is tedious and boring (and the end result is just money), while Zachtronics games let me exercise the same mental muscles with much less frustration. EDIT: Urm, sorry. Zachtronics games let me actually exercise my brain, just like side projects. Real on-the-job programming these days is mostly gluing, which has nothing to do with technology, and is essentially navigating bureaucracy created by other people. You have state A, you know state B you want to be in, you have to discover the appropriate forms to fill in and stamps to collect on the way, and often perform kafkaesque dance around public keys and OAuth flows and related concepts. It's getting about as fun as tax forms.

xyproto 8y ago
Embedded programming usually don't have the same byrocracy. Instead of OAuth flows there are flawed hardware specs and long lists of security requirements, though.
- monadgonad 8y ago
  > Instead of OAuth flows there are flawed hardware specs That sounds... a lot like a Zachtronics game. How feasible do you think it is for a gluing web developer with a full-time job already to move into embedded?
pjmlp 8y ago
Yeah, but you can do the same with demoscene competitions or competitive programming, while using actual languages.
- TeMPOraL 8y ago
  True, and I do usually go for side projects instead of playing. There's a difference though, that I can't articulate, that makes Zachtronics games alluring, particularly when I get stuck on the side project and lose steam.
  - pjmlp 8y ago
    Sure to each its own, not everyone of us has fun the same way. My side projects on github are a joke vs actual FOSS contributors, because I very seldom touch them for any meaningful time, given there is no pressure to finish anything. Which goes back to what you mention as alluring.
selestify 8y ago
> Real on-the-job programming these days is mostly gluing My God, are we working the same job? Have you ever found a job that was not just gluing things together?
- TeMPOraL 8y ago
  Not yet. I hear that these jobs exist, but I seem to be consistently unable to find them.
  - smolder 8y ago
    Companies with the interesting jobs are not as profitable as those with glue-things-together jobs, and aren't hiring. In fact, I hear they're looking to get out of that business entirely. It'll soon be glue, all the way down, with university partnerships so kids can pay tuition to invent new stuff before they graduate to glue land.
- imranq 8y ago
  Real programming jobs exist and pay a lot. You have to be extremely good though - more like a mathematician or a CS researcher. Some examples: C++ Latency programmer for HFT funds, Staff Research Engineer at Google, AI Research at DeepMind/OpenAI
vinceguidry 8y ago
I'm sorry, I simply cannot buy this idea that any kind of coding can't be made out to be fascinating. I was asked today what about working with websites I found so fulfilling. The reason boils down to the fact that, more than any other domain out there, I feel like I'm working directly with the future. I'm working directly at the intersection of technology and business, driving real value for real people. Anybody who is making a website for dev money is doing this. It's just way too expensive to waste money on something that's not. I feel like if you consider your job as 'just gluing', you're missing out on something amazing. Friday we were having a team discussion about data modeling and how we wanted to structure a particular concept. When does it become worthwhile to introduce another database to accommodate a new data flow? What precisely is the criteria you use for determining when to denormalize? Our Postgres database worked just fine with little consideration towards perf, until we needed to use analytics. Now all of a sudden all those joins matters. How do you work effectively with designers to produce a great-looking, functional website at the speed that a media company wants to work at? The whole team has had to really level up their CSS knowledge and code organization because things change really really fast. Layout goes from being a chore to a matter of fair urgency that you get right the first time and fast. Say you don't work for a fast-paced media company. Great, now you have tons of spare cycles to devote towards maintainability and code quality. Just how far can you golf your job down to? At my last job I was touching a code editor twice a week. I refuse to buy into the mentality that says that any programming job can be meaningless. There's always something neat you can be doing there.
- TeMPOraL 8y ago
  I agree that anything can be made fun if you try hard enough. It's a kind of mental hack. Some people are better at it than others. I'm very happy that you feel passionate about your work. I envy that. This comment is not an attempt at making you less passionate; I'm trying to point out differences in perspective. One phenomenon I observed is that people who just learned programming are fascinated by everything. People on their first or second job. People just learning their first or second programming language. They're so full of enthusiasm. I envy them. For me, that moment was many years ago, way before I was able to join the job market. Because of that, I sometimes think that there's a disadvantage to learning to program before adulthood - your first jobs won't be as exciting. You've already seen 90% of the problems you're about to face, and your attention is thus focused not on the technical aspects, but on the fact that you have this problem in the first place, likely for no good reason. > The reason boils down to the fact that, more than any other domain out there, I feel like I'm working directly with the future. I'm working directly at the intersection of technology and business, driving real value for real people. Yeah, for me - and many others - that "future" is a disastrous dystopia, a perversion of what computing could be, a land of corporate riches, total surveillance and great waste of resources, instead of the promised efficiency and empowerment of individuals. The web of today - from the tech stack to dev communities to popular business models - is a tragic reminder of how "worse is better" can be taken to an extreme, resulting in all the compute being mostly wasted on software bloat and glitter. Consider e.g. Moore's law, and then consider that the software of today doesn't usually offer new user-facing features that are actually useful (i.e. not glitter) over the software from 15 years ago. Sure, most of it is the same old thing but networked!, but that's arguably more of a business model change than something meaningful to end users. And the web is unfortunately driving all that bloat, glitter and user-hostile business practices. Yes, I very much don't like the cloud. > (...) driving real value for real people. Anybody who is making a website for dev money is doing this. I question the "real value for real people" part of this. In fact, I believe it would be better for everyone if a lot of those web jobs were not done at all. After all, the dominant model of the web is to waste people's time (result of optimization for engagement) while making money off advertising (i.e. wasting more time), plus building surveillance infrastructure to make extra buck off data collection. I do not subscribe to the view that just because some money changes hands, it's automatically a good thing. But then, maybe I'm just burned out. I've noticed I've become increasingly depressed about this industry, and the typical jobs that are available.
monkeynotes 8y ago
If you really feel like your software job is just routine sticking bits together, maybe start to look for another job. The one thing I like about my dev job is it's always something new and interesting, and the stuff I am building is overall not interesting at all, but I enjoy what I do within it. After 15+ years of front end development I still get a kick out of plugging together features and seeing the results. I hate routine and repetitive tasks and I would quit if I was bored every day (there are certainly some boring days). I read somewhere once that new developers coming into the industry just for the money are in for a shock. Software is boring to a lot of people, you have to be the right kind of person to actually enjoy the tedium of reloading, recompiling, debugging, just for that one short lived smirk to yourself when it all works and you check it in.

jhbadger 8y ago

The thing in puzzle games is that (assuming they are well written) that the puzzles have a logical solution. Many real life puzzles don't.

fake-name 8y ago

This is basically correct. I like shmups/FPS games, but the enjoyment I get out of them is very different then how I enjoy programming. Zachtronics games feel, at least to me, just like programming, only without the useful end-result. If I'm going to play a videogame to relax, I don't want to feel like I'm working without actually doing anything. Maybe, if I didn't have a bajillion hobby programming projects that all have lots of things that I can tinker with, I'd have more interest.