5 ms·

Offtopic, but a couple pages later is the most memorable passage of the whole book to me, a software engineer: (about setting up the IBM machines to perform ca

Offtopic, but a couple pages later is the most memorable passage of the whole book to me, a software engineer: (about setting up the IBM machines to perform calculations for the Manhattan Project) "Well, Mr Frankel, who started this program, began to suffer from the computer disease that anybody who works with computers now knows about. It's a very serious disease and it interferes completely with the work. The trouble with computers is you play with them. They are so wonderful. [...] After a while the whole system broke down. Frankel wasn't paying any attention; he wasn't supervising anybody. The system was going very, very slowly-- while he was sitting in a room figuring out how to make one tabulator automatically print arctangent X [...] Absolutely useless! We had tables of arc-tangents. But you've ever worked with computers, you understand the disease-- the delight in being able to see how much you can do. But he got the disease for the first time, the poor fellow who invented the thing. I was asked to stop working on the stuff I was doing in my group and go down and take over the IBM group, and I tried to avoid the disease." I try to keep this in mind when I'm working. I must admit I'm not very good at avoiding that disease.

pytyper2 8y ago
I'm 90% disease, 10% real work. Edit: But the 10% real work, I work real real hard :)
- kbenson 8y ago
  Well, the good thing is that generally that 90% of disease can make that real work much more efficient. After a few years of 90% disease, you're probably able to knock out the equivalent of at least 60%-80% of real work in just that 10% of time.
- int_19h 8y ago
  I wonder if anybody has ever tried to do a study on where "peak efficiency" lies on this spectrum (i.e. how much do you need to allow people to goof around, such that the subset of their time they spend on being productive yield the most value).
abraae 8y ago
Very familiar with that disease. I admire people who have immunity.
felipemnoa 8y ago
>>I try to keep this in mind when I'm working. I must admit I'm not very good at avoiding that disease. It is a disease in the same way that a painter or writer has a disease where he cannot stop painting or writing. Frankly, I think those that have it should count themselves among the lucky ones.
- nikanj 8y ago
  I think he was talking about procrasti-coding. “Should be working on X, but really captivated by a well-defined and elegant Z instead” Printing arctan tables sounds like a seminal example of a Advent of Code kind of problem, which have been known to nerd snipe countless programmers.
  - AceJohnny2 8y ago
    Exactly. It's kind of related to yak-shaving, except the task you're spending time on may not at all be related to the one you should be focusing on. I've more than once caught myself lovingly perfecting some utility script when, really, I had some more important stuff I should've been focusing on. The reason, of course, is that I'm getting that rewarding feeling of accomplishment on the script, when I know the feeling will be further out (or unattainable) on the Main Task.
segfaultbuserr 8y ago
Do you know the calculator hacking community? Graphing calculators like TI-84 are commonly used in American math classes, and they are reasonably powerful general purpose computers. So the hacking community started because a bunch of highschoolers are bored enough studying math at school, and discovered programming. First it was BASIC, then Z80 assembly, and later some even started creating their own programming environment on the calculator, rediscovered many high-performance graphics hacks used by early video games. After graduating from highschools, those who still have interests in calculators have developed open source toolchains, programming languages and operating systems in college for calculator development. However, when Texas Instruments released TI-Nspire CX, it was boycotted by the vast majority members from the hacking community because the system is locked down. Some teachers and parents commented, > "one thing that [...] is NOT wrong is TI's refusal to make the NSpire a platform for Doom or Quake or any other distraction that kids enjoy. These things may be fun, but they aren't about learning math" I think it describes the same phenomenon.
- TeMPOraL 8y ago
  And then people are surprised kids hate school and don't learn a thing. Tinkering, fun, and being free to follow a stupid idea down a rabbit hole is how people learn and internalize stuff.
  - b0bby_tabl3s 8y ago
    I agree 100%, but you have to learn how to focus as well. ;*)
- _bxg1 8y ago
  "but they aren't about learning math" Hmmmmmmmmmm
  - TeMPOraL 8y ago
    Yeah, exactly. By 15yo, I was knee-deep in trying to make my own games. Final exams came, after which everyone's chatting about how they solved the math questions. "It was simple, I've used Pythagorean theorem", they'd say, and I rolled my eyes wondering how that applies. I said, "it was simple, I've used the formula for the length of a 2D vector, which is also the same for the distance between two points". They rolled their eyes wondering what I was talking about. (It did click for me a couple moments later that the cool thing I've learned for my game programming goals was, in fact, derived from the Pythagorean theorem.)
smueller1234 8y ago
That's a beautiful quote, thank you for sharing! It's also how I acquired most of the skills that today define my career. I studied physics and procrastinated with code, and to a lesser extent with studying computer science, extensively. Today I work on Google's technical infrastructure. I suspect that this is not at all an unusual turn of events amongst readers here.
- TeMPOraL 8y ago
  > I suspect that this is not at all an unusual turn of events amongst readers here. Definitely not. On large scale, I own most of my career to that disease. On small scale, pretty much every job I got could be attributed to something that I learned through procrastination a year or two earlier.
  - mattkevan 8y ago
    Absolutely the case for me too. Switched courses to design because my chemistry tutor kept telling me off for doodling on my notes. Got into web development was because I was bored at work and started learning HTML. Trouble is, it means that whatever I’m doing is what I should be doing some point in the future, not what I actually need to do right now...
  - smueller1234 8y ago
    I have another variant of this: I get code rage (which I can easily self diagnose after the fact as being simply NIH in most cases). So whenever I got stuck debugging a bunch of spaghetti, I'd go look for distractions. But because at this point, that was in a professional setting and no longer just my target for procrastination, I was looking for professionally valid distractions. So I became a team lead/manager that way. One thing leads to another and here I am. Turns out I liked that career, too.
kragen 8y ago
Related context — after Frankel was kicked out of government work for political incorrectness in the 1950s, he designed the LGP-30 (the computer Mel Kaye famously programmed) and the forgotten Smith-Corona Marchant Cogito 240SR, on which project Tom Osborne was inspired to develop what eventually became the HP 9100, the foundation of the line of all of HP's programmable RPN calculators, and in some sense one of the first personal computers, shipping in 1968: http://www.hp9825.com/html/the_9100_project.html http://www.hp9825.com/html/the_9100_project.html

pytyper2 8y ago

I'm 90% disease, 10% real work. Edit: But the 10% real work, I work real real hard :)

kbenson 8y ago
Well, the good thing is that generally that 90% of disease can make that real work much more efficient. After a few years of 90% disease, you're probably able to knock out the equivalent of at least 60%-80% of real work in just that 10% of time.
int_19h 8y ago
I wonder if anybody has ever tried to do a study on where "peak efficiency" lies on this spectrum (i.e. how much do you need to allow people to goof around, such that the subset of their time they spend on being productive yield the most value).

abraae 8y ago

Very familiar with that disease. I admire people who have immunity.

felipemnoa 8y ago

>>I try to keep this in mind when I'm working. I must admit I'm not very good at avoiding that disease. It is a disease in the same way that a painter or writer has a disease where he cannot stop painting or writing. Frankly, I think those that have it should count themselves among the lucky ones.

nikanj 8y ago
I think he was talking about procrasti-coding. “Should be working on X, but really captivated by a well-defined and elegant Z instead” Printing arctan tables sounds like a seminal example of a Advent of Code kind of problem, which have been known to nerd snipe countless programmers.
- AceJohnny2 8y ago
  Exactly. It's kind of related to yak-shaving, except the task you're spending time on may not at all be related to the one you should be focusing on. I've more than once caught myself lovingly perfecting some utility script when, really, I had some more important stuff I should've been focusing on. The reason, of course, is that I'm getting that rewarding feeling of accomplishment on the script, when I know the feeling will be further out (or unattainable) on the Main Task.

segfaultbuserr 8y ago

Do you know the calculator hacking community? Graphing calculators like TI-84 are commonly used in American math classes, and they are reasonably powerful general purpose computers. So the hacking community started because a bunch of highschoolers are bored enough studying math at school, and discovered programming. First it was BASIC, then Z80 assembly, and later some even started creating their own programming environment on the calculator, rediscovered many high-performance graphics hacks used by early video games. After graduating from highschools, those who still have interests in calculators have developed open source toolchains, programming languages and operating systems in college for calculator development. However, when Texas Instruments released TI-Nspire CX, it was boycotted by the vast majority members from the hacking community because the system is locked down. Some teachers and parents commented, > "one thing that [...] is NOT wrong is TI's refusal to make the NSpire a platform for Doom or Quake or any other distraction that kids enjoy. These things may be fun, but they aren't about learning math" I think it describes the same phenomenon.

TeMPOraL 8y ago
And then people are surprised kids hate school and don't learn a thing. Tinkering, fun, and being free to follow a stupid idea down a rabbit hole is how people learn and internalize stuff.
- b0bby_tabl3s 8y ago
  I agree 100%, but you have to learn how to focus as well. ;*)
_bxg1 8y ago
"but they aren't about learning math" Hmmmmmmmmmm
- TeMPOraL 8y ago
  Yeah, exactly. By 15yo, I was knee-deep in trying to make my own games. Final exams came, after which everyone's chatting about how they solved the math questions. "It was simple, I've used Pythagorean theorem", they'd say, and I rolled my eyes wondering how that applies. I said, "it was simple, I've used the formula for the length of a 2D vector, which is also the same for the distance between two points". They rolled their eyes wondering what I was talking about. (It did click for me a couple moments later that the cool thing I've learned for my game programming goals was, in fact, derived from the Pythagorean theorem.)

smueller1234 8y ago

That's a beautiful quote, thank you for sharing! It's also how I acquired most of the skills that today define my career. I studied physics and procrastinated with code, and to a lesser extent with studying computer science, extensively. Today I work on Google's technical infrastructure. I suspect that this is not at all an unusual turn of events amongst readers here.

TeMPOraL 8y ago
> I suspect that this is not at all an unusual turn of events amongst readers here. Definitely not. On large scale, I own most of my career to that disease. On small scale, pretty much every job I got could be attributed to something that I learned through procrastination a year or two earlier.
- mattkevan 8y ago
  Absolutely the case for me too. Switched courses to design because my chemistry tutor kept telling me off for doodling on my notes. Got into web development was because I was bored at work and started learning HTML. Trouble is, it means that whatever I’m doing is what I should be doing some point in the future, not what I actually need to do right now...
- smueller1234 8y ago
  I have another variant of this: I get code rage (which I can easily self diagnose after the fact as being simply NIH in most cases). So whenever I got stuck debugging a bunch of spaghetti, I'd go look for distractions. But because at this point, that was in a professional setting and no longer just my target for procrastination, I was looking for professionally valid distractions. So I became a team lead/manager that way. One thing leads to another and here I am. Turns out I liked that career, too.

kragen 8y ago

Related context — after Frankel was kicked out of government work for political incorrectness in the 1950s, he designed the LGP-30 (the computer Mel Kaye famously programmed) and the forgotten Smith-Corona Marchant Cogito 240SR, on which project Tom Osborne was inspired to develop what eventually became the HP 9100, the foundation of the line of all of HP's programmable RPN calculators, and in some sense one of the first personal computers, shipping in 1968: http://www.hp9825.com/html/the_9100_project.html http://www.hp9825.com/html/the_9100_project.html