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I absolutely agree. I went to clown school recently (thats a whole story) and I realised I've been focusing way too much on trying to get projects "right" or "d

I absolutely agree. I went to clown school recently (thats a whole story) and I realised I've been focusing way too much on trying to get projects "right" or "do them well". This is really silly. Life is for living, and I squeeze the fun out of software when I try too hard to do it "right". So instead, I'm trying to have a lot more fun with the code I write and I'm finding I've been writing way more code. Its flowing more easily. I've recently written my own protobuf-style library for binary serialization (to try out some fun ideas around schema evolution). And at the moment I'm writing a simple CRDT based local first database. I got the first data syncing yesterday! Its really exciting. Its funny - over the years I've written a lot of code to solve Serious Problems and I've written a lot of code on a whim, to scratch my own itch. Ironically, the code I'm most proud of has often ended up being the stuff I did for fun. I find I keep coming back to maintain and improve the fun projects, but the serious projects languish and die once I move on.

rpastuszak 3y ago
My role model when it comes to entrepreneurship (curious, kind, focused on sustainability and real value) is my outlaw*, also a clown! I wrote about him earlier somewhere on HN, but here's a quick note describing his approach to work: https://untested.sonnet.io/Physical+uncolouring+book#How+would+it+look%3F https://untested.sonnet.io/Physical+uncolouring+book#How+wou... I thought you might enjoy reading this :) PS. Always bet on clowns. * father in law but from a previous marriage
nocoiner 3y ago
Congrats on your admission to Princeton!
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
itsmemattchung 3y ago
> clown school Please please please elaborate on this. I can probably guess what clown school is but ... what's the motivation here?!
- yung_steezy 3y ago
  That's it! You've all been holding me back too long. I'm going to clown college!
- reidjs 3y ago
  He doesn't have to justify his desire to go to clown school. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwUk19cWarI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwUk19cWarI
  - dackerlunghack 3y ago
    [dead]
- gregsadetsky 3y ago
  clown school is great. it can take many forms too - there are classes, workshops, school-schools (i.e. some 1-day, some months-long) a famous clown school is Philippe Gaulier's. famously, Sacha Baron Cohen (Borat, etc.) went (and unsurprisingly excelled) there. this is a short/good? small snippet re: Gaulier's school - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wD4YFuJT0_E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wD4YFuJT0_E but there's a lot more to it - there are schools and communities in New York, Los Angeles, Paris, ... everywhere? just as you'd find improv classes and communities all around the world. as for motivation -- I'm not OP, but for me, it can be the same reasons that drive people to learn acting, or improv, or dancing, or meditation, or horse back riding. something about it is about exploring a new "thing" (being on stage, performing) and some is about exploring yourself (your limits, your subconscious, your inner child, etc.) you should try it if you haven't. everyone should. :*)
- quickthrower2 3y ago
  Clowns are the last job that can be taken by AI.
  - Almondsetat 3y ago
    If I was an AI, doing clown stuff would indeed be the last thing I would like to be forced to do
vsareto 3y ago
>This is really silly. Life is for living, and I squeeze the fun out of software when I try too hard to do it "right". TBH the incentives are usually not there for that effort. That gets people doing the bare minimum. It would be another thing if most developers had comp that scaled with how good your code does.
oh_sigh 3y ago
I'll thank you not to refer to Princeton that way.
pastorhudson 3y ago
I had this same observation playing factorio. When I started I made spaghetti factories with a friend and had to constantly refactor as requirements changed in the game. It was a blast. Then we started getting into optimization and suddenly there was only one right way to do it. Overnight all the fun was sucked out of the game. Often I will learn more by building things poorly with hubris and whimsy. “How hard can it be?” has gotten me in way over my head so many times. But I always learn a ton and discover fun digging my way out.
Grimburger 3y ago
> clown school The fact that everyone is either assuming this is an actual clown school or an Ivy League university is telling.
- krapp 3y ago
  For the sake of their dignity I hope it's an actual clown school.
hyperthesis 3y ago
I used to *enjoy* doing physics. Why did I enjoy it? I used to *play* with it. I used to do whatever I felt like doing - it didn't have to do with whether it was important for the development of nuclear physics, but whether it was interesting and amusing for me to play with. https://www.asc.ohio-state.edu/kilcup.1/262/feynman.html https://www.asc.ohio-state.edu/kilcup.1/262/feynman.html
glouwbug 3y ago
Functions, while loops, if statements. What more can you need?
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- skydhash 3y ago
  With lisp, I only need functions.
  - ludston 3y ago
    Yeah but you're not taking advantage of what makes Lisp great unless you are also using symbols and singly linked lists.
- CableNinja 3y ago
  Youre missing the Pepe Silva strewn classes that tie into each other intricately, and in some occasions are abstraction layers of abstraction layers
kirso 3y ago
I think there is this concept of min/maxing in games that resonates in other areas of our lives. In a game instead of going with the flow and trusting the process people tend to start reading guides how to make the most OP character, maximise stats, and make it a 100% completion. This approach eventually sucks out the pleasure of exploration and random encounters that made the games so good and instead makes people spend hours on trying to maximise stats in a random dice roll fashion. Similarly with other activities, the sense of wonder and "just because" goes out as we are all trying to max out something, whether its wealth or code quality.
- eru 3y ago
  > This approach eventually sucks out the pleasure of exploration and random encounters [...] Oh, that depends entirely on the game and what your mood is. In something like Opus Magnum that min-maxing is the entire point. In something like Factorio or Oxygen Not Included you can have fun both with bumbling around or with min-maxing. Also have a look at https://www.sirlin.net/ptw https://www.sirlin.net/ptw for some perspective. Playing to Win can be fun and rewarding. See especially the chapter https://www.sirlin.net/ptw-book/love-of-the-game-not-playing-to-win https://www.sirlin.net/ptw-book/love-of-the-game-not-playing... > Now it’s time for what appears to be the opposite point of view: “playing to win” at all times is counter-productive. If you want to win over the long term, then you can’t play every single game as if it were a tournament finals. If you did, you wouldn’t have time for basic R&D, you’d never learn the quirky nuances that show up unexpectedly at tournaments, and you are likely to get stuck honing suboptimal tactics.
  - mortallywounded 3y ago
    Man, I haven't seen David's site in forever... I remember the old Yomi posts about street fighter and the whole Hectóre Blivand design fiasco.
- irjustin 3y ago
  > In a game instead of going with the flow and trusting the process people tend to start reading guides how to make the most OP character, maximise stats, and make it a 100% completion. I want to be the very best....

rpastuszak 3y ago

My role model when it comes to entrepreneurship (curious, kind, focused on sustainability and real value) is my outlaw*, also a clown! I wrote about him earlier somewhere on HN, but here's a quick note describing his approach to work: https://untested.sonnet.io/Physical+uncolouring+book#How+would+it+look%3F https://untested.sonnet.io/Physical+uncolouring+book#How+wou... I thought you might enjoy reading this :) PS. Always bet on clowns. * father in law but from a previous marriage

nocoiner 3y ago

Congrats on your admission to Princeton!

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

itsmemattchung 3y ago

> clown school Please please please elaborate on this. I can probably guess what clown school is but ... what's the motivation here?!

yung_steezy 3y ago
That's it! You've all been holding me back too long. I'm going to clown college!
reidjs 3y ago
He doesn't have to justify his desire to go to clown school. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwUk19cWarI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwUk19cWarI
- dackerlunghack 3y ago
  [dead]
gregsadetsky 3y ago
clown school is great. it can take many forms too - there are classes, workshops, school-schools (i.e. some 1-day, some months-long) a famous clown school is Philippe Gaulier's. famously, Sacha Baron Cohen (Borat, etc.) went (and unsurprisingly excelled) there. this is a short/good? small snippet re: Gaulier's school - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wD4YFuJT0_E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wD4YFuJT0_E but there's a lot more to it - there are schools and communities in New York, Los Angeles, Paris, ... everywhere? just as you'd find improv classes and communities all around the world. as for motivation -- I'm not OP, but for me, it can be the same reasons that drive people to learn acting, or improv, or dancing, or meditation, or horse back riding. something about it is about exploring a new "thing" (being on stage, performing) and some is about exploring yourself (your limits, your subconscious, your inner child, etc.) you should try it if you haven't. everyone should. :*)
quickthrower2 3y ago
Clowns are the last job that can be taken by AI.
- Almondsetat 3y ago
  If I was an AI, doing clown stuff would indeed be the last thing I would like to be forced to do

vsareto 3y ago

>This is really silly. Life is for living, and I squeeze the fun out of software when I try too hard to do it "right". TBH the incentives are usually not there for that effort. That gets people doing the bare minimum. It would be another thing if most developers had comp that scaled with how good your code does.

oh_sigh 3y ago

I'll thank you not to refer to Princeton that way.

pastorhudson 3y ago

I had this same observation playing factorio. When I started I made spaghetti factories with a friend and had to constantly refactor as requirements changed in the game. It was a blast. Then we started getting into optimization and suddenly there was only one right way to do it. Overnight all the fun was sucked out of the game. Often I will learn more by building things poorly with hubris and whimsy. “How hard can it be?” has gotten me in way over my head so many times. But I always learn a ton and discover fun digging my way out.

Grimburger 3y ago

> clown school The fact that everyone is either assuming this is an actual clown school or an Ivy League university is telling.

krapp 3y ago
For the sake of their dignity I hope it's an actual clown school.

hyperthesis 3y ago

I used to *enjoy* doing physics. Why did I enjoy it? I used to *play* with it. I used to do whatever I felt like doing - it didn't have to do with whether it was important for the development of nuclear physics, but whether it was interesting and amusing for me to play with. https://www.asc.ohio-state.edu/kilcup.1/262/feynman.html https://www.asc.ohio-state.edu/kilcup.1/262/feynman.html

glouwbug 3y ago

Functions, while loops, if statements. What more can you need?

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
skydhash 3y ago
With lisp, I only need functions.
- ludston 3y ago
  Yeah but you're not taking advantage of what makes Lisp great unless you are also using symbols and singly linked lists.
CableNinja 3y ago
Youre missing the Pepe Silva strewn classes that tie into each other intricately, and in some occasions are abstraction layers of abstraction layers

kirso 3y ago

I think there is this concept of min/maxing in games that resonates in other areas of our lives. In a game instead of going with the flow and trusting the process people tend to start reading guides how to make the most OP character, maximise stats, and make it a 100% completion. This approach eventually sucks out the pleasure of exploration and random encounters that made the games so good and instead makes people spend hours on trying to maximise stats in a random dice roll fashion. Similarly with other activities, the sense of wonder and "just because" goes out as we are all trying to max out something, whether its wealth or code quality.

eru 3y ago
> This approach eventually sucks out the pleasure of exploration and random encounters [...] Oh, that depends entirely on the game and what your mood is. In something like Opus Magnum that min-maxing is the entire point. In something like Factorio or Oxygen Not Included you can have fun both with bumbling around or with min-maxing. Also have a look at https://www.sirlin.net/ptw https://www.sirlin.net/ptw for some perspective. Playing to Win can be fun and rewarding. See especially the chapter https://www.sirlin.net/ptw-book/love-of-the-game-not-playing-to-win https://www.sirlin.net/ptw-book/love-of-the-game-not-playing... > Now it’s time for what appears to be the opposite point of view: “playing to win” at all times is counter-productive. If you want to win over the long term, then you can’t play every single game as if it were a tournament finals. If you did, you wouldn’t have time for basic R&D, you’d never learn the quirky nuances that show up unexpectedly at tournaments, and you are likely to get stuck honing suboptimal tactics.
- mortallywounded 3y ago
  Man, I haven't seen David's site in forever... I remember the old Yomi posts about street fighter and the whole Hectóre Blivand design fiasco.
irjustin 3y ago
> In a game instead of going with the flow and trusting the process people tend to start reading guides how to make the most OP character, maximise stats, and make it a 100% completion. I want to be the very best....