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By that token, what _is_ fun? Let's say you ask a painter if he enjoys painting. Do they really enjoy the act of dragging a brush over a surface, of cleaning

by phugoid 18y ago

By that token, what _is_ fun? Let's say you ask a painter if he enjoys painting. Do they really enjoy the act of dragging a brush over a surface, of cleaning brushes, mixing colours? These are just the low-level, mechanical parts of the activity. Playing scales fits in the same category, so does a lot of refactoring. What about the thinking part?

jimbokun 18y ago
"Do they really enjoy the act of dragging a brush over a surface, of cleaning brushes, mixing colours?" They very well might. I imagine there are painters who would be bored to tears with a computer program that allowed them to think out their painting and execute it without ever getting a brush dirty. The tactile and sensory experience of painting with physical brushes and paints might be a large part of why they enjoy it.
eduardoflores 18y ago
Yes, it's fun to drag the brush and feel, smell the painting, mixing the colors... even just going to buy materials is fun. Painting for hours to get a picture you never had idea you could is also fun... enjoy As it's fun to crunch numbers for hundreds of thousands of text documents with a Ruby script and then getting the results into R language and throwing amazing graphics of an algorithm correctly classifying them. Yes it's about the results, and it's about the process.
- phugoid 18y ago
  Actually, I agree with you. I enjoy the process too. I was just trying to make sense of sho's post. Why would (s)he be coding in his spare time if (s)he so doesn't take some pleasure in the mechanics of it?
sho 18y ago
Well you hit the nail on the head there; perhaps it's all about what you define as "fun". For me, fun is a kind of whimsical enjoyment. For example, I love karaoke and drinking with my friends. That's "fun". Shooting aliens in games is fun. Playing paintball is fun. Taking E and smoking a whole pack of cigarettes while sitting in front of the bass box at a nightclub is so fun it's almost orgasmic. Programming is satisfying and good and necessary and I proudly describe myself as a programmer, despite perhaps not being all that good at it - but it's not like any of the above things, to me at least. It's not untrammelled enjoyment. It can be frustrating, infuriating even. Satisfying too, of course, but I just question whether extended periods of genuine frustration can be called "fun" - for me they're anything but, despite the overall positivity of the process. Seems opinions differ, and it may all just come down to definitions.

by phugoid 18y ago

jimbokun 18y ago

"Do they really enjoy the act of dragging a brush over a surface, of cleaning brushes, mixing colours?" They very well might. I imagine there are painters who would be bored to tears with a computer program that allowed them to think out their painting and execute it without ever getting a brush dirty. The tactile and sensory experience of painting with physical brushes and paints might be a large part of why they enjoy it.

eduardoflores 18y ago

Yes, it's fun to drag the brush and feel, smell the painting, mixing the colors... even just going to buy materials is fun. Painting for hours to get a picture you never had idea you could is also fun... enjoy As it's fun to crunch numbers for hundreds of thousands of text documents with a Ruby script and then getting the results into R language and throwing amazing graphics of an algorithm correctly classifying them. Yes it's about the results, and it's about the process.

phugoid 18y ago
Actually, I agree with you. I enjoy the process too. I was just trying to make sense of sho's post. Why would (s)he be coding in his spare time if (s)he so doesn't take some pleasure in the mechanics of it?

sho 18y ago

Well you hit the nail on the head there; perhaps it's all about what you define as "fun". For me, fun is a kind of whimsical enjoyment. For example, I love karaoke and drinking with my friends. That's "fun". Shooting aliens in games is fun. Playing paintball is fun. Taking E and smoking a whole pack of cigarettes while sitting in front of the bass box at a nightclub is so fun it's almost orgasmic. Programming is satisfying and good and necessary and I proudly describe myself as a programmer, despite perhaps not being all that good at it - but it's not like any of the above things, to me at least. It's not untrammelled enjoyment. It can be frustrating, infuriating even. Satisfying too, of course, but I just question whether extended periods of genuine frustration can be called "fun" - for me they're anything but, despite the overall positivity of the process. Seems opinions differ, and it may all just come down to definitions.