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14-Year-Old Prodigy Programmer Dreams In Code

7 points by Walkman 13y ago

laumars 13y ago
Dreaming in code isn't that weird. Given that sleep is your minds way of organizing the previous days experiences (amongst other things), it's only to be expected that you would dream about whatever took the majority of mental time while awake. For most kids that would be playing with their friends. For adults that might be stresses of their day to day life. And for people who spend most of their waking life coding, we're inevitably going to dream about coding. That said, when I was at college and would spend 2 or 3 days coding for about 18hrs a day, I would have the weirdest dreams that would resemble the scene from The Matrix where Neo first discovers his power. Except rather than green text on black, it would be the syntax highlighting colors that my (then) IDE defaulted to. Going back on topic though, as normal as the "dreams in code" thing is. This kid clearly still has a natural talent and the enjoyment of the subject to push himself further. So best of luck to him - not that I think he'll need it.
invalid_arg 13y ago
The kid is going to well. He's smart and eloquent, to important traits in software development. However dreaming in code. Thats nothing new, I challenge you to find a developer who hasn't woken up with solution to a problem.
joezydeco 13y ago
I've come up with answers to hard problems in the shower. Can I say I write software in the shower now?
- Walkman 13y ago
  Under the shower, your brain switches to a bit of an alpha state, the same when you go to sleep and you start using your right brain more, so you find solutions to problems intuitively rather than rationally (which means you aggregate and summarize all of your rational knowledge, without even knowing about it). It's good to train your right brain even if you do a lot of programming (which is totally a left brain activity), it will help you to be a better in that either!
  - joezydeco 13y ago
    Oh yeah, I'm aware of that. I'm just making the point that a lot of programmers are thinking of code when they're not directly working on it. It's the nature of what we do.
krapp 13y ago
I find when i'm dreaming in code, it's a sign i've been spending too much time in front of the editor.

7 points by Walkman 13y ago

Dreaming in code isn't that weird. Given that sleep is your minds way of organizing the previous days experiences (amongst other things), it's only to be expected that you would dream about whatever took the majority of mental time while awake. For most kids that would be playing with their friends. For adults that might be stresses of their day to day life. And for people who spend most of their waking life coding, we're inevitably going to dream about coding. That said, when I was at college and would spend 2 or 3 days coding for about 18hrs a day, I would have the weirdest dreams that would resemble the scene from The Matrix where Neo first discovers his power. Except rather than green text on black, it would be the syntax highlighting colors that my (then) IDE defaulted to. Going back on topic though, as normal as the "dreams in code" thing is. This kid clearly still has a natural talent and the enjoyment of the subject to push himself further. So best of luck to him - not that I think he'll need it.

invalid_arg 13y ago

The kid is going to well. He's smart and eloquent, to important traits in software development. However dreaming in code. Thats nothing new, I challenge you to find a developer who hasn't woken up with solution to a problem.

joezydeco 13y ago

I've come up with answers to hard problems in the shower. Can I say I write software in the shower now?

Walkman 13y ago
Under the shower, your brain switches to a bit of an alpha state, the same when you go to sleep and you start using your right brain more, so you find solutions to problems intuitively rather than rationally (which means you aggregate and summarize all of your rational knowledge, without even knowing about it). It's good to train your right brain even if you do a lot of programming (which is totally a left brain activity), it will help you to be a better in that either!
- joezydeco 13y ago
  Oh yeah, I'm aware of that. I'm just making the point that a lot of programmers are thinking of code when they're not directly working on it. It's the nature of what we do.

krapp 13y ago

I find when i'm dreaming in code, it's a sign i've been spending too much time in front of the editor.