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Speedruns are amazingly interesting. When I tell people about watching them, their reaction is usually something along the lines of "why do people waste their l

Speedruns are amazingly interesting. When I tell people about watching them, their reaction is usually something along the lines of "why do people waste their lives on that?" But there's so much interesting going on there. The parallels to optimization in programming are striking.

PavlovsCat 13y ago
Sorry to be that guy, but isn't one of the cornerstones of optimization in programming that you should only do it when it actually gives a meaningful benefit? E.g. don't spend days or weeks to make a part of the program that gets called very rarely run 0.1% faster, when you could instead spend that time on solving a new problem, or making an actually useful optimization, or doing something else entirely. Of course, it's silly to bicker about what is "useful" when it comes to things people do to relax or entertain themselves; and usually fruitless when it comes to things they do as escapism or getting a feeling of achievement to compensate for areas where they are stuck or blocked off. I do think the psychology of it is interesting though, and my personal guess is that most if not all people have the innate desire to progress and achieve things, but we often can't for some reason or other. Why does a caged animal endlessly walk in circles? Because it's better than doing nothing. And before you think I'm just being snarky, think again, please; I did and do my fair share of such things myself, I just also can't help but notice that the smaller and more powerless people become, the more we celebrate rather pointless things - TV and the interwebs are full of that. And even if I'm wrong about the motivations of everybody else on the planet, I do know myself well enough, and although I might be projecting, it's at worst a honest mistake.
- mistercow 13y ago
  I'm trying to understand what your point is with relationship to my comment, but I don't see it.
  - PavlovsCat 13y ago
    1.) "premature optimization", the fact that optimization for the sake of optimization isn't optimization, but rather counterproductive, if not obsession or procrastination. 2.) my attempt to answer the question "why do people do this?", which is something I ponder a lot, in relation to gaming and other things as well. Imagine someone cooking the same meal over and over again, to optimize the amount of time they take for it, and the amount of ingredients they use, but never actually eating what they cooked.
    - mistercow 13y ago
      As for number 2, if they get satisfaction out of it, I think that's a perfectly fine (if unusual) hobby.

PavlovsCat 13y ago

Sorry to be that guy, but isn't one of the cornerstones of optimization in programming that you should only do it when it actually gives a meaningful benefit? E.g. don't spend days or weeks to make a part of the program that gets called very rarely run 0.1% faster, when you could instead spend that time on solving a new problem, or making an actually useful optimization, or doing something else entirely. Of course, it's silly to bicker about what is "useful" when it comes to things people do to relax or entertain themselves; and usually fruitless when it comes to things they do as escapism or getting a feeling of achievement to compensate for areas where they are stuck or blocked off. I do think the psychology of it is interesting though, and my personal guess is that most if not all people have the innate desire to progress and achieve things, but we often can't for some reason or other. Why does a caged animal endlessly walk in circles? Because it's better than doing nothing. And before you think I'm just being snarky, think again, please; I did and do my fair share of such things myself, I just also can't help but notice that the smaller and more powerless people become, the more we celebrate rather pointless things - TV and the interwebs are full of that. And even if I'm wrong about the motivations of everybody else on the planet, I do know myself well enough, and although I might be projecting, it's at worst a honest mistake.

mistercow 13y ago
I'm trying to understand what your point is with relationship to my comment, but I don't see it.
- PavlovsCat 13y ago
  1.) "premature optimization", the fact that optimization for the sake of optimization isn't optimization, but rather counterproductive, if not obsession or procrastination. 2.) my attempt to answer the question "why do people do this?", which is something I ponder a lot, in relation to gaming and other things as well. Imagine someone cooking the same meal over and over again, to optimize the amount of time they take for it, and the amount of ingredients they use, but never actually eating what they cooked.
  - mistercow 13y ago
    As for number 2, if they get satisfaction out of it, I think that's a perfectly fine (if unusual) hobby.