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Ask HN: Do you ever code under an influence?

• iqonik 12y ago
  Absolutely but I never commit any of the code I write ;). Or at least, I don't remember doing so.
• kaens 12y ago
  I've written code under the influence of various substances over the years, although I rarely imbibe much of anything these days. I've found marijuana nice for doing "exploratory" or more "recreational" coding -- the shape of some of the work I'm most fond of(both in music and in code, unsurprisingly) was initially formed while high and then refined over however long implementation took. I don't feel like I can do much of anything creative under the influence of alcohol, and the few times I wrote code drunk it was very very bad code. I've tried to code on various hallucinogens, and generally just ended up thinking that the plastic and metal shiny boxes were pretty ridiculous and that it was about time to go for a walk. As far as what you're calling "akimbo", generally no. If I go to social events, it's to socialize. If it happens to be a party filled with programmers, then yeah sure, but it would presumably be a group activity. I might leave a party and go code something, but not at one.
• z3ugma 12y ago
  XKCD humorously references the "Ballmer peak", where a slight alcohol buzz confers superhuman focus and programming ability: http://xkcd.com/323/ http://xkcd.com/323/
• arisAlexis 12y ago
  It's fun but write unit tests when you are sober
• tslug 12y ago
  I've tried coding with alcohol and marijuana. I find a little bit of alcohol provides a little liquid courage to start writing a big, scary system from scratch without harming my ability. For reference, I weigh about 170lb and very rarely drink, so about a drink and a half is about the right amount. More alcohol than that, and it's a net loss. Lotta bugs, and I get sleepy. For really dull, boring coding work that I'm not looking forward to (usually refactoring code or working on a decidedly unsexy part of the codebase that needs attention), a couple of gentleman's corners is a great way to make it easier and find my blue collar groove. For creative work (I make video games), a lightly packed but full bong rip can be great for design and story ideas, but in both of these cases, it needs to be a good Sativa strain that gives me a thinky high, and not a sleepy body high. I smoke regularly to manage depression and anxiety, which can interfere badly with coding, so while it's definitely a sub-optimal way to write challenging code, I'm still a functional coder after smoking. It beats navel-gazing/misery.
• runjake 12y ago
  I know of a fairly pretty famous programmer of software everyone has heard of that chain smokes pot while (prolifically) coding. Me, I could never focus enough to bother looking at the screen for a few minutes.
• _RPM 12y ago
  I have ADHD. I haven't smoked marijuana and wrote code in years (smoked && write code), but I have before. It generally just slows me down. In the beginning (peek high), it makes code seem more exciting, but once the high wears off, I lose focus. I've drank alcohol while doing system administration work. For example, I recently was migrating my web application to a new hosting provider (Digital Ocean).It was a bunch of tedious little tasks that had no abstract thinking involved, so I had a few beers and everything went ok. As for drinking, and doing anything serious that requires me to challenge myself, no, alcohol or marijuana do not help. I'm prescribed Dexmethylphenidate, and that really helps me be productive while coding.