23 Mar
2017
23 Mar
'17
5:22 p.m.
From: Nick Downing
Programming is actually an addiction.
_Can be_ an addition. A lot of people are immune... :-)
What makes it addictive to a certain type of
personality is that little
rush of satisfaction when you try your code and it *works*... ... It was
not just the convenience and productivity improvements but that the
'hit' was coming harder and faster.
Joe Weizenbaum wrote about the addiction of programming in his famous book
"Computer Power and Human Reason" (Chapter 4, "Science and the Compulsive
Programmer"). He attributes it to the sense of power one gets, working in a
'world' where things do exactly what you tell them. There might be something
to that, but I suspect your supposition is more likely.
This theory is well known to those who design slot
machines and other
forms of gambling
Oddly enough, he also analogizes to gamblers!
Noel
24 Mar
24 Mar
12:40 a.m.
New subject: Were all of you.. Hippies?
I put a certain amount of time last decade at a community centre's cybercaf in
Christchurch, NZ, into
teaching elderly people who have not previously had much experience with computers, how to
use
them. You do get a buzz when someone who's previously been full of questions,
suddenly "gets it" and
their eyes light up and no more questions, let's get things done!
It's not dissimilar to the buzz you get when you enter some code and it does what you
think it should,
not something else.
Just my 0.02c
Wesley Parish
Quoting Noel Chiappa <jnc(a)mercury.lcs.mit.edu>:
"I have supposed that he who buys a Method means to learn it." - Ferdinand Sor,
Method for Guitar
"A verbal contract isn't worth the paper it's written on." -- Samuel
Goldwyn
From: Nick
Downing
Programming is actually an addiction.
_Can be_ an addition. A lot of people are immune... :-)
What makes it addictive to a certain type of
personality is that
little
rush of satisfaction when you try your code and
it *works*... ... It
was
not just the convenience and productivity
improvements but that the
'hit' was coming harder and faster.
Joe Weizenbaum wrote about the addiction of programming in his famous
book
"Computer Power and Human Reason" (Chapter 4, "Science and the
Compulsive
Programmer"). He attributes it to the sense of power one gets, working
in a
'world' where things do exactly what you tell them. There might be
something
to that, but I suspect your supposition is more likely.
This theory is well known to those who design
slot machines and
other
forms of gambling
Oddly enough, he also analogizes to gamblers!
Noel
2799
days inactive
2799
days old
1 comments
2 participants
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jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu -
Wesley Parish