My Philosophy

Thomas Hobohm · 2012-10-01T12:50:07

Today, something got me thinking. Most my friends have no idea I know the slightest bit of programming, never mind 2d Graphics Programming! (Gasp!). Yet when they talk about how they want to be, say, artists or writers, all they talk about is money. There's no, say, passion. I don't think I'll be programming anything amazing in the next (at least) five years. The reason I do it is the passion. Staying up 4 hours debugging for something you should have caught instantly isn't "fun", far from it. It's just a passion of mine. I love doing it. I loved it when I made my first "Hello World" Application two years ago, and I loved it when I finally got a red screen running, and freaked out when it wouldn't close and whenever I ran it "Not Responding" was instantaneously declared in the top left. Slaving over Google for Hours On End trying to figure out what the heck error c2168 means and why it's not letting you run your program, discussing my new-found knowledge on here, and staying up late reading the latest programming book I just bought (that I saw someone recommend on gamedev.net) is a passion. The reason 99% of people quit making their first game is because they're not passionate, and it's not something they love to do. It's taken me two weeks to figure out how the heck I'm going to make an object oriented pong system, and it's taken me two days to debug my feeble 200 lines worth of code paddle class, and I'm not complaining, it was one heck of a ride.

GDNet Lounge Community

Started by superman3275 September 26, 2012 02:44 AM

58 comments, last by way2lazy2care 11 years, 7 months ago

Oberon_Command

6,371

September 30, 2012 11:10 PM

[quote name='Sir Mac Jefferson' timestamp='1348998787' post='4985305']
I can't just view opinions without knowing which one is right based on reputation, can I?

Every opinion is right. That's why they're called opinions, and not statements.
[/quote]

You appear to have a different definition of "statement" than most people I know. In my world, a "statement" is not necessarily a statement of fact; statements of opinion exist. A statement is what we use to communicate facts and opinions. Statements which evaluate to false exist.

Every sentence in this post is a statement. So are "x=x" and "1=0".

Herein I also contest the idea that all opinions are right. If anything, I think all opinions are wrong; I use "right" to refer to statements which evaluate to true in an objective truth space. Since an objectively truth space does not exist or is unknowable, there are therefore no statements which evaluate to true in this truth space. However, I don't think anyone would dispute that some knowable truth spaces approximate the objective truth space in certain circumstances. I call statements of opinion which evaluate to true in these truth spaces "right." I think, if put in these terms, most people I know would agree with me.

Bacterius

13,181

September 30, 2012 11:23 PM

You appear to have a different definition of "statement" than most people I know. In my world, a "statement" is not necessarily a statement of fact; statements of opinion exist. A statement is what we use to communicate facts and opinions. Statements which evaluate to false exist.

Every sentence in this post is a statement. So are "x=x" and "1=0".

Herein I also contest the idea that all opinions are right. If anything, I think all opinions are wrong; I use "right" to refer to statements which evaluate to true in an objective truth space. Since an objectively truth space does not exist or is unknowable, there are therefore no statements which evaluate to true in this truth space. However, some truth spaces approximate the objective truth space. I call statements of opinion which evaluate to true in these truth spaces "right." I think, if put in these terms, most people I know would agree with me.

Fine, replace "statement" with "fact" if you want to. But an opinion is inherently subjective and so cannot be contested (unless it is viewed as a fact), so there is no such thing as a "right" or "wrong" opinion in an absolute sense. In fact, you might find most opinions wrong, except yours which is right *to you*. This is what I meant by saying that any opinion is right to his beholder. Of course it depends on how you define "right", on how you define "beholder", on how you define "truth", on how you define "objectivity", etc... hiding behind definitions is a waste of time. You all know what I meant (and if you did not, this should make it clear).

“If I understand the standard right it is legal and safe to do this but the resulting value could be anything.”

Oberon_Command

6,371

October 01, 2012 01:00 AM

Of course it depends on how you define "right", on how you define "beholder", on how you define "truth", on how you define "objectivity", etc... hiding behind definitions is a waste of time. You all know what I meant (and if you did not, this should make it clear).

I am of the opinion that hiding behind "every opinion is right" is similarly a waste of time in most cases. It is true that argument of taste is ultimately futile, but not all opinions are taste. Some may be shown to be wrong for all viewpoints that acknowledge evidence that contradicts them.

I personally try to keep out of arguments where opinions are unfalsifiable (ie. arguments of taste), but that's just me.

JohnnyCode

1,084

October 01, 2012 01:53 AM

I have this dream that once I will make a kick-ass software, so that I will run out of this rat race called 'job'.
But I can't seem to come up with anything, unless the game in my head, which is extremly hard to acomplish, since it is not only coding the game needs those days(mocap, characters ugh..).

If you are really pasionate about programming you will never be able to take a choice on following infamous offer:
"would you rather be banned from girls, or banned from writing executive instructions in any form?"
(If you pick A you are sorry for B, wishing to call it off, and then vice versa, it is crazy)

Programming is like a drug, if you taste it more then 3 times, you get adicted and your priority becomes the drug, not life.

swiftcoder

18,997

October 01, 2012 02:25 AM

Programming is like a drug, if you taste it more then 3 times, you get adicted and your priority becomes the drug, not life.

So glad I don't have an addictive personality, in that case.

Tristam MacDonald. Ex-BigTech Software Engineer. Future farmer. [https://trist.am]

Bacterius

13,181

October 01, 2012 03:25 AM

I am of the opinion that hiding behind "every opinion is right" is similarly a waste of time in most cases.

I agree, after all these Lounge threads are not meant to be productive but rather exist just to kill time, where people feverishly discuss various philosophical subjects and eventually agree to disagree a few pages later. At least that's my take on it, nothing personal.

Some may be shown to be wrong for all viewpoints that acknowledge evidence that contradicts them.[/quote]
But at this point, doesn't it become a statement of fact rather than an opinion? I see what you mean though, continuing to believe in an objective untruth is just foolish, though it can be difficult to capture all possible viewpoints - and you still have to convince the person of that. Most opinions cannot be proved neither disproved so easily, humans are irrational beings and while logic helps us make consistent decisions, applying it isn't always obvious.

“If I understand the standard right it is legal and safe to do this but the resulting value could be anything.”

szecs

2,990

October 01, 2012 04:03 AM

I have this dream that once I will make a kick-ass software, so that I will run out of this rat race called 'job'.
But I can't seem to come up with anything, unless the game in my head, which is extremly hard to acomplish, since it is not only coding the game needs those days(mocap, characters ugh..).

If you are really pasionate about programming you will never be able to take a choice on following infamous offer:
"would you rather be banned from girls, or banned from writing executive instructions in any form?"
(If you pick A you are sorry for B, wishing to call it off, and then vice versa, it is crazy)

Programming is like a drug, if you taste it more then 3 times, you get adicted and your priority becomes the drug, not life.

Hmmm.... I often think something like this. Programming and other creating hobbies are (were) like drugs to me. I become totally passionate about something (all I can think about is the thing, I fall asleep with it and wake up with it, I'm counting the minutes to do it again. The Thrill), but somehow it's just not the real "Life".

I'm not using "Life" in the way you use it. Your use (girls, friends, parties, whatever) and obsessive hobbies can go hand in hand (at least for me, because these maniac periods are short). My life and what I can see as my life is not enough somehow, but that's a different topic.

[size=2]Portfolio [size=2]| Youtube channel | Paper modeller development blog | Journal

Oberon_Command

6,371

October 01, 2012 04:44 AM

But at this point, doesn't it become a statement of fact rather than an opinion?

It becomes both. My point with my first post was that under the definitions I know and use, some opinions are facts. Does an opinion stop being an opinion when it is demonstrated to be correct?

JohnnyCode

1,084

October 01, 2012 11:01 AM

My life and what I can see as my life is not enough somehow, but that's a different topic.

I feel about my life the same. I wouldn't say that programming is what I wish to stick to for ever, but it is such a obsesion of mine, that I rather think it is just a contraproductive adiction of mine, rather than good life time. I cannot even say clearly what I think would be "good life time" - and what it should be.

way2lazy2care

793

October 01, 2012 12:50 PM

I think a lot of people honestly don't understand the concept of doing something solely because they love it. Most likely, this is because things are rarely sold to people as something they'll love. I mean, anytime I see articles about "What major should I pick?" the subject that is given the highest priority is the average annual salary earned by those who hold a given degree. When a kid complains about school, parents justify dealing with it by saying "You need to go to school and get good grades." Why? "So you can go to a good college." Why? "So you can get a good job." That's it. That's the end goal. Most people aren't ever challenged to really think beyond that. Get a good job, and the credits roll.

I think this is being very overlooked. The argument that people can't do what they're passionate about is dealing with the exception more than the rule. In my experience far more people do what they have to do to get by, not what they are passionate about. I know a lot of my friends took business management degrees in University because it was the most generally applicable degree. Even a lot of people in the CS program and probably the majority of SEs I've worked with outside the game industry weren't passionate about their jobs. They might have been passionate about their computers and hobby projects, but very rarely about their jobs.

I think we get a skewed view of the job market being game developers. We are generally a very passionate bunch. It's easy to forget that not everyone carries that same passion toward their work.

That's sort of the point, though. You don't care because it's not the same field. Software developers make use of theoretical results, both directly and indirectly, but they typically don't do the kind of theoretical work that wins Turing awards and stuff;

I'd imagine if you looked at the number of Turing award winners who have no background in software engineering also, the list would be fairly short. Software engineering is most comparable to applied computer science imo. I'd say they are different, but they overlap to such a degree that without one or the other you'd be seriously hampering yourself.

My Philosophy

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