Ask HN: If you were better at programming, what program would you write? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: If you were better at programming, what program would you write?

#31

Post by muzani » Thu, Aug 17, 2017, 5:05 AM UTC

3minus1 wrote: post #27

muzani wrote: post #19

Some kind of procedurally generated fantasy world, designed around generating stories.

this sounds really cool. some of my favorite games are essentially sandboxes (mount & blade, pirates), and I like the idea of taking the sandbox and building in non-trivial, non-artificial non-deterministic stories.

Yeah there are a lot of sandboxes that generate gameplay, but few generate an actual plot. Rimworld seems to be the closest thing to that but I think they focus too much on trying to build drama.

When I see the same thing, I think a lot of better stories can emerge - a lifetime bond between comrades, a romance between a prisoner and the nurse who comes to heal him, rivalries between factions, a 500 year old cyborg who questions her humanity. So many stories can emerge.

Re: Ask HN: If you were better at programming, what program would you write?

#32

Post by quickthrower2 » Thu, Aug 17, 2017, 9:52 AM UTC

devotedtoneu wrote: post #23

quickthrower2 wrote: post #5

A Bitcoin trading bot that makes me a tonne of money

I wrote one of these, and it was incredibly successful! disregarding transaction fees of course, otherwise it was horrible :)

Might be ok on btc-e then using those trading tokens I'll maybe get.

Re: Ask HN: If you were better at programming, what program would you write?

#33

Post by mattbgates » Thu, Aug 17, 2017, 12:10 PM UTC

It's not the type of programming I'd write, but what I'd write it in... I develop web apps.. which are mobile friendly, but I've yet to really have any desire to break into the iOS and Android app market.

Re: Ask HN: If you were better at programming, what program would you write?

#34

Post by crypticlizard » Sat, Aug 26, 2017, 7:52 PM UTC

neilsimp1 wrote: post #7

It's rarely me not being good enough that's the problem. If I had more time, that would allow me to write the programs I'd want to write.

Well I'd argue being better night make all the difference. If the set of possible programs includes ones extremely difficult to program, then are those programs possible to program given an ordinary developer and sufficient time? Definitely not imo. Some things only a genius programmer could do. That programmer could come along and invent a way to do ai using today's commodity hardware. Without that ingeniousness it's doubtful more time would do the same for ordinary developers. Do I believe I could do it given enough time? No. Could some genius somewhere today? Maybe.i wouldn't rule it out, in fact I'm fascinated by it.