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Ask HN: Which programming games helped you become a better programmer?

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Re: Ask HN: Which programming games helped you become a better programmer?

#71

Post by alophawen »

marginalia_nu wrote: post #67
falcolas wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think of Factorio as a circuit board designing game more than programming. Still fun as heck though.

Dunno, I think it captures several of the skills needed in programming, not the actual writing code, but both refactoring and optimization are translated fairly accurately.

Meh, lol. From my spaghetti factory you would never have guessed i was a software dev by day.

Re: Ask HN: Which programming games helped you become a better programmer?

#72

Post by Dayshine »

bobinux wrote: post #11

Well, I've enjoyed these games as for fun, but they did provide an intellectual challenge: TIS-100 https://store.steampowered.com/app/370360/TIS100/ SHENZEN I/O https://store.steampowered.com/app/504210/SHENZHEN_IO/ Hacknet https://store.steampowered.com/app/365450/Hacknet/ Uplink https://store.steampowered.com/app/1510/Uplink/ As for becoming a better programmer, it's all about practice. CodeWars might be what you'r…

Codewars is a poor recommendation for becoming a better programmer, the solutions are sorted by popularity and so generally "cool" solutions are at the top. I've yet to see a clear/good python solution anywhere near the top.

I suppose you could just do the tasks and ignore the website itself.

Re: Ask HN: Which programming games helped you become a better programmer?

#75

Post by wly_cdgr »

robotburrito wrote: post #37

I never understood the point of games that emulate the programming experience. Whenever I play them I feel like I'm wasting my time and I could be making something real.

Zachtronics games don't emulate the horror of the ACTUAL programming experience. They distill away a ton of the most tedious, frustrating aspects (and the just-less-relevant-to-most-programmers'-interests ones, like UI design) and let you focus on the funnest parts: system design and optimization.

In fact, I would argue there is no more efficient, effective, or pleasurable way to practice system design skills specifically than games like Factorio, Shapez.io, Mindustry, and the Zachtronics catalog

Re: Ask HN: Which programming games helped you become a better programmer?

#76

Post by mFixman »

heliophobicdude wrote: post #9

Factorio. Factorio doesn’t exactly have code. However, it’s very much a game about systems, and how to efficiently build and manage them. In fact, Shopify expensed the game for their employees [1] 1: https://twitter.com/tobi/status/1294330081452666882

I had a revelation when I realised the problems I had when building a base in Factorio were basically the same I had when programming, just visualised in a more intuitive way.

Translating the solutions of my Factorio problems into my real world problems worked like a charm.

Re: Ask HN: Which programming games helped you become a better programmer?

#77

Post by marginalia_nu »

alophawen wrote: post #71
marginalia_nu wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dunno, I think it captures several of the skills needed in programming, not the actual writing code, but both refactoring and optimization are translated fairly accurately.

Meh, lol. From my spaghetti factory you would never have guessed i was a software dev by day.

That's exploratory programming for you.

Re: Ask HN: Which programming games helped you become a better programmer?

#80

Post by michaelrpeskin »

ZZT. It’s one of Tim Sweeney’s (Of Epic fame) early games.

It was my intro into true OO programming. You program literal objects to interact by message passing.

You should be able to pick it up all over the internet. It’s abandonware but has a pretty good community.

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