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What real life bad habits has programming given you?

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Re: What real life bad habits has programming given you?

#21

Post by run4yourlives »

cglee wrote: post #19
run4yourlives wrote: post #11

It's over developed my already prevalent logical thinking. This is great because I'm known as a clear thinker that can solve complex problems, but I've found that a lot of people have difficulty thinking in these terms, preferring to remain in a more emotional pattern. End result is that it harder to relate to more and more people, which remains important. I'd imagine this happens to most programmers, although I don'…

I feel this too. The key is to not receive what other people say as bug reports, so you won't get the urge to fix them or find a solution.

True enough, that's a good way of putting it.

That's extremely difficult to though as a manager!

Re: What real life bad habits has programming given you?

#22

Post by edw519 »

Everything must be good or bad, old or new, high or low, black or white, 1 or 0.

I can't randomly walk through any mall, park, or neighborhood because I might miss something. All events must be sequential.

When I'm at a client site, I interpret everything.

When the restaurant hostess asks my server's name, I say, "Univsrv1".

When invited to a networking event, I bring my toolbox.

I can't start anything new without a Mountain Dew and a bag of Lay's.

When doing anything for the first time, I imagine test cases before I proceed.

I keep trying to "click" by gearshift.

I clean everything in my house with a 50% distilled water/50% isopropyl alchohol mix.

I keep looking for "alt-tab" on my TV remote instead of "Last Channel".

My cats are named Instance 1, Instance 2, and Instance 3.

I use the simplex method of linear algebra to fit everything in my freezer.

I never drink beer until after the final build of the day. (actually true)

I refer to my girlfriend's weird friends as "outliers".

Every time I say "outlier", I worry that my girlfriend may deprecate me.

Re: What real life bad habits has programming given you?

#23

Post by petercooper »

I learned to program when I was really young and I can't help but think that it gave me my OCD. A bit of CBT and some "mindhacks" of my own have almost got rid of it now though.

Another one I had as a kid was writing the number zero with a line through it. That's how it was on the BBC Micro and my schoolteachers couldn't understand why I wrote it that way too.

I guess another one is being a major advocate of US English (I'm English) but I'm not sure if that's due to programming or because, well, it is a better dialect.

Re: What real life bad habits has programming given you?

#25

Post by lallysingh »

run4yourlives wrote: post #11

It's over developed my already prevalent logical thinking. This is great because I'm known as a clear thinker that can solve complex problems, but I've found that a lot of people have difficulty thinking in these terms, preferring to remain in a more emotional pattern. End result is that it harder to relate to more and more people, which remains important. I'd imagine this happens to most programmers, although I don'…

Worst bits:

- You can tell someone the answer to their problem, and they just stare at you, confused, while their emotions have to deflate.

- When you realize you're talking more abstractly than they can understand.

- Or they argue really basic stuff, as they've never been exposed to it. E.g. language alters thought.

It's like talking to some sort of organic thing instead of what you think of as normal. Perhaps later humans and programmers will diverge genetically?

Re: What real life bad habits has programming given you?

#26

Post by Timothee »

lallysingh wrote: post #15

I keep a lot of things sorted. For example, my wallet's money is always sorted. With multiple denominations of bills, the insertions aren't O(1) when I'm in line if you know what I mean.

I always do that too, but I never really thought that anybody could NOT do that :)

Re: What real life bad habits has programming given you?

#27

Post by nihilocrat »

Not being able to pick up on hints, ever, or otherwise be able to work with incomplete information. If I don't have all the arguments to a function in my brain, I just ignore it until the rest fall into place. Sometimes people specifically leave those out, so I'm lost until it's too late.

Re: What real life bad habits has programming given you?

#28

Post by nihilocrat »

petercooper wrote: post #23

I learned to program when I was really young and I can't help but think that it gave me my OCD. A bit of CBT and some "mindhacks" of my own have almost got rid of it now though. Another one I had as a kid was writing the number zero with a line through it. That's how it was on the BBC Micro and my schoolteachers couldn't understand why I wrote it that way too. I guess another one is being a major advocate of US Engli…

For God's sake, don't use our punctuation rules.

  # Carefree means "free from care or anxiety." (American style)
  # Carefree means "free from care or anxiety". (British style)
That has bugged me so much that, unless it is being proofread, I intentionally use British-style quotes.

Re: What real life bad habits has programming given you?

#29

Post by Timothee »

Whenever I pay for something in cash, I'm trying to make it so that the change I get back requires the least notes or is simpler.

For example, if I owe $7.84, I might give $13.09 so that I get $5.25. I sometimes get confused looks. Related to that, I don't like having more than 4 $1 bills. I feel like, at some point, I didn't give the cash I should have.

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