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Ask HN: what was the best life/programming choice you ever made?

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Re: Ask HN: what was the best life/programming choice you ever made?

#221

Post by S4M »

brotchie wrote: post #194
marcamillion wrote: post #128

Life: Doing my MBA - hear me out before you guys go all nuts. I have a BA in Computer Science and I wanted to learn more about business, so I chose to do an MBA in Finance. Best. Decision. Ever. The reason being is that I now see the world through a different lens. For instance, when everybody blames bond markets for trashing the bonds of Greece or Argentina - I understand why it is the fault of the government and th…

Life: Quitting a stable software job to do a PhD in Finance. The additional technical skills (Writing, Mathematics, Finance, Law, Accounting) and interpersonal skills (Networking, Explaining complex topics) I've gained have been invaluable. I now look at the world in an entirely different way. I share the same feelings as marcamillion regarding having the "veil" lifted on world affairs. I have a BEng in Aerospace Avi…

I don't think you need to learn Haskell to understand the benefits of immutability. Debugging the java code of someone who wrote big classes with lots of functions changing members of the class did the trick for me.

On the other hand, kudos for going through the hardship of learning Haskell, I will try it at some point.

Re: Ask HN: what was the best life/programming choice you ever made?

#222

Post by Natmas »

moutard wrote: post #183
scottmagdalein wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely forgiven her. It's something we talk about. We help other couples dealing with the same type of hardship. Keeping it to ourselves doesn't prove forgiveness and it keeps us from helping others.

Humans are capable of incredible self-deception a la Robert Trivers: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/25/books/review/the-folly-of-... You're most likely fighting your genes (or perhaps you're a mutant): maybe you'll win and maybe you won't. Here the _you_ I refer to here is that part which believes it has free will and can override the other (genetic) part.

Fighting the genes is in our genes and this is simply our ability to adapt, which is generally a good thing - though it is too often manifesting as counter-productively.

So "fighting the genes" is sometimes not bad at all but I agree that most of the time it may be.

Re: Ask HN: what was the best life/programming choice you ever made?

#223

Post by shard »

napoleond wrote: post #166
scottmagdalein wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being open about the affair has many benefits. It cripples the rumor mill, taking away the secretive intrigue. If it's out in the open, people have less to speculate about and less to talk about. It makes it possible for us to help other couples going through it. Dealing with this can be an incredibly lonely experience. We want to help make it less lonely for couples. Keeping it a secret doesn't help anyone and it's…

I can only hope to be as level-headed as you seem to be when life throws a new wrench my way. Good for you, and thanks.

I first read it as "when life throws a new wench my way", and had to read it again since that would have been a clever pun.

Re: Ask HN: what was the best life/programming choice you ever made?

#225

Post by notdonspaulding »

I know I'm late to the party, but...

Life: Believing Jesus actually said "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." http://esv.to/john+14

Programming: Leaving a Megacorp to work for a small development shop to do Python work.

Re: Ask HN: what was the best life/programming choice you ever made?

#227

Post by delwin »

I'm only 20, not sure I have a lot to say, but here it is so far:

Life: Deciding to stay with my girlfriend through a long-distance relationship. It's hard, but definitely worth it. We've not seen it all the way through yet, though, so it's hard to say yet if it really is a good decision.

Programming: Getting into game programming. That's where I started six years ago, and although I've moved on, if it weren't for the joy of making my own 3D games, I would have never dug deeper.

Re: Ask HN: what was the best life/programming choice you ever made?

#228

Post by dfischer »

Reltair wrote: post #145
fatalerrorx3 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I only gave up video games because my favorite game got shut down...Tanarus - anyone ever heard of this game? It was run by Sony Online Entertainment during the last years of it's existence but it was put out by Verant Interactive in the mid 90's...probably one of the most addictive "FPS" tank games of it's day...was fun as hell

Ah yes, I remember those days. SOE had Tanarus, Infantry, and Cosmic Rift out, which were all fun in their own way.

Cosmic Rift was amazing. I loved that game.

Re: Ask HN: what was the best life/programming choice you ever made?

#229

Post by dimovich »

meimnot wrote: post #98

Life: Meditation. Zazen practice specifically. Redefined my values and "self" through introspection. Programming: Realizing I'm not so great at it, moving towards programming as a hobby.

Yes. Zazen... If I could go back in time and give myself any advice, it would be the daily practice of silence.

Re: Ask HN: what was the best life/programming choice you ever made?

#230

Post by kbenson »

nathannecro wrote: post #175
TeMPOraL wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't even try to play multiplayer games anymore, as within moments I get the feeling of time wasted. I do however, from time to time, play single-player games (like Portal, or Modern Warfare series, or more recently, Bioshock) for their artistic / story value. The best games have stories much better and deeper than most of the movies, so I find them important intellectually and artisticly.

I'm not sure if this is up your alley, but, the game 'Spec Ops: The Line' is one of the most intellectually stimulating games I have played in a long while. Spec Ops: The Line is one of the first games I've really seen traverse from the collection of descriptors we normally use for video games (childish, immature, time waster, brainless fun, etc) into the realm of what I'll call "deep media". I'll define deep media a…

Spec Ops: The Line is not a pretty, nor particularly fun game, but by golly is it good.

That's probably a good indicator of deep media. Not whether something is entertaining, or was created for entertainment, but whether it can be considered good regardless of entertainment value (ignoring technical value, which is generally only useful to a small subgroup of consumers).

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