> There remains a need for an empirical understanding of the true impacts of cannabis on programming.
For some definition of "need", I suppose.
An observational study of programming and cannabis intoxication
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Re: An observational study of programming and cannabis intoxication
#22> Second, our larger programming tasks were taken the LeetCode repository of skills-based interview questions. These questions may not be indicative of industrial practice (Behroozi et al., 2019). This is partially mitigated by the fact that they are indicative of programming tasks people carry out and study for in the hiring process. It doesn't seem like they tested "boring" 9-5 programming, or programming net new f…
in other words: if you get high enough, you can fool yourself into thinking leetcode matters for more than 30 minutes at a time
Re: An observational study of programming and cannabis intoxication
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Re: An observational study of programming and cannabis intoxication
#24It does seem that people would wrongly associate the artificial influx of positive/warm feelings coming from a cannabis with increased task performance. Not unlike how people overestimate their own strength when drinking alcohol etc.
However, if it decreases their performance but improves their feelings towards the work, might that still be a net positive?
In other words, if you are going to be a little more pokey and error prone, but on the whole more eager to work and more resistant to burn out, that could be better than a non-cannabis user that makes fewer errors, while continuously stressing out and thinking about changing jobs.
Re: An observational study of programming and cannabis intoxication
#25- "enhances creativity and focus" Wait, how do you make cannabis enhance task focus? I'm unfamiliar
I once got stoned and watched a washing machine wash a load from start to finish. Utterly fascinating and no way I'd have that focus unaltered. It's not clear whether it was a good use of time though.
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Re: An observational study of programming and cannabis intoxication
#26Re: An observational study of programming and cannabis intoxication
#27- "enhances creativity and focus" Wait, how do you make cannabis enhance task focus? I'm unfamiliar
In my experience cannabis has bimodal impact based on your individual biology.
In my personal case it is measurably and consistently transformative for focus, opennness and creativity. To the extent that it basically feels like magic at this point and I’ve only really been working with cannabis for a couple years.
Other people it just seems to put to sleep
I’m exceptionally rigorous with my dosing and have experimented with terpenes/cannabinoid profiles to the extent where I know the relative responses I should expect are more or less deterministic.
To be clear though I am not making a comment on the study, I would generally suggest that specific task focus is impaired.
Its more of a question of, what aspect of your mindset is holding you back from performance. If you need to be exceptionally detailed oriented like a surgeon then you should definitely not be high, but if you’re framing out the logic for a protobuf interpreter, you might actually work faster
Re: An observational study of programming and cannabis intoxication
#28- "enhances creativity and focus" Wait, how do you make cannabis enhance task focus? I'm unfamiliar
I once got stoned and watched a washing machine wash a load from start to finish. Utterly fascinating and no way I'd have that focus unaltered. It's not clear whether it was a good use of time though.
Yeah, but you can translate that into constructive focus on the level of normal high-level tasks such as programming, or reading, or mathematics or music or things of that sort?
Re: An observational study of programming and cannabis intoxication
#29- "enhances creativity and focus" Wait, how do you make cannabis enhance task focus? I'm unfamiliar
I and several other women I know use cannabis to cut the boredom of cleaning. There's definitely an optimum, where your mind wanders and the tedium doesn't accumulate. But a little beyond that optimum, you either get off task or spend an hour on a single teapot. I'm reminded of a recent study on cannabis and running that resonated with me. Running is so boring, but if I'm just a little lit, it's fun and feels great.
So in my view, cannabis can help alleviate tedium and improve task focus for the most boring and monotonous tasks. But any time I've tried to tackle a thinking problem stoned, the results are generally zero to negative.
Re: An observational study of programming and cannabis intoxication
#30I have coded many times when high (very rarely on somebody's dime, but it may have happened during Covid few times): you end up doing very little. Occasionally you'll have some crazy idea and follow it, the kind of ideas that you don't have normally. But in general your productivity will be very low and results poor. Don't do any kind of drugs or alcohol if you need your brain to be sharp. It's nonsense.
Hear hear, if you think you're coding better when you're stoned, you're only thinking that when you're stoned. Studies have shown that while cannabis makes you think you're more creative, it actually makes you less creative. This, combined with losing train of thought and having to reread code to find your place before you zoned out makes for a whole lot of wasted time. And it churns out the kind of code you revisit and think "how did this take me 2 hours?". It's a libation, it doesn't mix with work plain and simple.