Posted on HN 49 minutes ago, closed as "not a real question" 48 minutes ago. Wow.
It just seems to me like relevant, interesting questions get closed all the time because just because. It's getting pretty annoying from the StackExchange network.
Is there evidence that drugs can help programmers produce “better” code?
21–30 of 77 posts
Re: Is there evidence that drugs can help programmers produce “better” code?
#22Drugs in programming, as well as other occupations, play an emotional role as much, or more so, than a cognitive role. If Habit A helps a programmer who'd otherwise be sidelined by emotional problems stay in the chair, it may help that programmer be more productive than they would be otherwise. Of course, addictions don't help us face those problems in the long term, and often let them get worse. All sorts of drug-re…
Sobering reminder. Performance = output/time. so the timeframe is critical. its trivial to increase productivity in the "short term". in ways that are unsustainable (or: unhealthy). Exogenous modification of brain's chemistry is, however, rarely healthy, over long-time-horizons. At least given the evidence to date.
Re: Is there evidence that drugs can help programmers produce “better” code?
#23You tend to use the very specific phrase "nootropic drugs" to talk about drugs which help with productivity or creativity or some other aspect of working life. Asking whether there is evidence on nootropics, is just asking whether there are any heavily-tested nootropics. Asking anything else--to lex it out, whether "drugs that have no productivity-enhancing aspect, enhance productivity" is just playing the fool to in…
You made a good point that I just wanted to make explicit, because I think it is generally not something people know or at least not something they've thought much about - The FDA has a very specific mandate. They regulate any substance which "treats, prevents, or cures any disease." They specifically do not regulate, or test for, any substance which would claim to improve the functioning of a healthy person. If a drug came out tomorrow which would enable you to lift 50 kilos more tomorrow than you can life today, the FDA would have no jurisdiction over it (unless someone wanted to give it to patients suffering from muscular impairment due to a disease, of course). This is also one of the reasons why the FDA does not regulate alcohol and cigarettes. Those substances are not meant to treat, cure, or prevent anything.
I'm not clear on whether such a 'strengthening' drug would be legal to sell, just that the FDA could not authorize it for sale.
Re: Is there evidence that drugs can help programmers produce “better” code?
#24Insofar as programming involves problem solving I believe the answer is an unqualified "yes".
In _The Psychedelic Explorer's Guide: Safe, Therapeutic, and Sacred Journeys_ by James Fadiman, Ph.D a chapter is devoted to discussing the results of a study on the use of the psychedelic substance mescaline to enhance creative problem solving.
http://www.amazon.com/Psychedelic-Explorers-Guide-Therapeuti...
This study was conducted at the Institute for Psychedelic Research at San Francisco State University.
I'll quote at length from the book chapter: "The participants were 26 men engaged in a variety of professional occupations: 16 engineers, one engineer-physicist, two mathematicians, two architects, one psychologist, one furniture designer, one commercial artist, one sales manager, and one personnel manager."
"Nineteen of the subjects have no previous experience with psychedelics."
The subjects were selected based on their psychological stability and motivation to solve a specific problem they had at work.
They met in small groups for several days before the psychedelic session and were told what to expect and given instructions in the use of the drug-effect for problem solving.
The subjects were given 200 milligrams of mescaline.
After six weeks the subjects were given questionnaires on how the effects of the session had effected their ongoing creative ability as well as how valid and acceptable the solutions conceived during the session seemed to them at that time.
Some (but not all) examples of solutions obtained by the subjects under the drug-effect:
* A new approach to the design of a vibratory microtome
* A commercial building design, accepted by the client
* A mathematical theorem regarding NOR-gate circuits
* Design of a linear electron accelerator beam-steering device
There are several tables full of numerical data. Table names include "Application of Solutions Obtains in Experimental Sessions" and "Work Performance Since Session".
My conclusion: Psychedelic substances can be used to enhance creativity - but as always who is using them and how they go about it makes all the difference.
Re: Is there evidence that drugs can help programmers produce “better” code?
#25Define better code. Code at that point/moment in time in comparision, maybe. Code later on that is more robust and well documented so that others can understand and change if need be better, probably not.
People say drugs help you do this and that, but over time you gain tollerance, have downsides when drug wears off. So is this another tortoise and hare comparision nomatter how it is thought thru.
Now if drugs help you to do what you can't, be it atheritis or the like, or pain medication. Something that counters a condition you normaly have that limits your abilities, then sure they do make better code. But as a rule it has too many exceptions to make such a brash statement by using such a losely drifined term as drugs in a title without better focus onto specific groups/types/needs.
What goes up must come down, employers don't pay for your comedown, nor do they pay for your supply, so beyond the offcie coffee or prescription mecial needs. I'd say meditation and better mind focus and planning/whole mental approach can do more for anybody to produce better code than any off the shelf solution. On balance take the free coffee and run with it.
Re: Is there evidence that drugs can help programmers produce “better” code?
#26Posted on HN 49 minutes ago, closed as "not a real question" 48 minutes ago. Wow.
Whoever closed it needs to do more drugs, then they'll know why they are being a...
Re: Is there evidence that drugs can help programmers produce “better” code?
#27You tend to use the very specific phrase "nootropic drugs" to talk about drugs which help with productivity or creativity or some other aspect of working life. Asking whether there is evidence on nootropics, is just asking whether there are any heavily-tested nootropics. Asking anything else--to lex it out, whether "drugs that have no productivity-enhancing aspect, enhance productivity" is just playing the fool to in…
You made a good point that I just wanted to make explicit, because I think it is generally not something people know or at least not something they've thought much about - The FDA has a very specific mandate. They regulate any substance which "treats, prevents, or cures any disease." They specifically do not regulate, or test for, any substance which would claim to improve the functioning of a healthy person. If a dr…
That's not true.
What you defined is a drug.
Accordingly, these ·products are drugs, under
section 201(g)(1)(C) of the Act, 21 U.S.C. § 321(g)(1)(C),
because they are not foods and they are intended to affect
the structure or any function of the body. Moreover, these
products are new drugs as defined by section 201(p) of the
Act, 21 U.S.C. § 321(p), because they are not generally
recognized as safe and effective for use under the
conditions prescribed, recommended, or suggested in
their labeling.
Under sections 301(d) and 505(a) of the Act,
21 U.S.C. § 331(d) and 355(a), a new drug may not
be introduced or delivered for introduction into
interstate commerce unless an FDA approved application
is in effect for it.Re: Is there evidence that drugs can help programmers produce “better” code?
#28You tend to use the very specific phrase "nootropic drugs" to talk about drugs which help with productivity or creativity or some other aspect of working life. Asking whether there is evidence on nootropics, is just asking whether there are any heavily-tested nootropics. Asking anything else--to lex it out, whether "drugs that have no productivity-enhancing aspect, enhance productivity" is just playing the fool to in…
I'm not an expert, but I'd like to comment on your statement that discussing non-nootropics in this context is pointless. I think it is not, and my argument goes like this: you code better when in mood to do so. Certain psychoactive substances make it easier to fall in certain moods, easier to change your mood or even forcibly change your mood for you (like some of benzodiazepines or MDM, MDMA). Their working is not…
Certainly, if you have a problem with your mood, whether caused by stress, chemical imbalance, etc., that is damping your productivity, then using a mood-altering drug can remove that damping effect and let your productivity return to an optimal level. This is different, though, I think, from "enhancing" productivity, which usually refers to things that can be used to move someone "beyond" the normal human optimal performance in some way.
What a part of me wants to say is, "the literature for returning humans to optimal mood is broad and well-researched, and shouldn't really be the topic of Amateur Medical-Advice Hour on a social news website; the best thing to do if you have a problem with your mood is to speak to a therapist/psychiatrist, who will recommend you a course of action based on current medical best practices." But...
I have to admit that that really isn't exactly true. Therapists and psychiatrists aren't required to have any more knowledge of neurochemistry than any other doctor; they'll be able to follow a guide and tell you that if you're depressed they should take you through cognitive behavioral therapy and prescribe you an SSRI (and then an SNRI if that doesn't work, and then a TCA if that doesn't work, &c) but they probably won't think about the serotonin production pathway and suggest that you might need more Vitamin B. This is one benefit of the internet: the people who are experts on their little staked claim of knowledge can give it to the people who seem to need it, instead of those people having to go around and talk to experts in all sorts of different fields to get the perspectives from those fields. On the other hand, it's pretty useless to give these pieces of advice to no-one in particular, without a specific problem at hand to solve. It's a bit like doing science without a hypothesis to test; everyone sees their own--more often than not false and overreaching--interpretation of the data.
The one good thing that does come out of these threads is that they tend to get more people to say "wait, that sounds like me, maybe I have [X mood disorder]," ask their doctors about it, and it turns out that they do. This is in stark contrast to usual hypochondria surrounding most diseases; where a person will be quick to diagnose themselves with [X cargo-cult symptom-matching thing-they-don't-understand] to explain why their neck always aches or they keep coughing up yellow phlegm, people are wary of assigning themselves mood disorders, since most people feel that society will still consider them "guilty" in some way for having the problem ["you're just lazy" &c], and they definitely don't want to bring it out in the open to the point where they identify with it. Discussions with a bunch of people chiming in to say "oh, yes, I thought I was [X fault-of-character], but really I just had [Y chemical imbalance] and some [drug] fixed it right up" can really push people to investigate this sort of thing where they otherwise wouldn't consider it.
I think the best compromise is that solutions should be discussed in the context of particular problems. Nootropics are an exception, because they don't solve any particular problem, other than the problem of wanting your life to be "even better-er"; but, for example, a root-level comment in this discussion about marijuana use really won't have anything good happen to it; each person will be looking at it in the context of a different problem and either implicitly accepting or rejecting the idea prima facie because of that. Better to ask a specific question, like "what drugs and/or therapies could be used to cope with stress-induced anxiety in the workplace"; then the discussion could actually go somewhere worth reading :)
Re: Is there evidence that drugs can help programmers produce “better” code?
#29LSD: I have found it possible to use it to gain insight. (Cisco systems had some key person(s?) using LSD to design products.) The problem is that you can trick yourself quite easily into "discovering" things which end up not meaning much. So you do need some care, and perhaps someone to help guide you. For beginners, I'd say LSD's bigger benefit is being able to reshape how you think and handle life rather than understanding some new data structures. It's definitely a "must do this at least once in a lifetime" type of thing.
Stimulants are fantastic. Amphetamines provide focus as well as a nice perky feeling to keep you happy while coding. Ritalin (methylphenidate) works too, but I find it harsher and not as pleasant as speed. As the name hints, it makes you fast at things. Talking, thinking, calculating, coding. I notice with Ritalin, doing mental math happens instantaneously - I surprise myself. The focus can be a drawback: if you don't plan, you can end up focusing on something "interesting" yet time wasting. So prepare your day, first.
Opiates (such as time release oxycodone) are fantastic for keeping optimism. By keeping your mind in the right state, you can end up being much more productive. Again, the benefit is the drawback: being overly optimistic means your risk calculations and general decision management might be way off. (Biggest downside here is addiction, but it _is_ manageable, at least if you have money.)
Pot I've not found useful for much as far as work. I did try coding on it, and ended up writing an infinite loop and thinking it was the coolest thing in the world. Alcohol can sometimes be slightly helpful, in a similar manner as Xanax; just by relaxing and getting one into a better mindset.
Re: Is there evidence that drugs can help programmers produce “better” code?
#30[deleted]