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Ask HN: Does anyone dream of code?
61–70 of 146 posts
Re: Ask HN: Does anyone dream of code?
#62Yes, but my dreams blend together code and the other people in my life in a bizarre manner which only makes sense inside the dream itself, but is otherwise ludicrous. It is as if I am trying to debug other people, which of course never works, and thus it inevitably turns into an anxiety dream.
Re: Ask HN: Does anyone dream of code?
#63In that state between sleeping and waking I am often debugging my inability to wake. It's not as though I'm sitting in front of a monitor, but the lines of code are my entire worldview and no matter what I change the alarm keeps going off. I guess if I were a better programmer I would dream that I was writing a program to extend the night...
Re: Ask HN: Does anyone dream of code?
#64Only pattern-based stuff.
I first noticed this with PCB layouts - I'd be moving parts and re-routing/prettifying manually for long straights and only 45deg corners.
Also refactoring code, particularly in an aesthetic way as if making the style consistent/readable before doing something with it - shortening lines, aligning data structure entries, whatever.
It happens if I play something like tetris before sleeping or while tired, too.
Re: Ask HN: Does anyone dream of code?
#65Only when I'm stuck on something.
I find myself working on it half asleep in my bed. It pretty much always results in finding the solution or at the very least a good lead.
Re: Ask HN: Does anyone dream of code?
#66I have this happen to me relatively often (about once a month). The best part about it is that I make meaningful connections and actually solve problems related to the code that I am envisioning, and I wake up and I am able to implement what I dream about.
This usually only happens the night after a long day working on very mentally challenging problems, it rarely happens after easy days.
Re: Ask HN: Does anyone dream of code?
#67I never really dream of code, but I did have a funny dream of me writing something and trying to get girls to check out what I wrote. I was like, "hey ladies, check out this code"
I think that's # 5 in "Top 10 Worst Pickup Lines ever"... ;)
Re: Ask HN: Does anyone dream of code?
#68Only once, when I was a little overworked in college. It was about the process of authentication and authorization.
Re: Ask HN: Does anyone dream of code?
#69I've been doing this for 30 years. Why? Because I work in such a way to make it happen. What you call a problem, I embrace as a gift. Of all the things I've discussed here at Hacker News over the years, this is probably the #1 subject. Most programmers have the opposite problem of you: they have trouble turning their minds on . I always turn my computer off several hours before bed. The last thing I do every night is…
A lot of programmers I respect like to work on printed out code, and it's something I enjoy as well. Furthermore I'd love if we could work completely offline, with pen and paper.
More coders ought to try weaning themselves off of syntax highlighting and inverting their terminal colors to dark on light, document-writing style.
If you don't need the training wheels and you're not a hacker in a movie, I think you'll discover over time that it is a sweet sweet liberation to be free from the ball and chain of syntax.
Re: Ask HN: Does anyone dream of code?
#70Insanity is when you wake up screaming that your build failed, and then realise you weren't dreaming.