I treat a lot of things I shouldn't in a functional way... this begets that, and other such methodical thinking. perhaps it is more of a side effect of coming out of the zone or something, but it seems to take more and more of a conscious decision to step out of that mode... and that's hard to do with the remaining hours of the day.
Related: when people ask me if I'd like "A or B" I wonder if people mean "A || B", to which I'd reply with true/false, or "max(A, B)", to which I'd reply with A (if I have higher preference for A) or B (if I have higher preference for B).
Here are two unambiguous examples:
"Are you a US citizen or permanent resident? Yes [ ] No [ ]"
versus:
"Would you like coffee or tea?"
In some settings, when they ask "A or B", it's hard to know which of the following set are valid answers: {{}, {A}, {B}, {A,B}}
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't think there is a good appreciation for how significant this is generally.
I do this all the time - all bills have to be the same orientation and in order of smallest to largest value. If I take a few out of the ATM I'll stand there sorting them for a few seconds annoying the people queueing behind!
I cant do math. I suck at it, i can understand it, but i have a hard time going through the calculations. I do all sorts of dumb mistakes, and always miss something. Its the details that get me. I find this to be my greatest challenge, because i have some serious math exams coming soon.
Somewhat related, I cant seem to be able to study stuff that are not interesting to me. I have a big exam, i should study, NOOOO, i dont whanaaaa, whaaaaa.... I whanna hack, i dont whaannnt to studyyyy...whaaaa.... I find myself whining in my head very often. I guess i should just shut up, and do my studying, and maybe hack later...
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.
One of the nice things about the English language is the difference between U.S. and UK rules, so you can mix and match them to your own taste and people can't tell you you're doing it wrong.
So for example I write "center" not "centre" but "axe" not "ax".
I remember counting from 0 when I was young, while all the other kids counted from 1. I considered myself right then and still do. That was well before I had any exposure to programming. Guess I was born for this profession.
I was actually trying to figure out where my window was on the outside of an office building I work in (5th floor). So I started with 0 which would have meant I would be looking at the 6th floor, not 5th.
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.
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.
God Bless Australia. I love that country, and I really liked how tax is already included in all prices and payment is rounded to 5c since there are no 1c pieces. It makes payments so much simpler.
I picked that up after I spent some time in China, where it's a common enough thing that nobody thinks twice when you do it. But back in the US, it gets a lot of strange looks.
I recently interviewed at a place where they had set up a tip jar -- you had to put a quarter in it if you were caught pedantically correcting someone.
Have a condition where I always need to carry some single-day use medical equipment around.
I have created a mental invariant that says that unused, spare units are in my right back-pocket, the one that is currently in use is in the left front pocket, while the left back-pocket is for trash.
This allows me to easily "poll" for whether I'm equipped to leave home, and has made sure that I have not once in 15 years found myself without it. I attribute the success of this system largely to my "programmer mindset".
Not so much that programming has given me, but constantly having to come up with analogies to explain highly technical concepts to my non-technical co-workers has invaded my life.
"See, your username and password are like a combination lock, where the Kerberos ticket is a key. When you authenticate to the portal, you hand the key to the website, which validates it, and lets you in... but the key is actually in your browser, so it does that all transparently."
89 comments
[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 84.2 ms ] threadEg. should I walk or drive? It doesn't matter, they're both O(n).
"Great, I'll have both!"
So perhaps we should start saying either "or" or "ior" (inexclusive or).
Oh, my head.
Here are two unambiguous examples:
"Are you a US citizen or permanent resident? Yes [ ] No [ ]"
versus:
"Would you like coffee or tea?"
In some settings, when they ask "A or B", it's hard to know which of the following set are valid answers: {{}, {A}, {B}, {A,B}}
(Maybe it's because I don't use a poor language?)
Apparently mine isn't, I've got to take it out every Monday...
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't think there is a good appreciation for how significant this is generally.
That's extremely difficult to though as a manager!
- 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?
Caffeine is a hell of a drug.
With multiple denominations of bills, the insertions aren't O(1) when I'm in line if you know what I mean.
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=353501
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.
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.
So for example I write "center" not "centre" but "axe" not "ax".
Cheers!
"How many floors on that building?"
"Let's see, 0, 1, 2... oh wait..."
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.
Eventually it devolved into merciless trolling :)
lather, rinse, repeat. lather, rinse, repeat. lather, rinse, repeat. lather, rinse, repeat...
showers take a while
I have created a mental invariant that says that unused, spare units are in my right back-pocket, the one that is currently in use is in the left front pocket, while the left back-pocket is for trash.
This allows me to easily "poll" for whether I'm equipped to leave home, and has made sure that I have not once in 15 years found myself without it. I attribute the success of this system largely to my "programmer mindset".
"See, your username and password are like a combination lock, where the Kerberos ticket is a key. When you authenticate to the portal, you hand the key to the website, which validates it, and lets you in... but the key is actually in your browser, so it does that all transparently."