[Python] Does anyone else not find the fun in programming...?

Mmmm maybe programming is not your way (or you work in a boring
place :)

Group : comp.lang.python
Well I agree...
Meeting people, having a drink with them, sex.. is fun

Programming is just a job

Rony
--
Rony

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/ bucodi_no_spam at yahoo.fr (delete _no_spam)
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\ www.ifrance/karamusic -- My hobby
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On Tue, 13 Jan 2004 18:28:13 +0100, rumours say that Rony
<bucodi_no_spam at ahoo.fr> might have written:

[snip: Chris Lyon doubts that programming is fun]
[Rony]
Programming can be fun if seen as creation. It's hard to be fun when
you do what others request, but it *is* fun when you write programs for
your own reasons...

s/a job/fun/

<op> did this help ?-) </op>

Different people find different activities to be "fun" (for various
definitions of "fun"). I personally enjoy _design_, and programming
provides a context for that, but there are other vehicles for meeting my
daily design quota. Python in particular allows me to focus on
higher-level design issues (compared to other languages I've used).

One of the interesting things about computers in general is their
ability to be a vehicle for most things people enjoy, if only virtually.
My sincere sympathies to anyone who is stuck programming (or doing any
other kind of work with computers) for a paycheck only.


FuManChu

I reserve Python for fun, i.e. use it for projects having no $ motive.
Scheduling Python work on "when the mood stkes me" basis, i.e.
unscheduled.
Since, for me, it's most particularly fun when I *should* be doing
something else:

it would seem, I do.

Art

Arthur <ajsiegel at optonline.com> writes:
[...]
:-))

it's-only-work-when-they-make-you-do-it-ly y'rs,


John

0 # DANGIT
-1 # ARGARGHARGH
ValueError: substring not found in string.index # F***!
AssertionError # I'm going home

Jeff

Try: assert "programming is fun"

:-)

When I was a working programmer I kind of felt the same way.

But then I became a designer and now cherish the time I spend
writing code (and not just in Python, even C++, Lisp and
Delphi)- because it is fun! :-)
Its fun like doing a jigsaw is fun, or a crossword. Its about
problem solving. Its about finding elegant solutions to problems.
If you don't enjoy doing the puzzle page in your daily newspaper
you probably won't enjoy programming... Probably a bad example
since zillions of crossword haters will now say how much they
enjoy programming! :-)

But its in that ballpark IMHO.

Alan G.
Author of the Learn to Program website
http://www.freenetpages.co.uk/hp/alan.gauld

chris.lyon at spritenote.co.uk (Chris Lyon) wrote in message news:<d232c5e.0401130823.27fd26ff at posting.google.com>...

Maybe you just need another vocation. Work and fun are not
necessarily mutually exclusive. Considering the proportion of your
life you will spend at work, you ought to make damn sure they aren't!

Programming is such fun that I'm happy (almost) every day to be going
to work. Which is more than I can say about various other jobs I've
had. OK so maybe it can be painful at times (like when I have to work
with XSLT :o), but designing and implementing solutions in Python (or
watching my little creatures take on a life of their own - which is
how I look at OOP - hmm maybe I need help?), is just plain fun. Which
is not to say football, walking and arguing are not.

Do you grind your teeth whenever you hear someone say... Oh, perhaps
"Knitting is fun?" I don't like knitting, but my grandmother finds
knitting fun, and it causes me no anxiety that she or anyone else gets
enjoyment that way.

Why is it, then, that me saying "programming is fun" upsets you?
Is it jealousy that causes you to grind your teeth, or something else?

You see, I get a certain feeling of reward when I solve a problem. This
might be a particularly tough math problem, or a programming problem, or
most any other kind of "self challenge." First it's a feeling of intrigue
and fascination, then a feeling of triumph.

I'll try to draw some more mundane situations that gave me the same
feeling.

With perhaps only a difference in adrenaline level, I get the same kick
from programming that I got when I sacked a quarterback or scored a
touchdown playing football (american) during high school.

I get the same kick as when I first benchpressed my own weight. And as
when I completed my first 10k run, and again when I won my first 10k run.

There's something to point out about the past few examples. I didn't
necessarily enjoy all the weightlifting and running and training for
football, but in the end, it was well worth it to me.

During the process of solving a problem, I get the same feeling as I get
while chatting up an interesting girl in a bar. (No, the playful
fascination part, not the sexual part.)

I also get the same feeling as watching a good movie. There's some level
of intrigue involved.

The list goes on, but maybe now you can see what I get out of it.

No doubt there are things that give you the same feeling. Too bad you
haven't yet found a line of work that incorporates them.
Perhaps from a career counselor.

I have a philosophy about time, money, happiness and freedom. There are
those who say that time is money, and I disagree with them. If I lose
money, I can get it back. If I lose time, it's gone forever. We've all
heard the cliche "Money can't buy happiness," which is only a half-truth.
Money doesn't buy happiness, but it can buy the freedom to pursue
happiness. So, when I consider a job, I ask myself "Will this job result
in a net gain of happiness and freedom for me?" I am, after all, selling
pieces of my very own existence (time) for money. Thus, I try hard to
find jobs that I will enjoy, even if they don't pay as much, because I'll
be spending an awful lot of my existence working.

HTH

Sam Walters.

Perhaps you are working on the wrong projects?

I program for work. That isn't fun. Well it's not bad either.

But I also have a hobby creating music with algorithmic composition
techniques in Python. And that is *fun*

Creating basic libraries is also fun. Spending all the time you need to
get them "just right"

Combining programming with some kind of hobby hardware can also be fun.



regards Max M

What Python libraries do you use to do algorithmic composition? I played
around with Snack (for Tcl) awhile back but couldn't get decent realtime
performance so I gave up on the idea for the time being. I'm very interested
to hear what sort of techniques you use.

First of I don't use realtime...

I create lists of notes::

class Note:

def __init__(self, time=0, pitchd, velocityd, duration�):
self.time = time
self.pitch = pitch
self.velocity = velocity
self.duration = duration

def __str__(self):
r = []
a = r.append
a('time %s' % self.time)
a('pitch %s' % self.pitch)
a('velocity %s' % self.velocity)
a('duration %s' % self.duration)
return '\n'.join(r)


That are then converted into midi files by a very simple wrapper layer.

This simple structure makes it extremely simple to create
transformations on a list of notes. I considder each list a "part" like
you see it in Cubase/Logic.

The idea is then to create a personal library of transformations and
generators that expres your own musical style. I also have a few
routines for repeating/extending/sequencing these parts.

I import these midi files into software like Cubase, or Reason or Orion.
Where they drive either hardware or software synths.

I like to fiddle around with the sounds manually by twiddleling the knobs.

But I don't change the mnusic manually in the sequencer software. Rather
i change the software and genereate a new midi file, that I reload.

It is a bit like writing code generators. And it is completely flexible,
creative and fun due to the ease of Python.


regards Max M

So, a data-flow style more or less... that seems to be a useful model for
music software. Have you ever played around with Max?
Yeah, makes perfect sense to me. Do you have any Python-generated songs
available? Sounds really cool.

The thing I was working on was a probabilistic beat generator, based on
statistics of when a certain drum would hit in a beat for a selection of hip
hop songs. I was trying to capture the "feel" rather than the exact sequence
of sounds. I still have the (tcl) source laying around here somewhere. It
worked pretty well on Linux (I could actually get it to beat-match) but in
Windows the performance was terrible. Which is probably because I'd have to
be out of my mind to think I could get realtime performance out of Tcl. ;)

Thanks, Max...

No. I tried c-sound, and while it was interesting, it was really
cumbersome at the level I am interested in.
That is a good way to go. Bayes networks for rythmical patterns.


regards Max M

Yeah, CSound is theoretically amazing but practically useless for me. ;) But
I've had a few friends swear by it. I played around with Max a little bit in
an electronic studio class, and found it very interesting. It's the only
thing I've ever seen that was worthy of the name "graphical programming
languaeg". A language you could program in entirely with a mouse, and it was
actually useful. My teacher used it to do MIDI routing and later to create
an algorithmic music installation in a musem.

For the sake of keeping this on-topic, and because it actually sounds like a
neat idea, I think it'd be cool to develop something like Max (or jMax - is
that project still alive?) for Python. What's the best way of interfacing
Python with real-time MIDI?
Hehe...
Interesting idea.

At work you do what you are told to do. As a hobby you can do what you
want to do. Both can be fun. Just compare programming to filling a
crossword puzzle or writing a poem.

Programming gives something to think about. And then finding a
solution for a problem or getting the program released or getting good
feedback... the feelings can be awesome.

And then, look at the code, it can be ugly or beautiful. Python
luckily makes you to write better looking code. :)

Well, I can only speak for myself, but *I* _DO_ find programming fun.
When I was in college, I used to practically disapear every once in
a while for nearly a week at a time while working furiously on a
program. These days, when I get a free weekend (which is somewhere
between hardly ever and never), I will sometimes spend it writing a
program for something like a game I was inspired to create. The fact
that in my day job they pay me to do programming is just, well, great!
Of course, I don't enjoy every moment. Right now I really need to
spend the rest of the day writing up release notes and deployment
plans for the latest version of our software, and that's not my
favorite part of the job. But I couldn't take the same kind of pride
in my work if I didn't see to it that even our release notes are of
the same high quality as our code.

Perhaps I'm just VERY fortunate... but then before I worked as a
programmer, I used to be a teacher, and I ALSO enjoyed doing that
job. My recomendation is to try to find a job which you really
enjoy doing. After all, why waste such a large portion of your life
on something that isn't rewarding? Sure, you still need to eat, but
(at least in the USA where I live) it doesn't take NEARLY as much
money to live on as most people seem to think, and there are many
different ways of earning a living.

-- Michael Chermside

In article <d232c5e.0401130823.27fd26ff at posting.google.com>,
Chris Lyon wrote:
When I learned Python, I'd been programming for more than twenty years,
but I didn't call myself a programmer because I hated programming. I
still don't think that programming is fun, but Python is enough fun for
me to call myself a programmer.

Well, well ,well, what an interesting response !

I have taken a walk down the canal, I have totally ignored the Gov't
and have gloried in the fabulous Wolverhampton Wanderers win today as
football (association). Apparently we beat some team from the
Manchester area. Who would have thought it!

With regard to the actual pursuit of happiness via programming I can
acknowlege certain aspects of the pleasure to be derived from a neat
solution and python has certainly provided me with real solutions. It
has never run out of power for anything I have asked it. If you have
been following over the past couple of years I have attempted to ask
it some pretty stupid questions (for which I hang my head in shame,
Medusa forgive me!)

My own limitations are what I will obviously tend to concentrate on
and I think I am just too lazy to ever programme with true confidence.

However during the days, now long in the past, when I did right stuff
for fun which as it happened sorted out problems at work, I wish
Python had been my language of choice rather than Basic which I did
actually use. But of course...

A word of caution however I think the word fun is a dangerous one to
employ as I have seen it instill, at the very least, nervousness in
managements as they feel they are getting another crazed take on the
world rather than the carefully studied approach that the feel their
particular problem really requires.
Perhaps work will always be that way.

p.s I wrote my bilge pump measuring website in Python and I did have a
lot of fun with that :)

Jeff Epler <jepler at unpythonic.net> wrote in message news:<mailman.333.1074027727.12720.python-list at python.org>...
curiosities = ("functional programming", "fundamental OO theory", \
"defunct languages", "economic funnels", "fungal analysis")

["fun" in curiosity for curiosity in curiosities]

chris.lyon at spritenote.co.uk (Chris Lyon) wrote in message news:<d232c5e.0401130823.27fd26ff at posting.google.com>...

I never found programming fun until Python. But I find Python's syntax
so natural that I can write little toy codes almost effortlessly and
try out ideas, which I find incredibly gratifying. Plus, I really like
the fact that so many cool things are included in the Python
distribution, so I can play around with list comprehensions or XML
parsing when the mood strikes.

However, I should point out that I'm a scientist, not a computer
scientist. I have a feeling that if all I got paid to do, day in and
day out, was write code, I might see Python as merely another tool of
management's oppression. So I know where you're coming from.

R.