Loss of interest for computer scinence, anyone else ?

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Wermish
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Re: Loss of interest for computer scinence, anyone else ?

Post by Wermish »

Gilbert wrote: Tue Mar 30, 2021 2:14 am The programming courses were basically taught with printed notes and homeworks were pen-and-paper only. They're like, "Write a C++ programme to sort a list" and we were encouraged to run the programme for real and check the output (we usually obtained the limited educational version of Turbo Pascal/C++ or just pirat... shared the thing), but you know, if you're good enough you didn't need to check with a computer, you just wrote the programme and the expected legit outputs on the paper. For COBOL no-one taking the course (cared to) check with a real computer (as no-one (cared to) know how to run a COBOL programme anyway) so everyone just wrote gibberish codes and didn't even care whether they worked.
Hahaha. My first year CS exams were like this. Writing python and java on paper and having to state the output. Writing java on paper is horrible.
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Gilbert
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Re: Loss of interest for computer scinence, anyone else ?

Post by Gilbert »

Wermish wrote: Tue Apr 20, 2021 2:53 am Writing java on paper is horrible.
Writing JAVA is horrible, be it on paper or with a keyboard. :roll:
But COBOL... The bar is so high that it's hard to beat it.
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tokumaru
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Re: Loss of interest for computer scinence, anyone else ?

Post by tokumaru »

I had my fair share of printed programming assignments too, but that always consisted of simple tasks, like sorting lists, implementing simple data structures, things like that. I really enjoyed that part, but most of my classmates didn't. Very few people throughout my CS course actually liked coding. Anyway, if we had to code complete programs, those had to be delivered on diskettes (yeah, I'm feeling pretty old right now!).

The cool thing about using such an unreliable media is that we could buy a few extra days to finish the assignments by saving plausibly named files on a diskette, filling them with gibberish and damaging the disk using magnets and pointy things until it was barely readable... That got us a lot of time, because the teacher could only tell us that something went wrong in the next class, and we could only hand in another diskette in the one after that.
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Ben Boldt
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Re: Loss of interest for computer scinence, anyone else ?

Post by Ben Boldt »

Bregalad wrote: Tue Apr 20, 2021 1:35 am Also there's no necessarly an anit-correlation to how interesting a job is and how much you're paid.
I think there is a definite correlation there when you look at the big picture. I would say the majority of fun jobs don't pay well. Lifeguard, bringing in carts at the grocery store, picking up garbage on the side of the road, apartment maintenance guy, video game tester, cook, those are all just fun exciting jobs that are everywhere but don't pay anything. Maybe we are biased in ways against those people, but you have to admit they are having fun and feeling good at work. Sitting at a desk all day, doing research, wearing a suit and tie, managing others, 'pretending to be busy', keeping secrets, lying regularly, all of those just horrible things, they pay a lot. They would HAVE to pay a lot to get me to do that crap.

But that doesn't mean you can't find a job that is interesting and also pays well. Having gone to college certainly helps with that. It removes a barrier that most other people face, opening you to better options. Those things do exist, they are just harder to find.

I think people have an unrealistic expectation of having fun and meaningful time at work. It is a relative thing. Relative to what?? You will have to have a pretty boring life outside of work to consider work exciting. Everything levels out over time, and when you are enjoying things it is always relative to when you are not enjoying things. To think you are just having fun all the time, it doesn't make sense unless you're taking some sort of drugs, which I am not recommending. So you may as well have a relaxing, fulfilling job that makes decent money and then go crazy after work. Separate work and life, and keep them in equal and opposite proportions. That is a great setup.

Whenever you think there is a problem with your job, always think about what that could mean about your life outside of your job. Then adjust your job only to conform to what you want from your life outside your job. That is my best recommendation for these sorts of feelings of boredom or entrapment at work.
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Re: Loss of interest for computer scinence, anyone else ?

Post by Pokun »

I think having a job that is genuinely fun most of the time is probably very rare. Even a zoo worker needs to wipe up after the elephants and monkeys. It wouldn't be work if it didn't include a bunch of crap that you normally wouldn't want to do unless you have some kind of sense of duty or gets paid enough. It's the same for everyone, that's how I see it. Then again of course the world isn't fair, and some people seems to get anything they want with little effort and others are at the bottom of society despite diligently working their ass off.

Having a good education gives you more possibilities, but I agree with Boldt, and I think that finding work that you really like, with or without education, requires a certain degree of luck. You should think of your education for being more for making you financially secure than for getting a fun job. If you are not financially secure you will have all kinds of crap, and things like getting married may get harder, thus affect your happiness negatively more than a crappy workplace might do.

If you hate every aspect of your job it might be a hell indeed though. I find that having likeable co-workers that you can have a beer with after work and relieve some stress, is important for a job to be bearable, and I had some very mixed luck with that. Sometimes I had sarcastic asses for co-workers on top of doing a job that was very stressful and not all that fun (with some important exceptions that was very fulfilling despite being very stressful for hardly getting enough time to prepare), and that just made work so much worse. Other times I had great co-workers, and that made so much of a difference that it matters little what kind of crap I had to work with. Just feeling that the crap work was done with and relaxing in the day off with good friends just made the beer and food taste so much better.

If you have wife and kids I guess you have more to wipe up when you get home, and little time for a beer though, but I don't know anything about that yet.
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Re: Loss of interest for computer scinence, anyone else ?

Post by Drag »

I think the way it's supposed to work is, your day-job supports your hobbies. The problem is, in the US at least, the ruling class believes "living in a house" and "being healthy" are hobbies, and they especially don't like when you try to live by yourself. :P

And then like Tokumaru said, striking a work/life balance is hard, with commuting being a big time sink. Fortunately, the pandemic has proven that most officework can be done from home, which decouples where you work from where you live. I don't think it's quite sunken in how big of a deal that is, and how many possibilities that opens for everyone.

At the very least, it makes it a tad easier to select a job, if you don't have to relocate for it. ;)
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Bregalad
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Re: Loss of interest for computer scinence, anyone else ?

Post by Bregalad »

Ben Boldt wrote: Tue Apr 20, 2021 8:28 am Lifeguard, bringing in carts at the grocery store, picking up garbage on the side of the road, apartment maintenance guy, video game tester, cook, those are all just fun exciting jobs that are everywhere but don't pay anything.
Bringin carts at the grocery store is fun ? Picking up garbage is fun ? Well I guess we don't have the same enjoyment of things in life.

Anyway I never, ever said my job was supposed to be fun, I said it was supposed to be intellectually satisfying which is a completely different concept.
Whenever you think there is a problem with your job, always think about what that could mean about your life outside of your job. Then adjust your job only to conform to what you want from your life outside your job. That is my best recommendation for these sorts of feelings of boredom or entrapment at work.
Ok thanks for the recomandation, I agree it's good to keep things spearate but once again, considering how much my interest for Nesdev has strongly influenced my career path (but without me ever expecting or aiming to work in the VG industy) it's hard to say those are completely separate.
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tokumaru
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Re: Loss of interest for computer scinence, anyone else ?

Post by tokumaru »

Bregalad wrote: Wed Apr 21, 2021 2:00 amBringin carts at the grocery store is fun ? Picking up garbage is fun ? Well I guess we don't have the same enjoyment of things in life.
I'm with you, man... those are not jobs I'd consider fun by any means. But even if you have the coolest job in the world according to your tastes, anything can get tiring if you have to do it every day for several hours straight. Even going on amusement park rides, something most people pay good money to do, can get old if you do it all the freaking time.
Anyway I never, ever said my job was supposed to be fun, I said it was supposed to be intellectually satisfying which is a completely different concept.
Yeah, that was my point too. Having fun all the time every day all day long is not a very realistic thing, and having someone pay you at the same time is even less so. But ideally, there should be something about your job that makes you feel good about it, and proud of the things you accomplish, even if it's not all fun all the time. It makes life more meaningful than if you were doing something you consider pointless just to get the money to stay alive and continue to do that pointless thing forever.
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Re: Loss of interest for computer scinence, anyone else ?

Post by Pokun »

I imagine being a game tester would be hard work for all that stinky shovelware that you have to wade through and write reports about. :)


By fun I basically meant satisfying, intellectually or in some other way. I meant that almost any type of work includes a bunch of unsatisfying dumb labor that simply has to be done by someone, and that's why it's called work.
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tokumaru
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Re: Loss of interest for computer scinence, anyone else ?

Post by tokumaru »

Pokun wrote: Wed Apr 21, 2021 7:17 amI imagine being a game tester would be hard work for all that stinky shovelware that you have to wade through and write reports about. :)
Exactly. And even good games can get boring if you play them non-stop. And the part where you have to give feedback, document and report bugs, etc. does not sound particularly fun either, regardless of the game.
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Nikku4211
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Re: Loss of interest for computer scinence, anyone else ?

Post by Nikku4211 »

tokumaru wrote: Wed Apr 21, 2021 7:27 am And the part where you have to give feedback, document and report bugs, etc. does not sound particularly fun either, regardless of the game.
Then how come people had so much fun with Pokemon's glitches, for example?
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