One of the reasons I program is because I'm furious. By most accepted metrics, I went to one of the best technical public high schools in the country. I was average there and I was taking graph theory and multivariable calculus as a senior my last semester. The smart kids though? They were doing real analysis, topology, and winning international competitions for mathematics and science. I'm just finishing up college now and I'm watching the geniuses from my high school go from MIT and Stanford to high frequency trading firms or work for places like palantir and facebook. They're using their gifts to remove liquidity from the markets[0], to help fight wars based on lies[1], and to maximize the amount of money they can sell my privacy for[2]. Most of them use programming to indirectly decrease the quality of my life. I'd love it if I could invest money without fear of the markets going crazy because of a tweet[3], if I could support the government without worrying about them killing innocent citizens[4], and if I could connect with my friends and family without worrying about my privacy being sold to the highest bidder. My former classmates are and will be using computers to indirectly prevent me from doing the above with any sort of peace of mind. It is infuriating.
When I sit down to program, I now make a conscious effort to build tools that I can use in the future to fight against the trends above. I use Clojure because it's the language I've been able to get the most done in the shortest amount of time. If there were a language that let me do as much as fast, I'd drop Clojure like a rock and learn that. If I want to stem the negative effects the geniuses are having on my life, I'll need to use the best tools possible. That means constantly learning more powerful concepts and building better tools. I've been on a graph theory and network science kick lately because I noticed that google, palantir, and facebook got where they are by virtue of being really good at graph theory. The concepts are crazy powerful and provide immense power to the people who can successfully employ them. So, when I sit down to work on certain projects, the main motivating factor for me is that I'm furious that my classmates are worsening my life. There's a ton of work that I need to do before I can do anything about it though. I'm obviously on a futile crusade fueled by my youth and naiveté, but for the moment, that's why I program. -Zack [0] http://www.nanex.net/aqck2/4136.html [1] http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/27/the-great-degrader/ [2] https://www.facebook.com/legal/terms [3] http://seekingalpha.com/article/1362731-obama-is-dead-tweet-makes-for-flash-crash [4] http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-drones-policy-obama-koh-20130513,0,4160911.story On Monday, May 13, 2013 11:35:33 PM UTC+4, Erlis Vidal wrote: > > Let me share this tale with you guys, hope you like it as much as I do: > > It is said that Socrates met a worker who asked: what are you doing good > man? "Don't you see I'm cutting a stone to earn my salary and so I can eat > " the worker replied. He moved on and later found another worker > questioning the same way as the previous one, he replied "I'm building a > wall," continued Socrates finding their way to a third worker, also > questioning, the answer was "I'm building a beautiful palace " > > > On Mon, May 13, 2013 at 2:17 PM, Timothy Baldridge > <tbald...@gmail.com<javascript:> > > wrote: > >> I doubt I'm unique in this area, but for me, programming is a drug. I >> have to code, or the ideas and thoughts build up in my mind. For me, >> actually writing down and implementing these is a stress relief. Just ask >> my parents when I was growing up, or my wife today. Keep me in a room >> without a computer for a week, and I'll start writing code on paper just to >> get the thoughts down. >> >> So I guess you could say I'm an addict. >> >> Timothy Baldridge >> >> >> On Mon, May 13, 2013 at 12:09 PM, Ulises <ulises....@gmail.com<javascript:> >> > wrote: >> >>> > Code that matters is code that's used by other people. For me >>> personally >>> > the ability to share my code with others is the thing that makes >>> > programming worth doing in the first place. >>> >>> This is a rather important point. One of the most asked questions >>> (random made up fact) by newcomers to a language is "what can I code? >>> what open source programs can I help?". All with the aims of getting >>> better acquainted with the language itself and, hopefully, helping >>> others. I normally direct people to Advice to Aimless, Excited >>> Programmers (http://prog21.dadgum.com/80.html). For those who'd rather >>> read the rest of this email, the tl;dr version is: got scratch your >>> own itch, you might be building an itch-scratcher for others. >>> >>> The real question now becomes (at least for me): how do you know when >>> an itch is worth scratching? how do you know it's a shared itch? >>> >>> I've seen more experienced programmers immediately recognise what'd be >>> useful at large and what wouldn't (when I presented them with a couple >>> "itches" of my own.) Interestingly enough, my judgement didn't >>> necessarily coincide with theirs. >>> >>> Code to scratch your own itch? Sure, that's great. Code to scratch a >>> shared itch? Even better. But how do you know which is which? >>> >>> U >>> >>> -- >>> -- >>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google >>> Groups "Clojure" group. >>> To post to this group, send email to clo...@googlegroups.com<javascript:> >>> Note that posts from new members are moderated - please be patient with >>> your first post. >>> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to >>> clojure+u...@googlegroups.com <javascript:> >>> For more options, visit this group at >>> http://groups.google.com/group/clojure?hl=en >>> --- >>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google >>> Groups "Clojure" group. >>> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send >>> an email to clojure+u...@googlegroups.com <javascript:>. >>> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. >>> >>> >>> >> >> >> -- >> “One of the main causes of the fall of the Roman Empire was that–lacking >> zero–they had no way to indicate successful termination of their C >> programs.” >> (Robert Firth) >> >> -- >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google >> Groups "Clojure" group. >> To post to this group, send email to clo...@googlegroups.com<javascript:> >> Note that posts from new members are moderated - please be patient with >> your first post. >> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to >> clojure+u...@googlegroups.com <javascript:> >> For more options, visit this group at >> http://groups.google.com/group/clojure?hl=en >> --- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "Clojure" group. >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >> email to clojure+u...@googlegroups.com <javascript:>. >> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. >> >> >> > > -- -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Clojure" group. To post to this group, send email to clojure@googlegroups.com Note that posts from new members are moderated - please be patient with your first post. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to clojure+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/clojure?hl=en --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Clojure" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to clojure+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
