Quantitative Data

[ayun]

I don't feel like it's really necessary for me to wait to get my midterm grade back to say out loud that I'm doing just fine in this Java class. Like, I even do the extra credit stuff because it's easy enough and why the fuck not, so I'm running somewhere north of a perfect score at the moment

Comments

[plankton]

I agree that programming is highly creative once you get past trivial problems (and the trivial problem can be fun to complete in a soothing "tidying your desk" kind of way).

Whenever I program for fun both the internal software battles and the exterior results are usually creative and tightly bounded and that's the best of both worlds. Often times I'm fighting for optimizations to enable some additional expression in the other. I might spend a few hours trying to figure out to make a certain algorithm for an instrument run more efficiently enabling myself to write a more complicated drum track, and if that fails I'll think about how to strip down a song to it's simplest components or take advantage of chance elements and still create an emotional resonance. That's the sort of work I was doing back when Bridget and I met and it was probably the most enjoyable programming I've ever done. Unfortunately it's hard to do that for a career but even still spending all day solving puzzles and creating little consistent universes isn't a bad way to make a living.

One other interesting creative expression through programming you might appreciate is live coding:

http://toplap.org/

Writing software in real-time to make music or visuals. I haven't given it a shot yet but it's something I'd like to try. Best/worst part is everyone gets to see your revisions projected right in front of them. No time to wordsmith; your next musical transition is 6 measures away and it better be good or else the people left on the dancefloor are going to go get a drink and give up on your set.