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What real life bad habits has programming given you?
Yikes. Since I have to think a certain way 8 hours a day to code, it changes the way my brain works when interacting with others. The following comments on this site can also be applied to my life…
I tend to take things hyper-literally. For example, my wife was annoyed when she used to ask “Do you want to take out the garbage?” (no) instead of “Will you take our the garbage?” (yes).
It’s ruined my ability to read normal English without wanting to hurt someone. Punctuation now infuriates me. For example: ‘he asked around (quietly.)’ Is apparently the correct way to write a sentence that ends in a bracketed phrase. But my brain refuses to accept it. Also, unterminated quote characters (which is, I’m told, perfectly acceptable when quoting larger passages) make me want to stab people in the eyes.I was getting lunch a few years ago at Rebecca’s Cafe in Kendall Square and the girl behind the counter asked me what kind of bread I wanted and without thinking I said, “Whatever the default is.” (I have actually said this too.)
I find that sometimes I speak very precisely, and get irritated when somebody (usually my wife) doesn’t appreciate the precision of what I said, and treats what I said kind-of sort-of similar to what I said.Like when I’m cooking and she hands me the margarine: I didn’t mean, “hand me anything yellow out of the refrigerator,” I meant, “hand me the butter.”
Every User Interface, digital or otherwise infuriates me when it does something that makes it needlessly difficult for the user. Like hitting “Cancel” to run my debit card as a “credit” card. WTF?
Along the lines of precise speaking, I find that I refuse to deal with ambiguous questions/statements until they are resolved. Even if I have a pretty good idea what they want, if they phrased it wrong I can’t answer because then I’d have to guess and programmers shouldn’t ever have to guess.But repeating “What do you mean” when someone thinks they phrased something perfectly well just pisses everyone off.Also—cookbooks. I can’t go near a kitchen! First you combine a pinch of this in a rolling motion with a scoop of that. DEFINE YOUR GODDAMN TERMS
I find that if I’m writing a letter (yeah, I know it supposed to be email (or texting)) to someone I tend to nest brackets when I am making side points. My wife thinks I’m crazy when she sees that. So do the recipients of those letters. But its a habit.
I want to fix everything, EVERYTHING. Person A is feeling bad, I must now fix their problem, because there is a fix to everything.
I temporize way too much in conversation. Things that anyone else would say as fact, I will still throw a “probably” or “perhaps” on, because I know there could always be that one edge case where a meteor strikes my neighborhood and I wouldn’t after all be able to make it out that day to Thanksgiving dinner.
Notes
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Some that hit home with me:...There were also many like
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caseyliss reblogged this from marco and added:
disclaimer king (“Well, that should be true, unless…”), and I’m trying to be better about it. I find myself never...
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iamdanw reblogged this from marco and added:
Marco points out this brilliant thread on Stack Overflow. Here’s some choice chunks:
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davidphalen reblogged this from pilnick and added:
certain way 8 hours a day...code, it changes the way my brain works when interacting with...
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kbkarma reblogged this from marco and added:
Is it WRONG that so many of those relate to me as well?
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katrina reblogged this from inky and added:
I temporize way too much in conversation. Things that anyone else would say as fact, I will still throw a “probably” or...
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pilnick reblogged this from marco and added:
Both of these I do, especially the first. I posted a while ago about trying to break that habit. Even if you end up...
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ackb reblogged this from marco and added:
I’m not a programmer, but I live with one and this is SO TRUE.
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gompr reblogged this from marco and added:
This is a goldmine. And it proves how similar children are to
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inky reblogged this from marco and added:
It’s both comforting and worrying how many of these I can relate to.
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marco posted this
