[TUHS] Were all of you.. Hippies?

[wes.parish@paradise.net.nz (Wesley Parish)]

I put a certain amount of time last decade at a community centre's cybercaf in Christchurch, NZ, into 
teaching elderly people who have not previously had much experience with computers, how to use 
them. You do get a buzz when someone who's previously been full of questions, suddenly "gets it" and 
their eyes light up and no more questions, let's get things done!

It's not dissimilar to the buzz you get when you enter some code and it does what you think it should, 
not something else.

Just my 0.02c

Wesley Parish

Quoting Noel Chiappa <jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu>:

> > From: Nick Downing
> 
>  > Programming is actually an addiction.
> 
> _Can be_ an addition. A lot of people are immune... :-)
> 
>  > What makes it addictive to a certain type of personality is that
> little
>  > rush of satisfaction when you try your code and it *works*... ... It
> was
>  > not just the convenience and productivity improvements but that the
>  > 'hit' was coming harder and faster.
> 
> Joe Weizenbaum wrote about the addiction of programming in his famous
> book
> "Computer Power and Human Reason" (Chapter 4, "Science and the
> Compulsive
> Programmer"). He attributes it to the sense of power one gets, working
> in a
> 'world' where things do exactly what you tell them. There might be
> something
> to that, but I suspect your supposition is more likely.
> 
>  > This theory is well known to those who design slot machines and
> other
>  > forms of gambling
> 
> Oddly enough, he also analogizes to gamblers!
> 
>  Noel
>  



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