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Do you enjoy programming?

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Wind waker, Nov 11, 2013.

  1. Wind waker

    Wind waker

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    Hi,


    When developing games, do you actually enjoy programming? Do you consider the development itself to be a joyful experience or do you just wait for the game to be finished? I know there are quite many non-programmers like 3D –artists, who have learned to code as well, even if it's not their forté. I'd like to hear opinions from the likes of them.

    My personal story. I didn't use to consider being very good in abstract thinking and it showed in the grades I got in ground school. However, some time ago I challenged myself to learn math up to Calculus level in Khan Academy. When I really put my heart and soul to learning small nuances and the required steps (not all the way up to Calculus yet), I was happy to realize I started learning it and becoming efficient in it. Certainly I won't become the person to solve the mysteries of fusion power, but after getting over the hump I realized I can get pretty far in almost anything.

    Programming-wise I currently have only one course of Python behind me, so I better start adding more knowledge in C#.
     
  2. Dustin-Horne

    Dustin-Horne

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    I absolutely love programming. :) I'm not sure why, but I find it very gratifying. I'm a full time programmer by trade, but aside from work I love to go home and work on my own projects. I also love the challenge of solving problems that others have not yet solved. That's the whole reason I took up converting JSON .NET to work with Unity. ;) I saw there was a lot of demand for it and posts going back a couple of years of folks who were looking for a version that had been fully converted to work across platforms. I took great joy in the challenge and being able to complete it.
     
  3. Meltdown

    Meltdown

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    When I'm programming websites/software (which I did for many years), I now hate it, I despise it, it makes me unhappy and hating life.

    But when I'm programming games, especially when I'm being challenged (think AI programming), I love it.
     
  4. Sir-Tiddlesworth

    Sir-Tiddlesworth

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    I love programming.
    It's what I do at school and in my spare time.
     
  5. TehWut

    TehWut

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    I would hope any game developer would enjoy programming or at least find it palatable. . Heck, waiting for the finished product just sounds miserable if all the experience leading up to that worthless for you.

    Game Development is hard enough for me as it is, I would never even attempt to do it if I didn't find anything worthwhile from the act. .It's like trying to get ripped without enjoying the workouts. Sure, it's a sometimes painful kind of enjoyment, but there is no way you will reach your goals if you simply lack the motivation (and therefore the means) to reach it.

    I do enjoy programming, to some degree. The problem to me is that programming is such a huge ocean of knowledge, I feel overwhelmed doing even the smallest things. Am I doing it wrong? How will this pay off in the long run? What methods and tricks should I be using? can this experience help me in future projects, or is it a dead-end? . The achievement of solving a problem is the best part, the rest of trudging through logic loops, outdated documentation, and bug-fixing hell are acceptable for the kind of satisfaction I get. There are a thousand wrong ways for every right way. I don't feel the same way about paintings or comics or 3D modeling or any of that, even if the problems are similar. Often I think I'm simply not built for programming. Well, that was sure a ramble but that's what I think about the craft anyways.
     
    Last edited: Nov 11, 2013
  6. melkior

    melkior

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    I truly love it when I'm working on my game projects.

    When I'm at work mileage may vary (programming but not game related).

    However it's still mentally challenging and personal growth inducing and feels good to complete projects even then.
     
  7. FuzzyQuills

    FuzzyQuills

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    It can be difficult at times, but when you know what you're doing and what you're going for, you'll love it! The true mark of an indie dev (like me!): When you get an idea for a game, let your brain blow it out all over your computer!

    @Sir. Tiddlesworth: You do programming at school? Impressive!
     
    Last edited: Nov 11, 2013
  8. Mwsc

    Mwsc

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    Enjoying the process of programming and enjoying the end result are interwoven for my personal motivational system.

    There is definitely something inherently fun to programming. I like thinking up something that I want the computer to do, and working through the steps involved in making that happen, translating that into code, and yes, finally at the end, seeing it work.

    But there are definitely annoying parts to programming, such as reading other people's code, dealing with bad APIs, and my most hated thing: debugging.

    So I need something to keep me motivated through the boring and painful parts. That motivation is the desire to achieve the end result.

    But if I only feel a sense of achievement at the very end of a project, I will lose my motivation in the middle, because the goal is too far away and won't feel worth all the pain of debugging. So what I do is break my projects into very small increments. Maybe I'll first learn how to draw a sprite on the screen. Then I'll learn how to read keystrokes. Then I'll learn how to set the position of the sprite. Then I'll figure out how to put it all together to make the keyboard control an onscreen character. I feel a sense of accomplishment after each minor goal, even if each goal only takes 5 minutes to achieve.

    The hardest part is when you have a bug that takes all day or all week to solve, because then I have to get creative in breaking down the debugging process into a series of smaller goals that reward me along the way.
     
  9. login4donald

    login4donald

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    It has it bad times and its good times. I love it when things come together and getting things done but then there are times I want to pull my hair out or at least what'll be left of it by that day.
     
  10. BFGames

    BFGames

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    Most of the time i love it!

    Some days when ive been bug fixing for 10+ hours, not so much.
     
  11. landon912

    landon912

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    I love it when I'm actually making cool stuff, but when trying to track down bugs in an algorithm I just want to yank my teeth out.
     
  12. goat

    goat

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    I always like finishing a good program but actually programming is a hassle.
     
  13. dxcam1

    dxcam1

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    Who doesn't like programming?
     
  14. login4donald

    login4donald

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    Not programmers?
     
  15. TheRaider

    TheRaider

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    I used to hate databases cause I found them so boring. Now I have practical uses (which don't involve managing basic data for an organisation) I love them!


    I love coding, it is like creating. But obviously it could be a drag if you are doing certain things. Just like writing a song is fun, but playing the same thing 1000 times isn't so fun.
     
  16. dxcam1

    dxcam1

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    I don't associate with those types.
     
  17. Marrrk

    Marrrk

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    I am a Software Developer and I dont like programming, I like to think about hard problems, how to do something in a very elegant way, I love to think about an ideal API for some problems. But I hate to write all of it, it costs time to work around certain limitations, to write the full solution for a well thought plan.

    But thats the way it is and I can cope with it. Would I love programming I might tend to write poems full of code instead of an actual elegant solution.
     
  18. dogzerx2

    dogzerx2

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    I love "programming" or rather my attempts of putting stuff together in Unity Script, if that can be called programming. It taxes the brain a lot but the reward is greater, I can't think of a better and healthier way to stimulate the brain!
     
  19. polytropoi

    polytropoi

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    This is insightful, I think - I wrote lots of poems and songs before I ever took up programming, and to me there's a lot of similarity - trying to pack as much meaning into as few words as possible, manipulation of symbols to produce a specific effect. I also agree that thinking about it is sometimes more fun than actually doing it...
     
  20. Adrianis

    Adrianis

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    The only thing I can fault programming in Unity for is that at times, it feels like I'm writing too little code, like it's somehow cheating like I might not be improving my coding abilities as much as I could be writing in a more code-heavy environment
    I'm a professional software developer (C# / VB.Net), sometimes I hate that (when working on my companies legacy code), but writing my own is fantastic, love every minute of it.

    I did some coding in UDK a few months back, at times that was a real nightmare, with the only option for debugging being printing to text file logs at runtime then reviewing afterwards, terrible documentation uncontrollable behaviors. It took hours to write basic mechanics, let alone testing debugging.

    Compared to that, Unity is a dreamland, super light on the code you write the on-the-fly compilation of the scripts means I can write mechanics quicker than in any environment I've worked with. I actually enjoy having to fire up Mono for some debugging (I write it using Visual Studio) which so far (touch wood) hasn't ever lasted more than 15 minutes. The time between idea -> code -> game is super low. Admittedly I've only really focused on actual gameplay mechanics so far, haven't done any shader coding or menu stuff. Trying to write AI was a bit of a drag too, I got used to built-in state control in UDK so I was feeling the lack of it in Unity pretty heavily

    But yeh, love it :) Not universally, but in Unity, absolutely
     
  21. HoboMechanistic

    HoboMechanistic

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    I know what you mean. Writing code in Unity feels unsettlingly easy at times. I especially noticed this when I started tinkering with the Android SDK and Java. I think the fact that you can click and drag things into the inspector after declaring things public is evil :D

    I love coding. Playing video games and writing code are the only two things I can easily do for hours on end without getting bored. Asset creation and all that arty stuff on the other hand I despise more than anything >.>
     
  22. Wind waker

    Wind waker

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    Wow, some very nice conversation in this topic. Thank you! =) I was especially interested in the comparisons polytropoi/Marrrk did with writing poems/songs and coding. Very insightful :)

    I refer to that by telling what a friend of mine told me some time ago, who studied his derrière off of math and physics for entrance exams. At some point, when he delved deep enough to the world of university-level teaching, he started to see a philosophical side to the subjects. When you can break anything down into something you can mathematically prove it exists, the abstract world becomes part of something more tangible, closer to human comprehension. I'm pretty sure a programmer can experience something similar, when for example they code artificial intelligence, in which the intricacies of the behaviour from any animal comes to life through other means than a living creature.
     
  23. AndrewGrayGames

    AndrewGrayGames

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    I love programming.

    Making the underlying behaviors of a newly-created something take shape is usually extremely rewarding in and of itself. It also justifies me doing my best "It's ALIVE!!!" impression*

    *: I don't ever actually do this.
     
  24. Kondor0

    Kondor0

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    Programming is great. What annoys me is level creation.
     
  25. XGundam05

    XGundam05

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    Do I love it? Short answer: Yup.

    Long answer: Programming's like taming wild horses. At the beginning, you get bucked and thrown all over the place. But eventually, your will prevails and you tame your first. As time goes on, you get better at taming the horses. You learn the little tricks and tools that help you get 'em tamed faster. Eventually, you can become a world-class tamer with stalls full of finely trained horses, each one unique, but all still horses. You still get bucked and kicked from time-to-time, but as time goes on, you get bucked and thrown far less than when you started.

    How does that fit the short answer of "Yup"? Well, it's that challenge. The solving of problems. I couldn't be happier than when I'm writing a tool or algorithm to solve some strange and convoluted problem through code. My day job is doing back-end and integration programming, so I'll always wind up getting a few really interesting problems in my projects, and that's what really makes programming fun.

    Side note: I'm still pushing to get Engineers and Computer Scientists officially labeled as Technomancers >.>
     
  26. Lypheus

    Lypheus

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    Love it, always have and will - 20yrs now and I still code @ work (Java/J2EE) and @ home (C#/Unity3D).
     
  27. ClockworkWolf

    ClockworkWolf

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    I think what's more enjoyable for me, is learning, solving the problems as well as creating new stuff.

    Programming as an enjoyable activity, on its own with no goals? Nope.
     
  28. Ian094

    Ian094

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    I love programming in Unity. It's fun :D
     
  29. s_guy

    s_guy

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    It's all about results per effort. The better you and/or your tools, programming language, development environment are, the more fun it will be.

    If you spend all of your time on the same bug or get stuck too long trying to make a feature that is too far outside your skill set or have to implement someone else's bad ideas all day, it's not going to be much fun. Even then, big challenges bring big satisfaction when you overcome them. Just make sure they're within reach and mix in some easy wins here and there to keep you going.

    Nowadays we have some amazing tools. Even just 10 years ago programming was way, way, way more painful.
     
  30. RvBGames

    RvBGames

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    This is a double edge sword for me. When I first started it was me and the assembler. I knew every line of instruction that the processor was going to take, outside of interrupts, bootstrap code, etc. But even that I could replace if I really wanted to. Over the years I've been forced further and further away from the hardware, and now rely on other peoples code. The problem is most don't have the same attention to detail causing a cascading negative acceleration. Couple that with malformed tools, and frustration starts to sink. If you don't know what I'm talking about, wait, you just may find yourself in the same situation.
     
  31. Wind waker

    Wind waker

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    And do you feel that your self esteem suffers a hit, if someone says something derogatory about your game? Does the nature of the game (e.g casual) help you shield from the criticism? I've read or talked to several people, who've either written a book or play an instrument in concerts. They feel that they are extremely vulnurable to negative thoughts, because they put their heart and soul into creating their work. It's like finding the nerve that hurts them the most and then pressing really hard on it.

    The majority of users replying to this thread have been programmers. I'd also be interested to hear thoughts from people starting as 3D –artists or level designers, who then ventured into the programming land :)
     
  32. superroxfan

    superroxfan

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    I don't just enjoy programming - I love it! A great majority of my time after school is spent programming. It sometimes comes to the point where I have to be forcibly removed from the computer for anyone to see me much that day... I enjoy the problem solving associated with programming, and the satisfaction I get when solving a problem is one of the best feelings I've ever felt. I especially enjoy combining math with programming to solve problems, such as using math to visually portray the trajectory path of a projectile flying through the air.

    Computer programming is amazing. I would have a very boring life without it.
     
  33. Mwsc

    Mwsc

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    What is programming if not solving problems and creating new stuff?
     
  34. hippocoder

    hippocoder

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    I enjoy game development, not actual programming. I don't dislike it, but having programmed as long as I have it's a means to an end. What I absolutely love are the results of said programming.

    Not all programming is equal either. Programming special effects, physics and other interesting playability or visual based things I can get pleasure from - when I see the end result. I am actually an artist first and a programmer second so perhaps that's some contribution towards why programming is a job rather than a hobby. I wouldn't program for fun, I'd play a game, watch a movie or have an end goal in mind.

    So it's a means to a (pleasurable) end for me.

    Simply, if it wasn't games, I would never, ever program.
     
  35. ClockworkWolf

    ClockworkWolf

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    I think there are many problems out there, for example, I need to compose new music. I can do/solve that with notation paper and a piano. I don't necessarily need to resort to programming for that. (Plus, my dsp knowledge applied to real programming is really poor.)
     
  36. Yoska

    Yoska

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    I enjoy it but there are many things I enjoy and if there wasn't Unity I probably wouldn't do it at all. It's much nicer when you do big features with visible, immediate and concrete results.
     
  37. alexsan75

    alexsan75

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    This is so true! :( .. I use to work as website/CMS developer, and it was nice in the beginning, but after many years it became soul-killing routine.

    Now we are in the Mobile game industry, and this is so cool! I can program, debug and design games hours after hours, and it makes me happy :)
    It took over a year to develop our first game, but I loved every minute of that time.. and we are still coding, debugging, improving )
     
  38. Defero

    Defero

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    In general i love it. I like solving problems and learning new stuff about the language itself.

    What has me a bit worried is what happens after 10+ years of programming in the same environment with the same language?

    When you know every line by heart, when faced with a problem, in advance.
     
  39. typane

    typane

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    I personally prefer the computer science aspects of problem solving but game programming is more fun then software development. Game programming is generally abstract and experimental, software development is methodical unless working on some newer technology.
     
  40. tamaroq

    tamaroq

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    LOVE it. Far more than playing a game, indeed.
     
  41. rmele09

    rmele09

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    I enjoy programming, but I do it because I need to in order to make a game. I would much rather make art or design the game. So I guess I really just put up with it so I can do what I really like, which is make a game.
     
  42. Mwsc

    Mwsc

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    Hrm, I think we are not communicating.
    My fault, allow me to be more clear.

    I agree that there are lots of types of problems and different types of creativity, ranging from programming to story writing to 3D modeling to music composition. Not all of these involve programming.

    What I don't understand is the following comment:

    > I think what's more enjoyable for me, is learning, solving the problems as well as creating new stuff.
    > Programming as an enjoyable activity, on its own with no goals? Nope.

    Under what possible circumstances would somebody program without solving problems and working towards the goal of having a working program?
    Programming is inherently the process of solving problems and working towards goals and creating new stuff.
    The question is: Do you enjoy working towards the goal, or is all your enjoyment only at the end, after the work is done?