
What real life bad habits has programming given you? - danw
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/164432?sort=votes
======
sokoloff
Two stick out:

1\. Answering questions fairly literally.

a. "Did you like the salad?" "No, I did not."

b. "Would you like to go to the fine art museum with me and 4 of my friends on
Friday night?" "No, I would not like that."

c. Note that I can escape from this pattern only when it's extremely obvious
the truthful answer is a bad one.

"Do these jeans make my ass look fat?" "I don't think it's the jeans..." I can
avoid those at least...

2\. Intentionally filtering out mundane trivia from my brain. "Do you know so-
and-so's phone number?" "No, but it's in my phone." "When you left this
morning, did you notice if my black gloves were on the counter?" "I would
never notice them unless they were on fire or something..."

~~~
d0mine
There could be a correlation between programming and the habits you've pointed
out but correlation does not imply causation.

~~~
yters
Correlation implies synergism!

------
edw519
Everything must be good or bad, old or new, high or low, black or white, 1 or
0.

I can't randomly walk through any mall, park, or neighborhood because I might
miss something. All events must be sequential.

When I'm at a client site, I interpret everything.

When the restaurant hostess asks my server's name, I say, "Univsrv1".

When invited to a networking event, I bring my toolbox.

I can't start anything new without a Mountain Dew and a bag of Lay's.

When doing anything for the first time, I imagine test cases before I proceed.

I keep trying to "click" by gearshift.

I clean everything in my house with a 50% distilled water/50% isopropyl
alchohol mix.

I keep looking for "alt-tab" on my TV remote instead of "Last Channel".

My cats are named Instance 1, Instance 2, and Instance 3.

I use the simplex method of linear algebra to fit everything in my freezer.

I never drink beer until after the final build of the day. (actually true)

I refer to my girlfriend's weird friends as "outliers".

Every time I say "outlier", I worry that my girlfriend may deprecate me.

------
run4yourlives
It's over developed my already prevalent logical thinking. This is great
because I'm known as a clear thinker that can solve complex problems, but I've
found that a lot of people have difficulty thinking in these terms, preferring
to remain in a more emotional pattern.

End result is that it harder to relate to more and more people, which remains
important. I'd imagine this happens to most programmers, although I don't
think there is a good appreciation for how significant this is generally.

~~~
lallysingh
Worst bits:

\- You can tell someone the answer to their problem, and they just stare at
you, confused, while their emotions have to deflate.

\- When you realize you're talking more abstractly than they can understand.

\- Or they argue really basic stuff, as they've never been exposed to it. E.g.
language alters thought.

It's like talking to some sort of organic _thing_ instead of what you think of
as normal. Perhaps later humans and programmers will diverge genetically?

~~~
run4yourlives
Actually, the worst part is thinking there's something wrong with them, when
in reality you're the weird one. :-)

~~~
lallysingh
Hey, between them, me, and the computer, I win the vote. They're the strange
one dammit.

------
Timothee
Whenever I pay for something in cash, I'm trying to make it so that the change
I get back requires the least notes or is simpler.

For example, if I owe $7.84, I might give $13.09 so that I get $5.25. I
sometimes get confused looks. Related to that, I don't like having more than 4
$1 bills. I feel like, at some point, I didn't give the cash I should have.

~~~
astrec
Me too, only it's easier here because 1c and 2c coins have been removed from
circulation so you round to the nearest 5c.

~~~
maneesh
where is here?

~~~
astrec
Australia

~~~
pgebhard
God Bless Australia. I love that country, and I really liked how tax is
already included in all prices and payment is rounded to 5c since there are no
1c pieces. It makes payments so much simpler.

------
andreyf
Constantly wondering if people mean `or' or `xor' (I mean xor)

~~~
nihilocrat
I find it's most often people say "or" when they mean xor, and "and/or" when
they mean or.

So perhaps we should start saying either "or" or "ior" (inexclusive or).

~~~
tlrobinson
The "and/or" thing actually sort of makes sense if you take "or" to mean
"xor", since (A XOR B) OR (A AND B) equals (A OR B)

~~~
smanek
So, slash is really 'or'?

Oh, my head.

~~~
tlrobinson

        english   logic
        -------   -----
        and       AND
        or        XOR
        /         OR
    

Actually, since (A XOR B) and (A AND B) are mutually exclusive, (A XOR B) XOR
(A AND B) also equals (A OR B), so "/" could be "XOR" too.

------
statictype
Biggest problem I have: Years of finding surprising bottlenecks and bugs where
you least expect it has lead me to question every line of reasoning\anecdote
people say unless they are able to back it up with something sufficient.

Maybe it's the correct thing to do, but it also annoys the shit out of people
when I ask them if its possible that their single data point could have been
an outlier or just a complete misinterpretation.

------
haasted
Have a condition where I always need to carry some single-day use medical
equipment around.

I have created a mental invariant that says that unused, spare units are in my
right back-pocket, the one that is currently in use is in the left front
pocket, while the left back-pocket is for trash.

This allows me to easily "poll" for whether I'm equipped to leave home, and
has made sure that I have not once in 15 years found myself without it. I
attribute the success of this system largely to my "programmer mindset".

~~~
access_denied
You should hack lifehacker with an 'article ;-)

------
tjpick
Trying to remove duplication in everything.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=353501>

------
misterbwong
Constantly skimming text. I always find myself resisting the urge to skim
through blocks of text like I would through code while looking for bugs.

------
paulgb
I've caught myself thinking of time in complexity classes.

Eg. should I walk or drive? It doesn't matter, they're both O(n).

~~~
Hexstream
Walking would be O(n^2) for all but the shortest distances actually, I think.
Unless you rested once in a while. Amortized linear time?

~~~
BeefingJection
How do you figure?

~~~
Hexstream
Does walking continuously for 1000km merely take 100 times longer/more effort
than 10km?

~~~
paulgb
Good point, but you answered your own question: the "walk then rest" algorithm
will do it in linear time.

~~~
tjpick
null pointer on your drink-bottle instance results in fatal runtime exception.

~~~
paulgb
Pun intended?

~~~
tjpick
da-da-chhhhh. you're quick ;)

------
Jem
Not really programming but using computers in general - I tend to identify
fonts in billboards and magazines, which makes my partner cringe.

------
pgebhard
Poor sleep habits.

------
gojomo
When I can't find something in my apartment, I lose a moment thinking I can
grep for it before I start a traditional realspace search.

------
nihilocrat
Not being able to pick up on hints, ever, or otherwise be able to work with
incomplete information. If I don't have all the arguments to a function in my
brain, I just ignore it until the rest fall into place. Sometimes people
specifically leave those out, so I'm lost until it's too late.

~~~
mdemare
Have you tried currying?

------
byrneseyeview
"There's a sandwich in the fridge, if you're hungry."

"No, there is a sandwich in the fridge whether or not I'm hungry. In fact, if
I'm hungry, it's more likely that there is _not_ a sandwich in the fridge,
since I would have eaten it by now.

I hate Magical Grammar -- any sentence structured so that the existence of a
need leads to the existence of a means of fulfilling it is annoying.

~~~
derefr
I believe it's meant to be read "It might be useful to you to know, if you're
hungry, that there's a sandwich in the fridge." However, "It might be useful
to you to know" is a universally applicable prefix to every single statement
people make--otherwise, why would they be saying it?--and so it's dropped,
even when the other clauses in the sentence happen to refer to it instead of
to its subjunctive.

------
igorhvr
Sometimes I get really annoyed that I can't automate all the boring parts of
my life in the same way I can do (and I always do) in a computer.

From the top of my head: dishes, picking clothes, paying bills and banking in
general (I would be willing to pay $100/month for a bank that provided me a
good API instead of forcing me to use their crappy stupid websites),
organizing physical stuff (why the fuck can't I have "garbage collection" for
what is in my room?) and dealing with my car (I have to fill it in with gas
every time).

~~~
thwarted
You do actually have to run the Garbage Collection thread/function every so
often. The key is to not use mark and sweep, but rather to time stamp
everything when you use it. Get rid of the emotional attachment. If you have
not used something in a while but your caching algorithm for the item says you
might need it again, swap it out (to a box in the garage, get it out of your
sight). Otherwise get rid of it. Periodically, throw out everything in the
slow-to-access storage (the box in the garage).

The problem with using mark and sweep when trying to garbage collect your life
is that the default method is just to mark everything and never actually
sweep.

------
lallysingh
I keep a lot of things sorted. For example, my wallet's money is _always_
sorted.

With multiple denominations of bills, the insertions aren't O(1) when I'm in
line if you know what I mean.

~~~
Timothee
I always do that too, but I never really thought that anybody could NOT do
that :)

------
dennmart
It's given me a nasty drug habit.

Caffeine is a hell of a drug.

------
raamdev
When I count things (in the real world), I now have a bad habit of starting a
zero.

"How many floors on that building?"

"Let's see, 0, 1, 2... oh wait..."

~~~
graywh
Wait, that's what some countries do--ground floor != first floor.

~~~
parenthesis
Yes, in good old Blighty, for one (or, should I say, for zero).

------
adilsaleem
1- Always trying to start something as soon as possible ensuring others that
it would be improved in next iteration. even things like buying clothes, shoes
and eating

2- using too much technical jargons in my discussions (switch, multitask,
exception, stack etc)

3- finding bugs in almost everything. tv shows, movies, direction, games,
house architecture, roads, street lamps you name it

4- getting frustrated in social gatherings, thinking "Why are all these people
talking about so stupid things?" or "why dont they just get to the point?"

5- guessing what people are gonna say or do and preempt them in their
discussions/actions

------
petercooper
I learned to program when I was really young and I can't help but think that
it gave me my OCD. A bit of CBT and some "mindhacks" of my own have almost got
rid of it now though.

Another one I had as a kid was writing the number zero with a line through it.
That's how it was on the BBC Micro and my schoolteachers couldn't understand
why I wrote it that way too.

I guess another one is being a major advocate of US English (I'm English) but
I'm not sure if that's due to programming or because, well, it _is_ a better
dialect.

~~~
nihilocrat
For God's sake, don't use our punctuation rules.

    
    
      # Carefree means "free from care or anxiety." (American style)
      # Carefree means "free from care or anxiety". (British style)
    

That has bugged me so much that, unless it is being proofread, I intentionally
use British-style quotes.

~~~
cabalamat
One of the nice things about the English language is the difference between
U.S. and UK rules, so you can mix and match them to your own taste and people
can't tell you you're doing it wrong.

So for example I write "center" not "centre" but "axe" not "ax".

~~~
bkudria
I do this too.

Cheers!

------
bmelton
Not so much that programming has given me, but constantly having to come up
with analogies to explain highly technical concepts to my non-technical co-
workers has invaded my life.

"See, your username and password are like a combination lock, where the
Kerberos ticket is a key. When you authenticate to the portal, you hand the
key to the website, which validates it, and lets you in... but the key is
actually in your browser, so it does that all transparently."

~~~
bmelton
Oh, and then the followup... "Yes, the key is invisible."

------
DanielBMarkham
Always in bug-fixing, problem-solving mode instead of just listening (which is
sometimes all my spouse/kids want)

------
jmtame
what can i say? i lather, rinse, repeat.

lather, rinse, repeat. lather, rinse, repeat. lather, rinse, repeat. lather,
rinse, repeat...

showers take a while

~~~
parbo
Hey, at least it's tail call optimized. It could have been lather, lather,
lather, lather, lather, bottle empty, rinse, rinse, rinse, rinse, rinse...

------
cabalamat
Pedantry

~~~
blasdel
I recently interviewed at a place where they had set up a tip jar -- you had
to put a quarter in it if you were caught pedantically correcting someone.

Eventually it devolved into merciless trolling :)

------
iuguy
Pedantry and a penchant for terse and obtuse responses.

Wife: Have you seen my handbag? Me: 404 not found Wife: Can I take £10 out of
your wallet? Me: 403 forbidden

~~~
nirmal
[http://www.seldo.com/weblog/2008/11/19/http_conversation_cod...](http://www.seldo.com/weblog/2008/11/19/http_conversation_codes)

That should come in handy if you don't already know about it. :)

------
th0ma5
I treat a lot of things I shouldn't in a functional way... this begets that,
and other such methodical thinking. perhaps it is more of a side effect of
coming out of the zone or something, but it seems to take more and more of a
conscious decision to step out of that mode... and that's hard to do with the
remaining hours of the day.

------
ewiethoff
I solve problems by asking yes/no questions. And, by golly, you'd better give
me a yes/no answer. No blah blah blah, no roundabout story. Just say "Yes" or
"No," dammit!

------
tjmc
If I'm ordering food at a place like Subway, I'll list the toppings I _don't_
want if it's shorter than the list that I _do_ want.

------
bkudria
I'm annoyed by stupid/lazy/inept/sloppy people. But I try not to show it -
because I really dislike pedantry as well.

------
pistoriusp
I don't think programming has given me any "real life bad habbits."

I get the feeling that a lot of the things people have listed are things they
do because they like the idea of them, and actually do on purpose rather than
habit.

------
geedee77
My worst one, that annoys me greatly, is that I always write "go to" (as in "I
need to go to the shops") as goto.

I doubt this is a problem for the kids but I started in early BASIC and used
goto an awful lot!

------
known
programming has taught me 1+ 1 = 2

life has taught me 1+1 = 4-2 = 3-1 = 5-3 = 2 and so on.

------
gyeh
A really bad case of OCD.

------
wenbert
smoking

------
lst
I can't think of bad habits, only positive ones; plenty of them!

(Maybe it's because I don't use a poor language?)

~~~
nihilocrat
Is it garbage collected?

Apparently mine isn't, I've got to take it out every Monday...

------
pavelludiq
I cant do math. I suck at it, i can understand it, but i have a hard time
going through the calculations. I do all sorts of dumb mistakes, and always
miss something. Its the details that get me. I find this to be my greatest
challenge, because i have some serious math exams coming soon. Somewhat
related, I cant seem to be able to study stuff that are not interesting to me.
I have a big exam, i should study, NOOOO, i dont whanaaaa, whaaaaa.... I
whanna hack, i dont whaannnt to studyyyy...whaaaa.... I find myself whining in
my head very often. I guess i should just shut up, and do my studying, and
maybe hack later...

