
The Bipolar Lisp Programmer - npk
http://www.lambdassociates.org/blog/bipolar.htm
======
jey
Is it really that they "run out of steam" before finishing their projects? It
seems to me that they finish all the interesting problems of the original
project and are distracted by an even grander problem that still has unsolved
problems. The original project's interesting problems have usually been solved
and all that remains is mundane crap.

I also think the extended periods of melancholy are avoidable. After all, the
BBM is melancholic because the real world he has to deal with is phony and
filled with bullshit, not because he gets a kick out of wearing black lipstick
and posting emo entries to LiveJournal. So what's the solution? Save him from
the phony bullshit. Put him (or yourself) in an environment where he is
stimulated and working on real problems without having to play society's
idiotic games. Academia is my standard example of this.. there's just a lot of
hoops to jump through to accomplish nothing, and the metric of GPA doesn't
actually correlate to anything useful like "knowledge acquired" or "mastery of
the subject", but instead reflects the amount of busy work done by the
student. Learning is simply a happy side-effect that might happen while
maximizing GPA. Even professors seem to spend a big chunk of their time just
producing "epsilon papers" that contribute nothing other than an impression
that the professor has been busy. </standard academia rant>

Anyway, put the BBM in a suitable environment and they'll be melancholic less
of the time. I think.

~~~
ced
And where do you find such an environment?

~~~
jey
I'm sure it differs for each person, but personally I'd say the most important
things are: get out of academia, get freedom, find a satisfying job with
interesting problems and management who are technical, and work on interesting
stuff in your free time.

------
kmt
Interesting observation.

Even more interesting, from entrepreneurial point of view, I think, is that
there is an opportunity here. One problem with people of the BBM type (what
the author calls "brilliant bipolar mind") is that they get depressed before
they finish things although they might have a brilliant idea. So you the
opportunity is for non-depressive folks to finish the tasks and offer
something that the community can use.

------
ced
Here's the follow-up:

<http://coding.derkeiler.com/Archive/Lisp/comp.lang.lisp/2006-05/msg00080.html>

I've thought a lot about both pieces since they were posted to reddit a while
ago, but haven't gotten anywhere. I'm not sure if knowing whether or not I
have a bipolar mind is really useful in the end.

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brlewis
This might be a typical profile of a Lisp programmer, but not everyone is like
that. I think my own intelligence is right in the sweet spot -- smart enough
that I don't get stuck, but not so smart that I get bored and can't finish
things.

------
kmt
Let's see: who here identifies themselves with a BBM?

~~~
dfranke
I do. Though, my breakdown came during my sophomore year of high school and by
college I had already pieced myself back together and put things in
perspective. Incidentally, "Why Nerds are Unpopular" was one big factor in
helping me do so. I found the essay through Slashdot; it was the first I'd
ever heard of Paul Graham.

