
Ask HN: Are you programming on your holidays? - hoodoof
If yes, what are you building?
======
bobsky
Selection bias, many enthusiastic "Yes" replies here, but consider those who
are offline/vacation aren't here to reply "No".

For your productivity and health, it's important to unplug and enjoy holidays
- [http://qz.com/485226/this-is-what-365-days-without-a-
vacatio...](http://qz.com/485226/this-is-what-365-days-without-a-vacation-
does-to-your-health/)

For those that replied "Yes" wonder if the majority are from the United
States, being it's the only "Rich Country" that does not require employers to
provide paid vacation time - [http://cepr.net/publications/reports/no-
vacation-nation-2013](http://cepr.net/publications/reports/no-vacation-
nation-2013)

~~~
Anilm3
I agree that it's important to unplug every once in a while, but for some,
programming is like reading. As an analogy consider a lawyer reading legal
documents all day at work and going back home and reading a novel, it's
exactly the same for me, working on my own projects is exciting and enjoyable.

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fouric
Very much so. As a student, I have found that it is much easier to focus on my
large personal projects in between terms, when I don't have homework and/or
lectures every day to interrupt my coding sessions[1].

Edit: As for what I am building, I am working on a graphics editor written in
Common Lisp, partially as a way to verify others' claims about Lisp's
efficiency, and partially to see for myself how difficult it is.

[1]:
[http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/190891/programmer_inte...](http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/190891/programmer_interrupted.php)

~~~
markbao
Where do you go?

~~~
fouric
Portland State University[1], with a major in electrical engineering. PSU is,
in general, not a very interesting college, with the exception of TheCAT[2].
TheCAT is, essentially, a small bastion for hackers of all types to gather
together and work on various projects (incidentally providing IT support
services for the MCECS college), and has been by far the most interesting part
of PSU for me.

[1]: [http://www.pdx.edu/](http://www.pdx.edu/) [2]:
[https://cat.pdx.edu/thecat.html](https://cat.pdx.edu/thecat.html)

------
Geee
Yes, I usually get inspired on hobby projects during Christmas time. It's ok
to sit home and ok to not do anything work-related, so it's perfect. I started
a robot simulator this time. Usually I've done small games and one time I
wrote a ray tracer.

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bananaboy
Heck yes. I'm supposed to be on holiday at the beach with my fiance but she
likes to sleep in so I'm getting some programming in!

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sdegutis
Yep! Trying to write my very first programming language[1]. Aiming to have a
legit GC (mark/sweep), a legit VM with bytecode (possibly stack-based to start
out with), and familiar data types. Oh and I'm doing it entirely in C, because
I have a special love/hate relationship with C that never seems to die. It's
going slow, but very fun!

[1]:
[https://github.com/sdegutis/Paladin](https://github.com/sdegutis/Paladin)

~~~
krat0sprakhar
Any resources that you're using to help you implement this? Looks cool!

~~~
sdegutis
Sorry for not responding earlier. Setting noprocrast seems to have this as its
major drawback, that I can't reply in a timely manner.

I don't have many resources. Only these two:

\- GC tutorial: [http://journal.stuffwithstuff.com/2013/12/08/babys-first-
gar...](http://journal.stuffwithstuff.com/2013/12/08/babys-first-garbage-
collector/)

\- intro to hash tables:
[http://www.cs.yale.edu/homes/aspnes/pinewiki/C(2f)HashTables...](http://www.cs.yale.edu/homes/aspnes/pinewiki/C\(2f\)HashTables.html)

------
letstryagain
Always programming. During holidays I like to get familiar with new
technologies to see what they offer. Exploratory programming I guess you could
call it.

~~~
e_d_g_a_r
Yep!

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tasdev
Opposite to everyone here - it's a big, fat no from me. I'm taking the 10 days
to spend time with my family and finish some books. I'm always on the feeds
and seeing what's happening, but it is, in my opinion, very important to down
the tools and have a break. It's the same reason I don't code on vacation.

------
nextweek2
I wish.

My family is consuming my time and/or my hardware currently.

I have gotten to the point of buying a new laptop today. Just so I get my
macbook back.

On the plus side my family seem happier. We're all well fed and I've
socialised more this month than I have all year.

------
brianbarker
If I could get off HN, yes.

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charlieegan3
Yeah, taking the time to tidy up my personal site as well as learning some Go.

Had my last exam before Christmas so I've got a lot of catching up to do from
a busy term without side projects.

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krapp
Yes. I'm getting my personal site together and trying to get a head start on a
game project (more or less a clone of the classic Berzerk[0]) since I kind of
sort of want to do the game a month challenge but given how slow I tend to be,
seriously doubt I'll make it.

[0][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berzerk_%28video_game%29](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berzerk_%28video_game%29)

~~~
hoodoof
I loved Berzerk - I remember playing the arcade version. Not much to it by
todays standards but imagination filled in the rest.

------
rem7
All work and no programming makes me a dull boy

~~~
badmon
Yes, definately

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andy_ppp
Yes! I have been listening to a load of podcasts a few of which make me
extremely worried someone is onto my idea so I'm coding like mad.

However, looking at it objectively, I think to pull off the execution of this
project it will probably take 1-2 months of fulltime work. Anyone know where I
can get, say, a hundred grand to help me start a business... If only.

:-)

~~~
hoodoof
What's your idea? Even a vague pointer to the field that it is in?

~~~
andy_ppp
It's about making money from the Internet :-D

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FennNaten
Yes I am! Nothing serious though, mostly explorations of some tech stacks and
tools that I don't have the courage to try out in the evening after work. But
in the end I may boot up something non-trivial to wrap all up, if a find an
interesting idea.

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TheHideout
I'm working on the successor to my gothic RPG: Manor of the Damned! ... Think
legend of zelda (SNES) meets Castlevania. :D

[http://www.TheHideoutGames.com](http://www.TheHideoutGames.com)

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hoodoof
I have 10 clear days in which I can dedicate myself to programming.

Also seeing Star Wars and watching a few videos and a little computer gaming,
but mostly programming.

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bbody
I am not building anything in particular, but catching up on some online
courses that I've been trying to complete all year.

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reuben364
Working my way through Software Foundations. Though that might not be
considered programming.

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jyothepro
Yes, no programming makes me dull

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CLGrimes
Definitely - only time I get to work on my personal projects in between the
daily grind.

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dllthomas
Yes, improving my household management software and toying with building a
shell.

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namuol
Working for a startup, so yes.

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mirap
Not at all.

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badmon
Yes, I'm learning python and flask.Trying to write a simple webapp

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pvinis
yes. also advent of code, because i didnt have enough time earlier.

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rloc
Yes, last time I coded maybe half of a real estate android app.

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zimpenfish
Yes, personal projects (but also many other things as well.)

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wwkeyboard
I'm working through stockfighter.io, lots of fun!

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markbao
Yes, perfect time to catch up on open-source projects.

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dordoka
Yes, for fun and some serious stuff as well.

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oldgun
Yes. For fun. No serious projects though.

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edsiper2
yeah!

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dplgk
iOS UI test automation using python, node and objective-c

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discreteevent
no

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garcore
everyday of my life!

~~~
garcore
building a realtime data management system for sites, apps, and themes. using
angular, firebase, and codeigniter.

~~~
coderKen
it was all good till you mentioned codeigniter

