
Every Computer Scientist Should Have a Creative Hobby - yashtul
https://medium.com/@ytulsi/im-a-computer-science-major-interning-at-a-creative-agency-325bee27ed09
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beebmam
There is one big assumption made in articles like these that I think are worth
exploring.

These quotes (and several others in this piece) all take as a given that it is
important to constantly be striving to get better at your work:

"Creativity drives more creativity." "You are now a better thinker and coder."
"More perspective means better products"

The author doesn't consider that many of us are content with our current
abilities. I'm content with my ability at least.

In fact, I probably have spent too much time in my life focusing on improving
my abilities, which I regret. I should have been spending more time with my
family, especially my late father. I should also have been spending more time
improving my physical health like making healthier food choices and spending
more time being active outside.

There are limits to how productive one can be in a professional environment.
In my experience, most of the time there are structural limitations to
improving the quality or speed of your work.

Having a career is like a marathon; take it slowly and try to balance
everything so you don't burn out.

Why not have a creative hobby just because it could make your life more
fulfilling? You don't need to pick up a creative hobby just because it makes
you a better scientist/engineer.

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scottLobster
So who's this article for, exactly?

"All of a sudden you start realizing that writing code is more than just
attempting to solve a problem; it is attempting to solve a problem for your
user. The ability to recognize that you are building for users gives you more
perspective and clarity."

Not to be that guy, but for anyone who codes for a living this is.. kinda
obvious. In fact it's often formally codified into business practices,
particularly in any form of Agile software development.

At this point I thought he was talking to researchers, which might make some
sense (God knows some of my professors' code wouldn't pass a basic code
review), but then he goes on to talk about teams and designers and animosity
between developers and designers... huh?

If there's animosity between a company's developers and designers then one or
more people are putting their egos ahead of their jobs. Granted there are bad
apples in every barrel, but it's a behavioral problem, not a technical one.
Certainly not one that's going to be solved by taking up a hobby.

So I guess this column is aimed at imparting basic insight known by many
Computer Science undergrads to mediocre software developers working at
mediocre companies. Fair enough, but I doubt those types of people read HN.

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newman8r
I recently picked up knot-tying. I wouldn't necessarily call it a creative
hobby but it's a nice challenge and pretty satisfying/useful. Costs about
nothing, can do it at your desk.

~~~
tomjen3
I loved knots as a boyscout, how do I get into that as a hobby? Do you invent
new knots? Try to do very complicated knots?

~~~
newman8r
I'm still relatively new at it so I'm having fun with learning various knots
and practicing on a few different lengths of rope I have at my desk. Inventing
a new knot would be great, but I'm not at that level yet.

It's more of a casual hobby, but knowing knots can vastly enhance other
activities. The spatial challenge of learning the knots is what's most
appealing to me right now.

I've got two books at the moment, the 'Ashley Book of Knots' which is a
classic, and the "Everything Knots Book".

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zitterbewegung
Blogging seems to be a popular creative hobby not only because it has a low
barrier of entry but it also helps you communicate better. On the other hand
when I play the piano, do abstract art and write poetry these are important
too.

To be honest a Creative hobby not only solves the problem of making you more
creative but it allows for an escape and release of thinking of other things.
Even if you aren't optimizing yourself creatively it helps.

Writing comments on HN would be even lower to a barrier of entry and still
qualify as creative. I'm sorry I couldn't hold back to go a little meta in
this comment ;-)

~~~
zokier
I'm not sure I'd classify typical blogging (and HN commenting even less) as
"creative hobby". Creative writing is different enough to be considered its
own category and I don't think typical blogging falls under it.

~~~
jjeaff
"creative writing" is a specific genre of writing that focuses on originality.
But for most, "creative" just refers to the act of creating something. A blog
entry creates something, as does an hn comment.

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Dowwie
Software development IS a creative process, especially when focusing on code
craftsmanship.

~~~
ujal
Engineering can be creative but most of the time it is not. We are mostly
applying existing solutions to well known problems.

~~~
scottLobster
And the ideal application of those existing solutions often requires
creativity to mate them to the problem domain.

Is an artist not creative if they use pre-mixed paint?

~~~
bdibs
A more apt analogy would be asking if an artist isn't creative because they
put a jigsaw puzzle together.

~~~
jjeaff
A jigsaw puzzle goes together only one way. Many engineering problems can be
solved in infinitely diverse and creative and unique ways.

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qntty
Just so you're aware, calling yourself a computer scientist because you have a
degree in CS is something that only college students / recent graduates do.
"Software Developer" is a better word for what you do.

~~~
imakecomments
This is a bit of an overgeneralization. Are all computer science graduates
software developers? Are professors with PhD degrees in CS not considered
Computer Scientist? Your statement assumes graduates stop at the BS level and
get programming jobs.

~~~
qntty
Yes the borders between are categories are blurry but it helps to start with a
crude generalization. The only people I know who call themselves computer
scientists publish papers, and most people don't start calling themselves
computer scientists until they join the scientific community in some way.

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capkutay
I whole heartedly agree with this along and this seems to be confirmed by PG's
essay on painting[0].

For me music seems to be a natural hobby and creative outlet. I see a lot of
overlap between coding and writing/making music. At its core, both use code
and abstractions into something that humans can enjoy.

And now I find my software engineering skills being directly applicable to
making electronic music as well. Making music gives me a fresh outlook on
working in tech and making products.

Anyways, that was a personal rant.

0:[http://www.paulgraham.com/hp.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/hp.html)

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DennisP
Most people here probably know Paul Graham's Hackers and Painters essay but
just in case:

[http://www.paulgraham.com/hp.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/hp.html)

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Dowwie
Graphic illustration is a great skill for any software developer to have. I
began developing a basic illustration skillset only a few years ago and have
used it many times in my work. I can completely lose myself in the creative
process. There aren't many other practices where I can focus so intensely for
so long. I'm OK with having a beginner's skillset, considering I had none not
too long ago.

I did all of the illustrations for my open source project page, which I've re-
used for presentations and conference poster session with great success:
[https://yosaiproject.github.io/yosai](https://yosaiproject.github.io/yosai)

poster session: [https://imgur.com/a/BdFho](https://imgur.com/a/BdFho)

~~~
tomjen3
How did you get started?

~~~
Dowwie
I learn best with a goal in mind. So, my entry into learning Adobe Illustrator
was by tracing the outline of this Japanese castle. It required one tool in
the entire application and by the end of the project I was pretty good with
it! I continued learning one major tool at a time. Youtube videos and blog
posts were helpful.

original:
[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/38/Matsumot...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/38/Matsumoto_Castle05s5s4592.jpg)

mine:
[https://github.com/YosaiProject/yosai/blob/master/doc/docs/i...](https://github.com/YosaiProject/yosai/blob/master/doc/docs/img/yosai_logo_with_title.png)

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ukulele
"Every X should Y" is an excellent way to say your argument has zero nuance to
it.

~~~
thomastjeffery
"Every X should Y" is a succinct way to say "Doing Y helps strengthen or
create skills that are useful in doing X, X and Y are related on a fundamental
level, and those who do X are rather likely to enjoy doing Y because of that
relationship."

Naturally, the article goes into the nuances of the subject.

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ytwySXpMbS
The article disproves its own point about Atom. It tries to show how things
aren't successful if they aren't easy to use, but rightly says that Atom is
extremely popular, despite not opening large files.

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beausy
I like to believe most did, like myself, but then it became a job and we
struggle to find something creative to fill the hole through a series of
futile attempts in hopes of discovering something that sticks

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JoeDaDude
Actually, computer science IS my hobby. I am a hardware engineer by trade.

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jason_slack
My hobby is learning languages, Chinese, Arabic, etc, etc

