I don’t think anyone is more or less normal here. But for some people, feeling the pressure to finish everything you’ve started could in worst case learn to burnout, not only like ”getting exhausted from a specific project” but your brain actually stops functioning. Maybe that’s why they glorify a more ”go with the flow” lifestyle.
It’s interesting to see most people here connecting ”starting many projects for fun” with procrastrinating, and also wanting to fix that with discipline. For others the situation is completely different. The grass is greener on the other side I guess: me as an ambitious person actually _want_ to procrastrinate more, and don’t see it as a bad thing to be less outcome-focused.
I see this as a great way of focusing on the process instead of the goal, to have more fun and reduce press! To everyone here who argues for finishing things: You could still use this philosophy to start a project like ”learning how to finish something well” (to make finishing less goal oriented). And, if you have a good sense of what spontaneous projects to start, one day a bunch of your quickly started and disregarded small projects could accidentally turn out to fit well together to create something bigger. Starting many small things can lead to big things too.
Computers continue to work "forever" if you only use its own closed system, like writing Word documents on the harddrive. It's the complexity of the internet that makes hardware obsolete today. The internet consists of too many parts working together to make it profitable to focus on longevity and stability, the focus on the internet is instead flexibility and broad usage. And it's mostly the security standards that force us to buy new hardware in the end. From SSL to TLS, to TLS 1.2 & 1.3, almost all sites upgraded to the new standards and made old web browsers not work to browse the internet with anymore. And if the newest web browser your computer supports is one before 2014 (before TLS 1.2), your computer is dead, because it can't visit the internet. So it's mostly the software layer of the internet that makes us not get "forever computers", and therefore "we" software people maybe are the ones with the power to make a change here?
It's the misalignment of software developers' interests with those of end users that makes old systems unusable. Do we really need web pages that stream 4 video ads on loading and have another pop-up over top of the content the user requested asking us to subscribe? I miss the simplicity of the old days.
Yes when it comes to updates and new features and other stuff where the user does things for the developer and not the opposite (like when I have to login to Microsoft to play Minecraft, even though everything I need is on my local drive), that’s true. Developers think users want shiny buttons and the newest design, but the users probably rather want functional easy to use sites without forcing updates.
But when it comes to security standards users and devlopers seem to agree, they both seem fine with leaving HTTP behind, even for sites without sensitive information whatsoever, and the users even seem to accept replacing their phone every 2-5 years. Or maybe they’re just used to it and don’t know things could be better?
I have not, LLM is generative and can only create generic stuff and if your project contains lots of generic stuff, is it really interesting? I want to spend time on the parts I find interesting to think thoughts about with my human brain. Problems that have a quick answer in ChatGPT but a more interesting and personal answer after thinking about it for hours and trying 3 different versions of it before deciding on one. Then if I want to quickly test how to create an X11 window I might generate the code and work backwards from that. But… I’m not really in a hurry and if you aren’t you don’t really need LLM
Achieving compatibility with all web browsers >2012-2014 and onwards (= those who support TLS 1.2 HTTPS and WebGL), for a 3D game.
Also, finding new inspirations for the game. I like how Minecraft uses vertical depth and how peaceful and stressless it is. Maybe I’ll get inspired by that.
Mostly _removing_ big slow general purpose tools that were _in the way_ of my productivity, and using self hosted server with vim and my own PHP tools. It didn’t multiply my effiency, it just made room for things to flow naturally.
When I made a game, the most efficient ”tool” was a page I made with direct links to CC0-only search for graphical & sound assets, so I never had to look for a license and just grab the file. And lexica.art for generating characters, and then ”Pixelator” for turning them to pixel art. It didn’t only speed up the process of adding 200 character sprites, it made it even possible in the first place.
Computer programs are sequences of operations that happen IF a condition is true or ELSE something else happens. If you don’t like if-else, you’ve misunderstood the whole thing #stopthehate
Absolutely false! It’s a common perspective, but certainly not the only lens to look at it from.
Computer programs are hoards electric voltages changing to discrete levels at fixed intervals to create interesting and coordinated effects on surrounding devices.
Computer programs are 0-N statements of expressions to evaluate.
I appreciate all perspectives, just remember to not #hate on ones without reason (especially when they correspond closely to what happens on the physical CPU and are both timeless, simple and powerful, like if-else)
This is a nice art installation that gives a positive vibe! You made something out of your fascination and admiration and that feeling spreads to the visitor. I think you should embrace this as an art installation whose purpose is to just exist, instead of trying to make it useful to people. That’s a startup way of thinking, but maybe this thing doesn’t need to be practical.
Wow, I love how you see this as art! I hadn't thought of it that way. It's cool to think about it as something that just shares good feelings. Thanks for giving me a new way to look at my project.
Tried to rewrite the Javascript 3D library three.js to make it smaller and more specialized for my game. Today I’m ending that and instead starting to write a 3D engine from scratch with the knowledge I learned from this rewrite process. Less object orientation and code organization, in order to get to the core of what happens in the machine (the phone/computer). There is enough complexity in the OS+browser to get through to use the device’s full power, so I at least try to remove all complexity possible from the code. Make it use less memory, download time and CPU time, and also make it go through the Javascript parser and bytecode converter as smoothly as possible. Then minimize the number of draw calls (that’s often what takes most time in the GPU) so I can render more varied graphics at the same speed (if less time is spent on sending data back and forth to the GPU, more time can be spent doing cool stuff in the shader code, I guess?).
It’s interesting to see most people here connecting ”starting many projects for fun” with procrastrinating, and also wanting to fix that with discipline. For others the situation is completely different. The grass is greener on the other side I guess: me as an ambitious person actually _want_ to procrastrinate more, and don’t see it as a bad thing to be less outcome-focused.