[j4pe]

I rarely want to like a product more than I want to like Stockfighter, because of both the people involved and the underlying concept.

But there are a million other things I want to sink time into improving. Music, my Starcraft MMR, boxing. To finish a day hacking and coding, come home, and - for months, if I want good results - do more hacking and coding feels like an exhausting prospect. Even if the scenario is fun, it feels contrived.

I'm not presenting any solutions. Maybe I'm just not the target market, because I don't have the desire right now to code all day and then code some more. But I wonder how big that target market is?

[doktrin]

> because I don't have the desire right now to code all day and then code some more

Tell me about it. Speaking only for myself, I have near-constant coder's guilt - a term I just made up to describe the nagging voice in my head that keeps telling me I should be coding more in my free time. It sounds something like this :

"somewhere a rockstar wizard ninja is writing a C compiler in Haskell and here you are wasting your time with Overwatch, you miserable slacker"

[tinco]

Hi man, I just interrupted my game of Overwatch because a colleague pointed me to this comment. My C compiler in Haskell is located here: https://github.com/tinco/nanc it's not fully functional yet, but will be soon ;) Also, just got owned by a team with 3 tracers :(

edit: Just read what this thread is about. I really like to program, so much so that I usually find an hour or two per day to code (not every day, check my github streak if you want) Usually it's between 11pm and 1am, after dinner, after a movie with my partner, when she's playing a video game or watching a series, I do some coding.

So I also play video games or watch movies. I like competitive games, mostly SC2, DotA and now Overwatch, but I don't worry about my MMR the way I used to when I played over an hour per day. Compared to achieving a high MMR building a ninja rockstar software project like a C compiler in Haskell is easy. Who is going to compete with me? It's a crazy idea anyway! I just work on it a couple hours per week, and after a year or two it'll be an impressive project no matter what. It's got everything I learned in it.

Regaining the MMR I had in SC2 back in University will take me months of hard practice, but when I feel like continuing my C compiler, the commits are still there. The C compiler stems from a deep passion I have and a deep frustration I feel with the state of the art, that's why even if I don't dev on it for a few months, I'll go back to it eventually and continue. So... I can relax and play Overwatch for an hour or two, no worries. (Overwatch is much more forgiving than SC2 or DotA btw.)

[lj3]

Do you code for your day job, though? Your profile suggests you may be a technical manager. I'm guessing you don't code for 8-10 hours a day, then come home and code for 1-2 more hours[0]? That's the argument the parent is making. I know that I personally am only good for 4-6 hours of productive coding. Any more than that and I write bugs, not code.

[0]: If I'm wrong and you're doing 10-12 hours of productive code a day, then good god man, what's your secret?!?

[tinco]

Haha, yeah you are correct. Unfortunately I usually don't get more than a few hours of code in per day at work. I lead a small development team, besides that I also assist in sales and communicate with customers.

Today was a good day and I spent about 6 hours staring at code at work, and maybe will get about a half hour of hobby coding in before I go to bed. I would agree that anything above 8 hours of real coding is pretty superhuman, though it looks like some people on github are achieving it.

[doktrin]

> Hi man, I just interrupted my game of Overwatch because a colleague pointed me to this comment. My C compiler in Haskell is located here: https://github.com/tinco/nanc it's not fully functional yet, but will be soon ;) Also, just got owned by a team with 3 tracers :(

Haha what an unexpectedly fantastic response. Kudos on your cool side project, and triple Tracers sounds like the pinnacle of frustration :P (is this a new meta? I was just watching a top tier EU game where one team rolled 3 tracers + 2 winstons)

> Overwatch is much more forgiving than SC2 or DotA btw

Couldn't agree more. I personally find SC2 almost too stressful to play competitively these days (as a 30 year old fogey), and the match length of your typical MOBA is also a major turn off for a casual like me.

> So I also play video games or watch movies. I like competitive games, mostly SC2, DotA and now Overwatch, but I don't worry about my MMR the way I used to when I played over an hour per day. Compared to achieving a high MMR building a ninja rockstar software project like a C compiler in Haskell is easy. Who is going to compete with me? It's a crazy idea anyway! I just work on it a couple hours per week, and after a year or two it'll be an impressive project no matter what. It's got everything I learned in it.

I'll be using your experience for inspiration. I also love coding - particularly once I get started - but lack the discipline to make a habit out of it in my spare time. Hopefully in a few months I'll have some similarly interesting work to show for myself :)

[tinco]

Could very well be then! They played 3 tracers a winston and a Mei. (Winston had a play of the game smashing four of us in Mei's ulti :\)

I'm 29, experience the same with SC2, it's just not fun if all you can do is to learn the meta and polish your mechanics.

Whatever you build, make sure it's test driven! Nothing beats sitting down to work on your project and the only thing you need to do is to run the test suite to remember what you should work on next. It also helps you chop your project up in fun achievable sized bits. I make it a point ending every session with 1 red test.

[girvo]

I know on console 3 Tracers, a Winston and a Mercy will wipe basically any other composition right now, at least until someone comes up with a decent counter. Pharah does alright against it, but if the Tracers are good, well, look out...

[mod]

Mine is even a little more annoying than yours. It doesn't like me doing productive things.

"somewhere a rockstar wizard ninja is building a passive-income side project and here you are wasting your time tending a garden and working in your woodshop, you miserable idiot with stupid priorities."

[toomuchtodo]

> tending a garden and working in your woodshop

After doing tech for 15 years, that sounds glorious.

[maxerickson]

Have you ever weeded a garden for a summer? It's quite a chore.

[toomuchtodo]

Have you ever spent days fighting poor decisions you'll end up accountable for through no fault of your own? Gardening and woodshop please.

[eterm]

I suffer from this badly, I'm slowly coming to the conclusion that I'm just not that good at any of it. I get the basics, I even do it for a living, but I'm never going to be driven to create products.

I want to be able to make something, I also really want to be able to finish my progress on cryptopals, or finally get a real bounty on hackerone, but I'm just not good enough.

And I get caught thinking, well if I just didn't spend so much time playing computer games, or wasting time I could do that stuff.

But is it true, or am I just using them as an excuse, so I don't have to face up to the fact I'm just not that good at it. It's easier to blame my laziness than blame the fact that I struggle to produce output and struggle to find meaningful[1] vulnerabilities.

If I ever do find myself unemployed, then I'd hit stockfighter up straight away, that would I guess give me the motivation to work at the stuff. I think there's a fundamental "understanding gap" between me at the problems presented though. In the same way that I can look at a demo scene write ups and understand the concepts they're talking about but there's this vast chasm between the work I do and the work they do, and it's not clear how to bridge that gap.

Maybe I should read less hacker news and spend more time practicing the craft. But hey, I'm back in the "if only I worked harder" trap.

[1] Sure, I can find open redirects, maybe the occasional http subdomain leaking a cookie from the https root domain, maybe even an open endpoint, but finding vulns worth paying for[2] is difficult when dealing with sites which already care enough to have bounties.

[2] It's not about the money, I'd likely not even claim it given the typically small amounts paid out and the hassle of declaring it, but I'd like to bag a bounty for pride sake.

[wdmeldon]

> you are wasting your time with Overwatch

No time spent playing Overwatch is time wasted.

[hkmurakami]

It's likely also a sign that you're reasonably satisfied with your professional situation. :)

[hbhakhra]

I can relate to this. When I was on a project at work once maintaining legacy code, I got no fulfillment so I had about 3 side projects going at once. Now that I am back to interesting stuff at my day job, my motivation for side projects has gone way down.

[trentmb]

Or the opposite- working a job you don't like just leaves you drained...

[wdmeldon]

I know that feeling all too well :(