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by skylan_q 5046 days ago
"As a result I've become more focused, more logical and smarter. But I've also become more detached from everyday life and less fun to hang out with. I'm not sure yet if the change is permanent, but I certainly hope that it can be undone :)"

6 months away from programming, and you'll be fine :)
5 comments
richardlblair 5046 days ago
When I was in high school and just starting out I felt that I was becoming detached, and I hated it so much. At some point, however, I decided that I didn't really care if I was becoming more detached and less fun to hang out with. It was more like I had redefined fun, and I eventually found new friends that fell within this definition. There is definitely a change though, and I don't blame the author for feeling uncomfortable. You either learn to accept it or you walk away. The choice is yours.
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pixie_ 5046 days ago
Coding definitely made me feel like I was getting dumber the first few years. idk if anyone else experienced the feeling from holding so much logic in your head and then going back to reality would give me an exhausted feeling mentally. Anyways, that was a long time ago and I've learned how to roll with it since then. Now I'm even more fun to hang out with :)

Now that I think of it, at first we're overloaded learning programming. And then we reach a point where we really know a lot about all kinds of things and we hunt for new things to learn because we've lost that 'overloaded' feeling. I know I scour ycombinator and reddit and other blogs a lot for new interesting programming things to learn about.

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shoeless 5046 days ago
I've experienced this "detachment" with friends and family. I sometimes have to make an effort to really engage in regular conversation. It's like programming, continuous learning, etc. take so much brain power that I start to go into self-preservation mode. In social situations, it's sort of "turn it off or you won't have anything left for dealing with development work".
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narrator 5046 days ago
I've found the following guide to be a good refresher for interacting with the non-programmer crowd:

http://www.pgbovine.net/geek-behaviors.htm

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nacker 5046 days ago
Life compartmentalization and better living through chemistry has always worked for me.
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