[~ot] why is programming so fun?

[Gregor Richards]

BCS wrote:
> Reply to Clay,
> 
>> BCS wrote:
>>
>>> Reply to sclytrack,
>>>
>>>> It is like playing with lego blocks but you won't be accused of
>>>> being a kid.
>>>>
>>>> Sclytrack
>>>>
>>> Every one in a while I hear about someone who want to "make
>>> programming like putting together Logos" e.i. "just snap them
>>> together and your done!"
>>>
>>> It just occurred to me, 99.9999% of the ways you can snap Logos
>>> together are neither useful, nor good looking. The same is true of
>>> programming. It' easy to make a system that lets you snap together a
>>> program if it don't have to do anything useful.
>>>
>> I'd consider libraries to be like "lego blocks," and people manage to
>> make lots of useful programs with them.
>>
> 
> take a random lib, start writing code (don't even check to see what the 
> lib does) keep slapping in function (auto compleat may help) call random 
> methods, add some loops and if's. Heck, throw in a goto or three. Then 
> run it, tweak it till it compiles, then tweak it till it doesn't crash. 
> I'll bet you a dollar it does nothing useful. If it does, you cheated 
> and tried to make it do something useful.
> 
> Yes libs can make useful programs, but just because you use a lib, 
> doesn't say your program will be useful without skill and effort.
> 
> 

Now, write a program to modify code randomly and select based on a 
fitness function, and feed it with 100 of this program you just wrote, 
and you've got a genetic algorithm! Give it a few generations, and it'll 
do something useful.

:P

  - Gregor Richards