Comment by jfv | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jfv | Hacker News Reader

I miss that too (90's for me). Honestly I don't enjoy programming much anymore for this reason. I remember when it was normal for people to write their own data structures for their programs -- and while not "practical," there's a certain joy you get debugging your own sorting implementation that you don't get, say, copying and pasting frameworks' error messages into Google.

One problem with today's coding environment from an enjoyment perspective is that if something is fun, it will probably be written and packaged into a library. Data structures, algorithms, visualization libraries, abstractions on top of OpenGL, mathematical functions, data stores, neural networks, etc. -- all these things are great fun to actually try to write, and all of these things already exist in better forms than we'll ever write as individuals. Sometimes practical programming today feels more like gluing everybody's fun code together with your not-so-fun code.

Programming when I was growing up: https://www.toysperiod.com/images/lego-parts.jpg

Programming now: http://www.toysrus.com/graphics/product_images/pTRU1-1912094...

Seriously?

I see SOOO many people making AMAZING things gluing stuff together. Maybe they're gluing together three.js with WebVR. Maybe they're gluing together the JS Magic Leap support with a Kintec and an arduino. I see artists making art throwing together Unity with a few plugins for networking etc.

Sound way WAY more fun than me writing

    10 moveto rand(320), rand(240)
    20 lineto rand(300), rand(240)
    30 goto 10

If you like writing the low-level stuff that's great. Knock yourself out. Me, I want to move on to the bigger stuff. Some people like to build cameras, Others just like to use cameras to make movies. I'd prefer the later (but I'm glad someone likes to make the cameras so I don't have to)

Well at least I understand what your three lines of code do. Though not why you want them.

I don't however understand what "three.js" is or what "JS Magic Leap" or... well let's just say I couldn't understand what any of those thing you say are SOOO AMAZING.

Of course they might be amazing, I wouldn't know. But it has the smell of breathless chearleading.

three.js is a quite robust WebGL framework. I'll let JS Magic Leap be your homework.

Sometimes libraries and frameworks make our lives easier. I'm glad the tools exist. I had much more fun writing all the little systems that go into a working WebGL app, and working with WebGL API directly, than using any of the popular libraries. But good luck teaching any meaningful amount of WebGL to a group of students who don't even know what HTML stands for without a library like three.js

See https://aframe.io

I assume you meant Leap Motion instead of Magic Leap?

> Seriously?

Yes, seriously. Artists are great. I'm not an artist. Unity bores me; it sounds more fun to homebrew an engine and build on top of that.

>One problem with today's coding environment from an enjoyment perspective is that if something is fun, it will probably be written and packaged into a library.

People don't write code for free because it's boring. Open Source is all about making something cool. No surprise that cool code gets packaged in an OSS library.

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