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Comment by dieterrams | Hacker News Reader

"I like video games" often translates to "I want to work in the video game industry" often translates to "I'll learn how to program."

More generally, however, enthusiasm for video games makes kids keenly aware of the hardware that makes it possible. (Even at the age of ten, kids will get into console wars citing which has the faster processor, etc.) Having that technical background from an early age, however rudimentary, makes gamers more likely to feel comfortable with programming.

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When I got into college I had no idea what a computer program was nor had I ever been exposed to anything related to programming. Despite that one of my first classes was C programming. Not by choice, but because the curriculum was chosen by my advisor. It didn't really hit me that I was learning how to program until about a week into it. Now I'm a professional software developer. My point is that you do not have to go into college knowing anything about programming to study it.

It can be put as an dis-advantage. What girls are doing when men are wasting 100s of hours playing video games.

Doesn't that count as positive for girls.

Not if it is equally inane. Gossiping and chasing fashion trends aren't much better.

Funny you should say that, the only people I know that spend 100's of hours gaming are women.

I don't know about that. Since we're going on anecdotal evidence, out of my 25 or so friends who play videogames, I'm the only one who programs.

An analog to your statement would be: "I like movies" often translates into "I want to work in the film industry"

I remember an article on HN a while ago, that partitioned people into "people that are interested in One Thing, Everything, or Nothing." For the people interested in One Thing or Nothing, your comment sounds perfectly rational; but for the people interested in Everything, that's exactly how it is. "I like movies, books, games, music, math, tall buildings, rockets, genetically-engineered plants, [...] and so I want to learn how to make all of those things."

I too am interested in a lot of things. But it would be a trivial exercise for me to name something you're not interested in.

Well, only relatively. I think the test is "given immortality, would you get bored?" After exhausting all the stuff I like, I'd learn to like more stuff.

I think becoming interested in more stuff would be a necessity for anyone with immortality. Otherwise you'd be miserable.

Right; but the people who are interested in One Thing or Nothing just say "I don't think I'd want to be immortal; it would get too boring."

I would challenge that you can group people into those three categories. I'm interested in everything from quantum physics to category theory to python, but I have zero interest in basket-weaving techniques of the 18th century.

Note that I'm using "often" to mean "happens with statistically significant frequency," as opposed to something like "happens most of the time."

> An analog to your statement would be: "I like movies" often translates into "I want to work in the film industry"

But that's actually true, with the most desired movie-inspired career being actor/actress. The difference is that people give up this idea a lot more easily, because they realize that the odds of being a movie star are incredibly low. Analogous to liking rock music and wanting to be a rock star.

Note then that you were probably looking for a word like 'occasionally' or 'sometimes' rather than 'often'. The phenomenon you were outlining would only happen with a tiny fraction of video game enthusiasts, so regardless of its statictical significance it wouldn't be described as happening 'often'.

How many programmers you know like video games?

At my old job the entire department, at my current place of employment 50% or better. so out of 30 professional programmers that I have worked with about 20.

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