Programming High?

[Mud]

When I worked in the game industry, there were several programmers, two of them leads, who were pretty much always baked. I didn't work closely enough with them to know if their code qualified was affected (for better or worse), but they did solid work, were promoted, ect.

[coffee]

When I worked in the game industry, there were several programmers, two of them leads, who were pretty much always baked. I didn't work closely enough with them to know if their code qualified was affected (for better or worse), but they did solid work, were promoted, ect.

The question remaining is know if they wouldn't do even better and faster "sober"?

[josefnpat]

I remember before I discovered repos, I was hacking away at this one phproject for like a few hours when I was rather intoxicated.

The next day, I had to scrap all my work, and start over.


edit: source

[Robin]

I sort of just confirmed that weed has a positive effect on my programming. I defined an image as "img = "img/something.png". And it took me like 3 minutes to realize what the problem was.

Are you familiar with confirmation bias?

Anyone up for a double blind experiment?

One group gets nothing, one group gets weed, one group gets a placebo. Then they all have to so some programming challenges. At the end, the scores are compared.

[bartbes]

No, it'd have to be the same coders doing it. So once with pot and once with placebo (random order, of course).

[nevon]

I sort of just confirmed that weed has a positive effect on my programming. I defined an image as "img = "img/something.png". And it took me like 3 minutes to realize what the problem was.

Are you familiar with confirmation bias?

Anyone up for a double blind experiment?

One group gets nothing, one group gets weed, one group gets a placebo. Then they all have to so some programming challenges. At the end, the scores are compared.

That won't work. It doesn't matter if I'm baked or sober, Bart is still going to beat me! The only acceptable solution is that you guys send me weed and some oregano, and I'll do the test three times!

[veethree]

I don't think the code written while high would be much different than the code written sober. The weed doesn't affect my coding skill, It affects how well i can focus on what i'm doing. When i'm high i really get into what i'm doing.

[Robin]

If you have enough test subjects, that won't be a problem. But yeah, if you use repeated measures, you can reduce the number of subjects necessary. There is still the problem of selection bias, but I guess we could just make a prediction about lovers rather than programmers in general to get rid of that.

Null hypothesis: weed does not make lovers perform better at programming challenges.
Alternative hypothesis: weed does make lovers perform better at programming challenges.

Science!

[TechnoCat]

I don't think the code written while high would be much different than the code written sober. The weed doesn't affect my coding skill, It affects how well i can focus on what i'm doing. When i'm high i really get into what i'm doing.

I can't imagine this helping: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of ... d_learning

A 2008 review of the evidence surrounding the acute impact on memory concluded that cannabinoids impair all aspects of short-term memory, especially short-term episodic and working memory. One small study found that no learning occurred during the 2 hour period in which the subjects (infrequent users) were "stoned".

[tentus]

I'm surprised we're still talking about this. Look, cannabis and many other drugs have well-documented NEGATIVE effects on short term memory, among other brain functions. I fail to see how that is going to help programming.

Let me rephrase: you are more likely to write bad code, because you are forgetting things as you create them. Memory is extremely important to programmers, far more important than a sense of communion with the universe.

This isn't the man trying to hold anyone down or anything, this is chemistry: we know because of science that these are facts. No matter what your feelings are about drugs and drug-induced states, the chemical makeup of your brain prevents drugs from being 100% positive. In order to get that artificial level of relaxation, you have to sacrifice mental performance. You don't get cleverer when you're high, you forget that you've already solved problems.

I have a friend who writes code in both states. He laughs about the mistakes he made when high all the time. The important part of that anecdote is the end, "all the time". This is an easily repeated observation, that he himself acknowledges.

Edit: ninja'd by Technocat.