Curse of being a Programmer
Jotting down my occasional random thought.
I think being a programmer is about constantly thinking. For instance, when I’m doing the dishes, I look at the sink as a buffer and the dishes as blocks of data to be copied. Even when I’m playing a video game, I try to guess what kind of data structure is used in certain situations. Eating, laundry, dating, shopping… you name it, you always end up algorithmically reasoning (this doesn’t work too well when you’re dating though… too many anomalies).
Humans suck at context switching, as do computers. So, I try to organize my daily tasks into a priority queue and spend my concentration on consuming one task at a time. Whether you call this mental set a curse or not is up to you but when you realize that you’ve stopped thinking, I think it’s time to take a vacation or review your career path.
I hope I won’t stop thinking for at least another decade. ALTHOUGH I will claim my vacations!
