Why Code?

This is a recurrent question for my peers and myself. It feels like everything has already been done nowadays, so why would you create anything in the first place? I grew up with the internet at arm's reach and despite having access to more information than I could ever consume in a lifetime, I would argue that coding has become more stale than ever before: Want to make a clever new indie game? So do 100.000 others. Want to write a compiler? Creating programming languages has been a common hobby since the 2010s. etc etc. And when you actually sit down to do something, there's always going to be the bitter, overarching thought of "not doing right". Rewriting in Rust is the perfect example of this all-or-nothing mentality that has historically always been there (see C vs Lisp USENET), except that now you have a myriad of options to choose from, the choice itself has become oppressing. This leads me to something else I want to touch on: Computer Science. The degree is immensely popular with kids nowadays but what can you even do with it anymore? The giants of computing have been there long before us and honestly I can't think of any new ground-breaking inventions or discoveries in the same way that Quake redefined videogames and C did for programming languages. I suppose competitive programming can be considered an exception to this pattern since it's more of a sport than anything else, i.e. one does not run track because they want to flatten the ground. Sorry for the rant. What do you think, Lain?

I think the whole poknt of view is wrong. Your words show that you are craving validation from people. That is wrong. Get rid of it with spiritual practices. Then you can program whatever you think is cool, without thinking about if it's groundbreaking, will it win people's hearts or if AI can do better. Just do what you think is important and for that all you require is spirit and nothing

The answer is: Just enjoy what you do. What's the point of drawing sexy anime girls when there are already tons of artists who do that (and probably better than you)? What is the point of designing a PCB if there are already companies that do that? What's the point of composing music if people are going to tell you that you're less than Beethoven or Mozart? And I can keep going if you want... Don't feel self-conscious about those questions. Do it because you enjoy the process and the satisfaction of having achieved something. Now, if what's happening to you is that you've burned out from doing the same thing for so long, you can change your surroundings; that is, find another hobby or profession. There's nothing wrong with that, and you won't be a loser for doing so. Sometimes it's healthy to close the doors to a room that has overwhelmed you enough and open others that you haven't explored yet. It can bring satisfying things. I could write more, but I'm trying to improve by not overwhelming you with walls of text that basically say the same thing. Whatever you decide, I wish you every success and a great rest of the year. Cheers.

Sounds like you just lack imagination. Back in 2010-2015 I thought that the games marked is already flooded and absolutely saturated, yet new things still are coming out today. And scientists back in the 19th century though that everything that there is to discover already has been discovered. I believe there's still plenty to do and discover. Maybe not by you. The ground breaking stuff is for the very few exceptional people anyway, and that's fine. There's still the route of employment work.

>It feels like everything has already been done nowadays, it has, indeed, but are you satisfied with it? Has any of it been done to your entire satisfaction? >Want to make a clever new indie game? So do 100.000 others. The same could be said about poetry or writing fiction. Or any other form of art whatsoever. But artists rarely stop doing anything because there are other artists doign art. Quite the opposite, in fact. In other words, you want to make a game because you're a creative type and you have an idea that is your own, or perhaps because you just want to make your own worlds. >except that now you have a myriad of options to choose from, the choice itself has become oppressing. This is one point in your post that I can sympathize with. I imagine the solution is not to commit to anything until you've already tasted a bit of everything and figured out what you like most. Which brings me to another reason to do things, both in art and in the realm of "technical" subjects: you do things in order to learn. Play is learning, after all. The brain thrives on learning. Indeed... >And when you actually sit down to do something, there's always going to be the bitter, overarching thought of "not doing right". That is the mentality that you would have to change here. Some day, you might do something great. In the mean time, work on getting to that point, and that means make mistakes. Indeed, a great deal of programming is about figuring things out, making mistakes, messing up, and learning from such mistakes. > I can't think of any new ground-breaking inventions or discoveries perhaps not, but you might have already thought of a few things that you would like to see done different. Perhaps you've already thought "I wish such a program existed, perhaps like this other program, but I'd do this differently", maybe even "oh I wish there were a way to program the computer in order to have it do whatever I would like it to do." Honestly, lain, I am writing this for myself as well, because I feel more or less the same way as you do. So: tl;dr program to learn, so that you may get the computer to do things your way.

It feels so strange when people struggle to think up new things that should be programmed. I just live my life and there are all kinds of problems that have to be solved, some of them are recurring and then i automate them, by programming. Maybe these kind of people spend too much time with the computer and too little irl therefore they have no idea what kind of problems have to be solved irl. Yeah, boredom is not a problem anymore so we don't need more games. I am currently developing two new kinds of "virtual measurement devices", those are apps that measure things with the phone's sensors, including and most importantly the camera, one is for my hobby, the other one is for my work. I'm also developing a program that can synthetically reproduce parts of a special kind of damaged database. None of these use any kind of ai. No, you can't just make these with ai, out of curiosity i gave very well constructed promts to the newest claude and it couldn't spit out amything remotely useful. The maximum usefulness of it is speeding up coding by writing blocks of code if you already know what that block will do exactly. So my advice for you boyo: go out and touch some grass and you will get ideas about what should be coded.

>>44191 But even if you don't go out and you touch zero grass, you should concentrate on your own problems: I have problems to solve in my computer too, automating and scripting a lot of things, ricing my i3 (functionally, not aesthetically), and writing little tools that help me do things better or faster or with the possibility to validate it happening the right way. Some problems arise from projects that i use and therefore should contribute, NewPipe, Freetube, Openstreetmap, ghostscript, gimp, etc etc and of course: your favorite distro of choice always needs a helping hand.

When you write your own version of some existing thing, you'll realize that it doesn't actually solve every single possible problem in that space, so you can often push it forward with your own contribution. At the very least, you'll get a greater understanding and with that understanding you'll notice things that can be done better or get ideas for new projects. Even with indie games, you can remake something to the point where it's identical and then using that as a starting point, you could add infinite variations and improvements.

>>43841 Others might had, but have you? You can't truly know something unless you do. The Babylonians (or was it the Sumerians?) said that you should try and do regardless if it has been already done.

>It feels like everything has already been done nowadays What it feels like is that you don't have any experience with computers in general, and especially not software engineering.

>>43841 >What do you think, Lain? picrel you stopped before you even started

Just a black hole leading nowhere https://inscriptas.com/

You should try to build your game for haiku.

I'm more or less with you. The best reason for "coding" these days is to accomplish tasks outside of programming, i.e., tools to accomplish other aspects of life.

Making an indie game is worthwhile if you already have real art and/or writing ability. This is far from the norm for indiedevs. This is the reason the vast majority of indie games look worse and are less interesting than aversge games released in the PS2 era.

>>43841 I learn something new almost every day- human beings probably as a whole come up with a few dozen to maybe even thousands of thoughts and ideas that have never been thought or brought into action every single day. It just takes one new thought to think of a new thing entirely. One innovation to change the entire world forever. For all of history people have had the thoughts that your OP contains- before the invention of the wheel people have thought this- before the invention of the lightbulb people thought this- before the invention of the smartphone people thought this- etc. Become an interesting person and you'll think more interesting thoughts. Stop consuming more of the same. Pick out a book you'd never read otherwise. It might have some ideas you'd have never considered yourself. >>43841

Agreed, programming is fun for the sake of it. Tons of fun to be had re creating the wheel. You CAN make it your own! My main uses for fun programming is maths! I would write code after my exams for funsies. Got me in with professors who showed me some awesome things. Just have fun and explore, you never know where it will lead you.

coding is a lot of things, including exploring. there's a kinda magic to it too, incant a behavior or a solution to problems both mundane and profound. if you cannot find reason to write code, you should find another activity.

>>43845 what spiritual practices do you speak of? >>43846 how to enjoy what you do?

>>43841 Cause it's fun, not everything needs a purpose, the process itself is enjoyable. Don't let others' opinions or the fact that something has already been done before take that away.

>>44201 Inscriptas is not working on my machine.

>why code? Because it's good for your mind. It's a way to achieve gnosis and to know what you are dealing with in this treacherous world.

We need an app that acts as paying for a seedbox server with no logs but also include gaming , movies , series and music into it so it's like a torrent seedbox which is like paying in one instead multiple pieces and it's not as much cost to yourself. With all these streaming services the best thing is to rope everyone into one for easy profit

>>43841 It's fun. I don't need any other reasons.

>>43841 I code so that i can make my own soykafty versions of propriatery products or purely because i want to. Dont like geogabra? Make your own dont like excel what the hell are you waiting for??? You van be king of your own software

no one has made this even though the specifications have been out for ~70 years https://xanadu.com/zigzag/ZZdnld/zzRefDef/ so get to programming (coding = encoding = mp3 and the like)

Not everything has been done, there is a whole world out there and millions of billions things to discover; but for that you will need to drop the usual mindset and live another life