have you guys made your own program? not a school project or something from a tutorial. nothing work related either. not hacking or sys admin related stuff either.
how would a normal person benefit from programming?
tl;dr uses of programming for non-professionals. I can't think of a way learning programming can help me, unless I was working at some company which required me to program
>>1
It teaches you how to organize things. First A must be done, then B, then C. Things are done in order or they break. It's a bit of discipline, really.
More importantly, if you're around computers a lot, you'll be able to understand why a program might work the way it does instead of raging.
>>1
Provides intellectual challenges, keeps the brain fit, beats browsing Reddit, allows you to write small websites for fun and profit, you can tune websites using Greasemonkey... ta-da-la
Name:
Anonymous2011-01-15 15:22
It allows you to automate the odd boring task that you have to do in bulk, like converting entire folders of you media collection to another format for a different player, etc. I did it to turn a bunch of Youtube videos to wmv for me to listen in an old player.
And as others said, it is rather cheap way of keeping yourself entertained with puzzles, like fractals among a host of little mathematical problems. There is a certain aesthetic to how you construct a program for a given problem too, so you can keep delving into it for a long while, exploring different techniques, etc.
Name:
Anonymous2011-01-15 15:27
>>1
Programming turns you into an ancient egyptian deity, Thot, who had the power to make things exist by naming them. (See also: In principio erat Verbum et Verbum erat apud Deum et Deus erat Verbum.)
Name:
Anonymous2011-01-15 15:30
>>9
I've never thought of invoking/assuming the god-form of Thoth in conjunction with programming. Thanks for the suggestion!
What I do with programming, OP, is make shitty website scrapers.
Name:
Anonymous2011-01-15 15:45
knowledge, thats my only reason for knowing programming
I cant actually program anything beyond simple exercises in books, but computers hold a fascination for me that I just have to know how they tick. Its important to understand things even if you will never use them. We study history even though we will never be historians, we study biology even though we will never be biologists. Having general knowledge makes us wiser and more apt to make wise decisions rather than live in fear or in trust of others with knowledge we dont have.
I dont stand in awe of people who installed gentoo, I know enough that I would not get tricked into deleting a system32 file. I know just enough bash and vim commands that I could get simple stuff done if I had to. And if I ever get a job in the industry, I will be a more well rounded worker than people who didnt prepare like I did
Name:
Anonymous2011-01-15 15:49
>I know enough that I would not get tricked into deleting a system32 file
That doesn't require anything more than basic computer knowledge and not being a complete fucking retard. That said, you have the right attitude.
Name:
Anonymous2011-01-15 16:02
>>12
you can say that now since computer use has become as common as the tv and telephone, but if you started 30 years ago I guarantee I could trick you into a lot worse than just deleting a system file
Name:
Anonymous2011-01-15 16:05
Normal people like porn. It's useful to get porn from the internet. I made this a few days ago:
import sys
import re
import urllib2
import subprocess
def findfileurl(url):
if re.search(r'motherless', url):
return motherless(url)
def motherless(url):
match = re.search('^http://', url)
if not match:
url = 'http://' + url
ufile = urllib2.urlopen(url)
match = re.search('(http://[;\w/.]+.flv[\w/.]+.flv)', ufile.read())
return match.group()
def main():
if len(sys.argv) > 1:
urls = []
urlstring = ''
for i in range(len(sys.argv))[1:]:
fileurl = findfileurl(sys.argv[i])
if fileurl:
urls.append(findfileurl(sys.argv[i]))
for url in urls:
urlstring = urlstring + url + ' '
if urls != []:
if re.search(r'\.+', sys.argv[-1]):
subprocess.call('wget ' + urlstring, shell=True)
else:
subprocess.call(sys.argv[-1] + ' ' + urlstring, shell=True)
if __name__ == '__main__':
main()
>>13 you can say that now since computer use has become as common as the tv and telephone, but if you started 30 years ago I guarantee I could trick you into a lot worse than just deleting a system file
If it were such common knowledge, you would know that its a folder and not a file.