NockerGeek (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
nockergeek) wrote2002-03-06 11:09 am
nockergeek) wrote2002-03-06 11:09 am
Why I like programming...
...it's very goal-oriented. There's a particular problem you're trying to solve, or a set of features you're trying to implement. There's a definite destination on your map, and once you've chosen your vehicle (language and platform), you know roughly the path you have to take. Sometimes there are detours, and sometimes you have to double-back because you've found a shortcut that you've just passed, and sometimes you find you've gotten almost there only to realize that you forgot something important... but all the same, there's a clear start and finish point, and a definite path on how to get there.
I'm a problem-solver by heart.
Now, take something a bit more free-form, and I get utterly lost. For example, I have a hard time writing adventures for role-playing games, and by extention any kind of story, because I don't have a clear goal other than "Finish the story." I don't know how the story's supposed to end, I don't know how to begin it, and without those two I don't know what to do with the middle. Even saying, "I want to write a story/adventure about X," is less than helpful, because then I start taking X apart to infinity, trying to make sure every detail is right. It's maddening. I mean, I can't even do a simple dungeon crawl - y'know, pick out a map that I've found somewhere and populate it with beasties - because my mind starts asking about the details. Why is this dungeon here? Why are the monsters here? What purpose does it serve in the local ecology/power structure/etc.? Why haven't other people ransacked it yet?
Oh, and don't even get me started on writing tales of intrigue. For example, I contemplated doing L5R adventure hooks for d20 L5R games. I couldn't do it. I couldn't even come up with one idea I liked. I'd either tear it to shreds trying to find out the details, or get utterly lost in thinking of the plots and players. That, and I can't think of any sort of decent conspiracy or intrigue that doesn't sound utterly trite. It doesn't help that I understand people very poorly, which makes it very hard to make them act realistically.
Mechanics-wise, I'm not so bad. If I just sit down with a rulebook and go through it page by page, I can take it apart and find various mechanical holes and think of ways to fix them. I can come up with quantifiable things. I can build classes, spells, items, etc... anything that doesn't require backstory. The minute creative writing gets involved, forget it - I'm lost.
It's funny, though. I once considered myself to be a poet and playwright. I can't do that anymore, though. Something changed between my first year of college and today. Some switch was flicked to make me almost totally left-brained. I can come up with individual characters, but I can't orchestrate plots. I can build things, but I can't weave stories. It's just not where my strength lies.
I'm a problem-solver by heart.
Now, take something a bit more free-form, and I get utterly lost. For example, I have a hard time writing adventures for role-playing games, and by extention any kind of story, because I don't have a clear goal other than "Finish the story." I don't know how the story's supposed to end, I don't know how to begin it, and without those two I don't know what to do with the middle. Even saying, "I want to write a story/adventure about X," is less than helpful, because then I start taking X apart to infinity, trying to make sure every detail is right. It's maddening. I mean, I can't even do a simple dungeon crawl - y'know, pick out a map that I've found somewhere and populate it with beasties - because my mind starts asking about the details. Why is this dungeon here? Why are the monsters here? What purpose does it serve in the local ecology/power structure/etc.? Why haven't other people ransacked it yet?
Oh, and don't even get me started on writing tales of intrigue. For example, I contemplated doing L5R adventure hooks for d20 L5R games. I couldn't do it. I couldn't even come up with one idea I liked. I'd either tear it to shreds trying to find out the details, or get utterly lost in thinking of the plots and players. That, and I can't think of any sort of decent conspiracy or intrigue that doesn't sound utterly trite. It doesn't help that I understand people very poorly, which makes it very hard to make them act realistically.
Mechanics-wise, I'm not so bad. If I just sit down with a rulebook and go through it page by page, I can take it apart and find various mechanical holes and think of ways to fix them. I can come up with quantifiable things. I can build classes, spells, items, etc... anything that doesn't require backstory. The minute creative writing gets involved, forget it - I'm lost.
It's funny, though. I once considered myself to be a poet and playwright. I can't do that anymore, though. Something changed between my first year of college and today. Some switch was flicked to make me almost totally left-brained. I can come up with individual characters, but I can't orchestrate plots. I can build things, but I can't weave stories. It's just not where my strength lies.