Are there any hackers out there that like to code stoned? My marijuana-days never really overlapped with my coding days, but I can't imagine that would be a very good combo. I'm all for legalization tho I no longer partake -- I'm just wondering if it's a regular part of the lifestyle of many successful hackers...
It's funny but I'm hesitant to answer this truthfully.
I'm not sure if that's because I have aspirations to submit to YC at some point and wonder how PG might view this (and whether it would affect any decision making one way or another). Or if it's just the general concern with unnecessarily putting myself 'out there' somewhat publicly.
So yes, I do smoke and code. I don't know if I would say I'm 'stoned' though; I find that if I have just a wee bit I'm more focused and on point. It's similar to when I play music; not for the 'creative release' often claimed (though seldom experienced by me), but rather for this deep-focus aspect.
As a person who believes strongly in personal freedoms, thank you for saying this Paul.
If someone chooses to consume a drug of their choosing and still create in a way that fulfills them and their customers -- it is a grave injustice to shackle someone, wag a finger and tell them no. You inspire on many fronts.
I don't mean to sound glib, but I'd think you would -- less for the social stigma or potential for doing something idiotic while stoned, but if I were about to invest a significant amount of money in a company, I think I'd consider 'probability of a founder going to jail' as something that mattered.
The odds of going to jail in California just for possession of a small amount of marijuana are somewhat lower than the likelihood of going to jail for speeding. As long as the founder is not dealing, I don't see why you'd worry. Particularly since many Californians use it legally.
I suppose that matters if the team plans to move to / stay in or is already in California. I personally don't have any opposition to it, but outside of California, it's much less forgiven by the legal authorities.
It's pretty forgiven across the board these days. There are states / areas in states where it is absolutely not, but the majority of law enforcement members, in the majority of areas, don't give a shit about some kid cheefing away on a spliff while typing a lot, or playing music, or whatever it is they like to do.
Like with alcohol it always depends on the person. Some people can have a drink or 2 and think nothing of it. While others can't drink without going to black out drunk.
I look at pot and people the same way. I've had friends who smoked and were the laziest people you ever met. They were lazy pre-pot and only became lazier. I've had other friends who smoke and they became super successful, quality people.
A girl I dated in college occasionally smoked with her sister. I would give them grief about it, but turns out in HS they smoked every day with the eventually valedictorian of their school. Oh, and they both finished college with 4.0s in finance.
I find it isn't as terrible as you'd expect if you're caffeinated at the same time. I think it can be genuinely helpful while initially thinking them out certain things on paper. When I'm actually writing code it sometimes causes me to lose sight of the big picture and to spent forever "perfecting" a function or two. Fun, though not overwhelmingly productive.
I wouldn't recommend doing most of your coding high, but if you do so every now and then it might help you think about things in a different way.
I started taking a Guarana supplement with my morning vitamins; guarana is similar to coffee beans but has a higher concentration of caffeine. So far I've been amazed by how it's working.
In the mid 90s I lived with an MIT educated hacker who was our programming team lead. We worked on a Windows multi-protocol email client that had back ends that talked to AOL, CompuServe, PRODIGY, MCI, etc. My roommate coded nearly all of the back ends, and was responsible for much of the design and architecture of the program, which was for us a fairly big success.
Every morning before work, he'd make a pot of the nastiest, strongest coffee you could imagine, pour himself a cup, and drink it with his morning bong hits. He'd then drive myself and our other roommate to work in his beat up Volvo station wagon. Once he got to work he'd shut himself in his office, crank up his stereo (no headphones) and start reading his email.
Of course! I've been smoking cannabis since I was 16, but now, I only use it when I do front end work (weekends). It allows me to have laser focus for the task at hand, and allows me to forgot about the unimportant things that also need done during the weekend: laundry, cleaning the apt, dishes, etc.
"I'm just wondering if it's a regular part of the lifestyle of many successful hackers"
I think it does not matter if you're a "successful" hacker or not, it matters if you understand how it effects you and your work, successful or not. I know some that cannot work without it, but I also know some that cannot think straight while stone
Well, if I get too high, I find it difficult, but if I'm just a little high, I find it beneficial in that it helps me focus and sometimes helps creativity. I'm currently employed and don't get high on the job, but I code on my side projects high pretty often. But I don't generally get high with the intentions of coding. Usually it's just that I happen to be high and just want to code and make progress on my projects. Often times it's not until I've sobered up a little (but not completely) before I start coding, though.
I didn't used to do this when I was younger (I'm 32 now). In college I found that while I could do homework high, it usually resulted in me correcting a bunch of errors the next day, so I reserved pot (and alcohol) for when I was finished with my work. But these days I'm so compelled to work on side projects that having used pot (and sometimes alcohol) earlier in the evening just doesn't stop me from putting in a few hours before bed time.
As a side note: I gave up regular usage of caffeine after I got out of college. I found I no longer needed it once I was able to get 7-8 hours of sleep every night instead of 4. But I very occasionally have caffeine and yes, as others have said, pot + caffiene is a good combo.
About the drunk part, that Ballmer peak XKCD comic?
I've found it to be more or less true for mental tasks. When I (and some classmates) have been lightly buzzed, we seem to work better (in certain respects). For example, when solving physics problems, we become much better/faster at coming up with solutions (granted, we'll probably end up making more calculation errors).
This led me to doing all my assignments first buzzed, and then recopying them out and rechecking the calculations (my writing is horrible, the recopying was required anyways) later when sober.
Of course, when finals rolled around, I had to spend 3 solids days practicing physics while sober again. It was weird.
I don't smoke, but I know a lot of people find it aids their creativity and ability to focus (in reasonable doses). Those are useful traits for hackers, at least in some tasks. (More designy things would show greater improvement than the mathy parts of the job.)
And? It wasn't. I find marijuana to be a useful tool, for the above types of coding, in high-level, low-level, dynamically or statically typed, or whatever languages. It encourages creative and lateral thinking.
