I'm a SCENE-SETTER!

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pinback
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I'm a SCENE-SETTER!

Post by pinback »

Here now I will share with you the greatest of all of my many mental diseases. I do not suspect many here will identify with it, because even though you are all a bunch of crazy people, you are mainly known for doing things, creating things, getting shit done. Aardvark writes more in a week than I have in my whole life. Jiz is sliding ducks around. ICJ is the world's foremost IF author that that one guy refuses to acknowledge, and has broken more arcade games than most people have played. Flack probably did three podcasts and built a table while I was writing this sentence. Everyone is editing their houses.

Me, I just set scenes. I get everything ready, get everything in order, in a perfect state to get something done, to do something. But I never do anything.

I'll continuously uninstall and install just the perfect games off my Steam library, and get all the icons arranged just right, but will never click on any of them.

I'll make sure I have a great name for the project, get the domain name registered, make sure the web server is working, but never put anything there.

I'll spend the day making sure my IDE has the perfect color scheme for maximum productivity, and never write a line of code.

I have a collection of empty journals. Very nice journals, quality paper, with specially chosen pens to go with them. The two never meet.

I'm not complaining or self-judging. It's just the way it turned out. But I know it's probably in the DSM-V somewhere, and was curious if anyone knew what I was talking about.
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Ice Cream Jonsey
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Re: I'm a SCENE-SETTER!

Post by Ice Cream Jonsey »

I do this a little. Part of it is that almost every game ever made but FarCry6 is over here and I can't pick. I have many emulators ready to go with what I think are the best games for a system. But I become paralyzed and dont actually play them.
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AArdvark
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Re: I'm a SCENE-SETTER!

Post by AArdvark »

I know exactly what you're talking about. I think it's the reason Linux goes in and back out of my desktop computer every year. The act of preparing to get ready to do something can be more fun than actually doing a thing. In my case it's the music studio downstairs. I unplug cables and move stuff around and plug in more cables but hardly ever play music. It's a fun way to spend a Sunday afternoon

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Re: I'm a SCENE-SETTER!

Post by Tdarcos »

I'll start with the simple one: Jonsey, your problem is just "analysis paralysis," in which you feel if you had more information you could make a better decision. Well, we never have all the information we need, sooner or later you need to pull the trigger and make a decision. If it's minor and you're wrong, admit it, and fix the new problem. A bad decision fixed quckly is usually cheaper and less stressful, than one you delay fixing, then have to fix later, or don't fix at all and have to live with. (America's problems with roads, tunnels, and bridges needing expenive repar or replacement is just refusal to fix old decisions on a systemic level. Deferred maintenance usually ends up costing more in the long run than regular maintenance and upkeep.) As the saying goes, "If you have to eat crow, eat it while it's young and tender, or you will surely eat it when it's old and tough."

Pinback's condition is just procrastination, and all of the symptoms he reports are typical of most programmers who hate external paperwork or other issues. Ben, your decision to not write code is simply boredom, the work just doesn't excite you any more. Or it's just burnout since you spend 40+ hours a week writing code you don't feel like wriing any more.

This was the exact same issue when I hounded you like Inspector Javert in Les Miserables, hounded the man who stole a loaf of bread because he was starving, because you claimed the Don Rogers Show was "down for retooling," despite it had been that way for years. I hounded you to "fish or cut bait," i.e. do something or admit it was too much work and it just wasn't fun any more.

You decided on the former (which I did not expect), then finally decided to eat your serving of crow after a couple of weeks and admit it was too much work.

So, what software program are you putting off?

I've put off working on the Interactive Fiction game The Librarian for the better part of to years, because of a critical parser error I can't seem to nail down. "Critical" meaning I've screwed up the behavior for a specific action verb necessary to use in the story that now does not work, but in a vanilla out-of-the-box stub program, the default behavior works, meaning my declarations and/or handler code are wrong. Fixing it means I need to go back through the list of command verbs, rip out the one I have, possibly remove any code handling it, then see what the default handler does that I don't like, the fix or override it.

Look, Ben, what are you passionate about? What motivates you? What are you interested in? Is there something you can work on that will either improve something you want to do, or would help an open-source program that you believe in?

Hell, if it wasn't for the fact that I'd have to take some weeks to be familiar with it, I am irritated enough to work on a way to make Firefox change or disable certain "dangerous" functions. Who the hell made Ctrl-N the "close tab/close window" function? I'd make that something very difficult to strike by accidentally hitting CTRL when you meant to do a capital N by holding the SHIFT key. But the program gives me no method to change the default keymap, some dangerous functions can neither be disabled nor moved to a different keystroke combination. Ahh, this is getting into a software rant, and we already have the "great moments" thread for that.

By the way, what IDE do you use?

or Pascal, I use Lazarus (produced by the people at the Free Pascal project) as it provides the ability to compile from the editor and insert breakpoints.

For other kanguages, like editing The Librarian, which is written in Hugo, I use Atom. If it wasn't just way too much work, I might have tried Eclipse, which you can write plug-ins for. It would be nice to have a Hugo-oriented IDE, it would show every routine and what file it was in, every object, every property and all variables and arrays. If you wanted to know what commands had been defined and which Do handler processes it, you could see it. I don't use Hugo enough to justify the work involved. I realize now I shuld have been using source code control, the I could just backout of a change that breaks anything.
Evil cannot create anything new
They can only corrupt and ruin
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Re: I'm a SCENE-SETTER!

Post by odyssia76 »

Everyone does that stuff. Some do it more than others. I do it too.

What Tdarcos said was good. All I can add is, think about your goals. What do you want to achieve? Write them all down, make a list, sort it, and then delete everything except maybe the top 3. As you cross each thing off, say out loud "I admit, accept, and acknowledge that {X} is something I am not going to achieve in my life".

No one can do all the things they would like to do. There just isn't enough time. And a lot of time gets wasted by trying to do everything, or deciding between things. You have to figure out what you really want, where you want to end up, and dump the baggage that prevents you. Have the acceptance and grace to let go of a bunch of lesser goals to achieve the bigger ones.

I've admitted to myself that I will never do a ton of things. I used to buy music software and instruments, but I stopped because I know I will never learn music. I admit I will never get around to learning another language fluently. There are a couple fields I was thinking of getting masters degrees in which I never will. I will probably never write a famous novel. And so on.

Has admitting those things made me more "productive"? It's debatable. But I definitely feel less self-guilt. And it makes me wonder whether or why I need to be "productive" anyways when I can just sit and enjoy watching the river.
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Re: I'm a SCENE-SETTER!

Post by pinback »

Thank you for your well-intentioned advice. I don't see it as a problem that needs to be fixed, though. Whatever happens is correct. I was just wondering if and to what extent others were similarly afflicted.

And now, just because I can't help myself, I'll reply to all of Paul's points.
Pinback's condition is just procrastination
That may be part of it, but I believe it has more to do with perfectionism and fear of failure. Before I start anything, it's perfect and flawless. Before I play a game, it has no bugs and is exactly what I wanted. Once I start something, though, that perfection is lost and I'll be forced to face my own inadequacy. But I am a procrastinator as well, can't deny it.
typical of most programmers
Programming was just one minor example of this. It happens with every other part of my life as well.
Ben, your decision to not write code is simply boredom, the work just doesn't excite you any more.
No, once I get rolling, I get rolling. But getting it rolling happens very, very rarely.
So, what software program are you putting off?
Right now, nothing! I'm ROLLING! https://github.com/joltcountry/sokoben
Look, Ben, what are you passionate about? What motivates you? What are you interested in?
This changes on a weekly, often daily basis. That's another thing, I'll get really into something for two weeks and then drop it. My passions are fickle.
By the way, what IDE do you use?
Visual Studio Code
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Re: I'm a SCENE-SETTER!

Post by Ice Cream Jonsey »

I have referred to "Visual Studio Code" at work, accidentally, as "Visual Source Safe" many times and the younger members of our team have no idea what I am talking about. I think Microsoft bought that program so maybe they didn't name it, but they are so bad at naming things I'm going to blame them anyway.

Also the Outlook and VSC icons look exactly alike to me and I click the wrong one every day.
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Re: I'm a SCENE-SETTER!

Post by Jizaboz »

Yeah, I am not huge on Visual Studio either. The most I used it for was over 10 years ago when writing and editing C++ code for a Doom3 project. However, I have become more used to using it because it makes a lot more sense to use it when working on Unity projects as opposed to say Atom. Of course, it still does stupid shit from time to time.

It can be hard not to get too wrapped up on preparation for some things. Aside from being really OCD about having things on my computer and actual desk perfectly organized it is something I have to look out for. Even with Duck Slide, I've had to force myself not to import more models and such to make the actual game "scene" of the first round more fancy with some trees and grasses and such. Focusing on finishing out the actual game mechanic coding because I know once I enter "decorating mode" so to speak I am going to spend hours just staring at the screen and moving decor around.

And yes some days it's just hard to get rolling no matter what your interest. Some days I wake up, turn on the computer, open my dev tools.. aaand end up watching TV for a while on a window for an hour or so then passing back out for an hour. Only self motivated activities though. Like you mentioned.. even down to just playing a game sometimes. If it's activity that I'm on the clock for then obviously I have no choice but to just start going through the motions until things start clicking.
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Re: I'm a SCENE-SETTER!

Post by Tdarcos »

Ice Cream Jonsey wrote: Sat Nov 20, 2021 8:22 am I have referred to "Visual Studio Code" at work, accidentally, as "Visual Source Safe"
Given better choices like Git, Subversion, Mercurial, CVS, or Bazaar (I have installed clients for all four and routuinely use Git), I can't see anyone using VSS any more. We used it where I worked, but I've heard people say it was buggy and sometimes corrupted the repository, which is a big no-no.

Does VCC support other SCMs?
Evil cannot create anything new
They can only corrupt and ruin
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Re: I'm a SCENE-SETTER!

Post by RealNC »

I'm the opposite of what pinback described.

I want to play a game on Steam that I've been looking forward to, but I never installed it. So I have to wait for like hours for it to download.

I have this new project I'm working on, but I don't have a name, nor did I set up a CI for it yet, nor created a project page, or anything else.

I constantly get annoyed when my IDE does something or highlights something in a way I don't like, but I just ignore it and don't try to configure a custom profile with my own IDE settings and shortcuts.

Instead of using some kind of system to organize my plans and tasks (not exactly a journal, but still) I end up with a gazillion of loose "todo.txt" files all over the place that I then have to do a file search for to even find. Sometimes there's several such files with almost identical content.

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Re: I'm a SCENE-SETTER!

Post by pinback »

Tdarcos wrote: Tue Nov 23, 2021 1:21 am Does VCC support other SCMs?
Assuming you meant Visual Studio Code (VSC), it supports every SCM. Either out of the box (git) or via extensions.
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Re: I'm a SCENE-SETTER!

Post by Ice Cream Jonsey »

It does not support, however, all punch card methodologies, only AGOL, GOLL-E and QR codes.
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Re: I'm a SCENE-SETTER!

Post by Ice Cream Jonsey »

I have scene set a bunch this week.

I have an IKEA cabinet and bought an 8 port RCA switch-through device.

I now have the:

1. Sega Saturn (RCA)
2. Nintendo 64 (RCA)
3. Nintendo Gamecube (RCA)
4. Playstation II (RCA)
5. Dreamcast (HDMI)

.. all hooked up to a small monitor that my wife got me.

On top of the IKEA stand, next to the monitor, is the Vectrex.

I have the Apple ][ across from that. And in close proximity, is the MiSTer FPGA, the Steam Deck and the Nintendo Switch, the latter two being portable.

Behind me is a Centipede cocktail-style arcade game. Oh and in the middle of the room is the computer desk with almost 1400 games via Steam, plus thousands more on my hard drive. There is a Retron 77, Xbox 360 and Amiga 1200 that are not hooked up, but could be. The Atari 2600, Playstation 4 and Atari 800 are in the living room.

It really does seem like everything is accessible.

(Except for FarCry 6, thanks to a murderous, organ-harvesting dictatorship.)

(Ok, I am waiting until 2023 to get Elden Ring and a couple other "big" Steam games.)
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Re: I'm a SCENE-SETTER!

Post by Jizaboz »

Nice!

Also, take your time with Elden Ring. Nearly everything positive I've said is getting stifled currently due to the fact that I can't kill the final form of the final boss after like 20 tries and a stat re-do lol at level 190. There's probably an easier, "cheese" way on YouTube to do it but fuck that.
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Ice Cream Jonsey
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Re: I'm a SCENE-SETTER!

Post by Ice Cream Jonsey »

Time is being taken!!!
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