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the world needs more recreational programming.
like, was this the most optimal or elegant way to code this?
no, but it was the most fun to write.
cause like, yeah, it's good to know how to write optimal code and how to make it elegant and easy to maintain, sure!
but one thing you have to maintain is your brain. If you're constantly driving your programming brain at maximum speed, maximum awareness of all possible caveats and vulnerabilities, always considering "how will I maintain this code in ten years time?" you're going to burn yourself out.
You're associating programming with a high-stress high-attention activity. That's going to make programming something that's categorized in your brain as no fun, never relaxing, never something you do just cause it would be interesting... you're going to start dreading it, even just a little. "oh well, let's get this over with."
That's not a good way to think about it in the long run.
we often say that programming is more an art than a science, but we need to treat it like one too.
Sometimes you need to paint a sunset not because someone paid you to paint a sunset, but because it'd be fun to paint a sunset.
we need a bob ross of programming
@foone@digipres.clubPBS's The Joy Of Programming
@foone except every episode ends with the host screaming
@foone@digipres.club happy little subroutines
@foone Oooh. I know a guy.
@foone I like this a lot. A project every season? You follow along and you're pointed to learning resources on a PBS landing page for the show. This would be nice resource for resource-strapped schools.
@therieau yeah it's the kind of thing the BBC would do in the 80s
@foone Shit, we could do this on Twitch, but we wouldn't have nearly the audience. Think how many people have broadcast-ready facilities in their homes. Show, round-up show, podcast, learning guides. This could be a big deal.
@foone closest I've seen is the Coding Train guy, but he's less Bob Ross, more Richard Simmons
@foone *and I love him for that* 
@foone PBR the beer of programming?
@foone I've played with Scratch a little with the kid and that could be a fun show, just animating the sprites and interacting in interesting ways. I'm not sure how many episodes you can do, but neither was Bob Ross I'm sure.
@foone
Until this becomes a thing, I'll just keep rewatching Abelson and Sussman's SICP lectures.
...happy little binary trees...
Also: this is why I like writing my little FOSS projects. There's absolutely no external pressure so I can just explore the problem. It's the good-parts-only version of programming.
@foone That may not be the output we wanted, but some random chunk of memory. Still it's very beautiful in its own unique way. Every chunk of memory deserves a little time on stdout if you think about it. Happy little off by one errors.
@sebastian @foone this is literally what Coding Adventures by Sebastian Lague on youtube are
@uint8_t @sebastian @foone Sebastian was the person that jumped to mind as soon as I saw "Bob Ross of programming". such a soothing voice.
@uint8_t @sebastian @foone Ah! You beat me to it!
@foone misread this as PSB’s Joy of Programming and now I’m looking forward to a public service broadcasting concept album / song cycle about such a thing. I can almost hear the whooshing sound of a reel-to-reel warming up opening the piece …
@foone There's no bugs. There are just happy little coding accidents.
@foone I vote for @shanselman to host
@foone i know your whole point is that we shouldn't only ever try to be practical, but as an additional bonus, i genuinely think all the hours of code golf i did for fun have made me a better programmer
not that any "normal" code i ever write looks golfed at all, but you learn so much about a language when you're digging into the weeds looking for ways to save bytes
Mozilla's @mconley has done more than 350 episodes of "The Joy of Coding" and they're great https://mikeconley.ca/joc/ cc @foone
@gvwilson @foone I can't say I have the smooth stylings of Bob Ross, but if you're looking for someone to make happy little software-development mistakes in front of an audience, with cable-access production value, I'm your guy!
Maybe less ASMR-y, more "here's how the sausage is made, here's a paid professional struggling, warts and all" kind of thing.
@foone
the guy writing Komorebi (win11 tiling window manager) has this going on kinda https://youtu.be/0zX289iBOd4