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Do Recreational Drugs Help Programmers?
jfruh writes "Among the winners of last night's election: marijuana users. Voters in both Washington and Colorado approved referenda that legalized marijuana for recreational use, though the drug remains illegal under federal law. There's been a long-standing debate among programmers as to whether recreational drugs, including pot and hallucinagens like LSD, can actually help programmers code. Don't forget, there was a substantial overlap between the wave of computer professionals who came of age in the '60s and that era's counterculture." (There's even a good book on that topic.)
First cup of coffee gets first post!
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
In case you were tempted to RTFA, don't. You have to click through two ad-laden pages, and there really isn't any more information than in the summary.
THC... sometimes for certain people. It helps me focus, and some of the best code I've done has been while stoned.
LSD on the other hand... I can't even read the text on the screen and find it difficult just to play music on my computer. I think that after the fact it leaves one with a more holistic and empathic perspective on life, but it sure as hell can't help you at the time of being high - similarly with pretty much any other psychedelic drug (I have the term hallucinogen, because they don't really make you hallucinate, strictly speaking).
Perhaps you need another cup; it's "caffeine".
Your friend was doing it wrong. The intoxicant helps draw connections between things you wouldn't've necessarily thought to connect beforehand, gives you ideas, sends you off in an unexpected direction.
The work that derives from that initial idea, the actual making stuff of it, should be done sober.
I have seen code produced by a drunk person before, it is ridiculous,
You might think you can, but you cannot code drunk.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Only if you use it rarely. If you use it regularly, your body will get used to it and usage will only get you to the same level as those who don't use it. And not using it will drop you below their level. But I think you can recover within a week or two if you stop using it.
I don't think the idea is you code while high. I think the idea is that getting high last night affects the way your brain works today. Either because of simple stress relief or something more complicated. LSD in particular is known to have serious and long lasting effects on brain function, and not all of them negative. For example, a single dose of LSD can increase the chances of an alcoholic staying sober by a significant margin, significant enough that if it weren't for the stigma associated with it it would probably be part of standard rehab.
http://www.trinity.edu/jdunn/spiderdrugs.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effect_of_psychoactive_drugs_on_animals [
There's some evidence that humans shouldn't use marijuana if they are young and their brains are still developing: http://www.medicaldaily.com/articles/11417/20120809/marijuana-brain-damage-memory-learning-drug-habit-addiction.htm
Well ... it's a bit of a stretch ... but quoted from Scientific American and BBC news ...
In the current issue of the South African Journal of Science, Francis Thackeray of the Transvaal Museum in Pretoria and his colleagues document the presence of cocaine and myristic acid (a plant-derived hallucinogen) in clay-pipe fragments retrieved from the beloved bard's Stratford-Upon-Avon home. Their analysis also hints at the presence of marijuana residues.
Though the pipe cannot be definitively linked to Shakespeare himself, it is certain that it dates to the 17th century. This fact came as a surprise to the scientists; previously, the earliest known record of cocaine in Europe dated to only 200 years ago.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=shakespeare-on-drugs
Today I learned that no one who experiences stress of any kind is happy, ever.
Thank god Slashdot has such good psychology credentials.
DRM: Terminator crops for your mind!
The weed relieves the stress and makes him happy.
It really isn't that difficult to understand.
I have depression issues, I take anti-depressants, it is not contradictory that the end result is that I am not depressed.
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