Re: coding under the influence

[blazar]

I had a friend of some reputation who learned to code C on basically cocaine and lsd.

Well, cocaine I can believe. Not that I have much experience with drugs at all, either personal or indirect, but as far LSD or other psychedelic drugs are concerned I find your claim at best extremely difficult to believe! Maybe he learnt C in a period in which he was also using LSD, but I doubt that he did code during a trip...

As far as pot goes/ if I smoke the stuff, I can't touch a computer for a week. It makes me feel like perl is just about printing html line by line.

Maybe because you, like so sadly many others still think that is a web-oriented programming language having mostly to do with "CGI & C."?

Alcohol makes me want to use windows machines. Fortunately, alcohol wears out. And I don't drink around computers just like I don't smoke around children.

Alcohol and *NIX can coexist, as long as you keep that minimum amount of lucidity needed not to drink and root!

[Anonymous Monk]

Well, cocaine I can believe. Not that I have much experience with drugs at all, either personal or indirect, but as far LSD or other psychedelic drugs are concerned I find your claim at best extremely difficult to believe! Maybe he learnt C in a period in which he was also using LSD, but I doubt that he did code during a trip...

Don't assume that LSD is always all about pretty colors, shiney lights and sex with hippie girls and/or boys. LSD can be an extremely heady drug and (on occasion) provide a suprisingly high level of thought clarity. In fact, most of the "myth" of LSD trips are not really just LSD, but a combination of LSD and other drugs (usually pot). It is also worth pointing out that, the drug trade being the way it is, it is highly unusual to find pure LSD, and most times it is cut with such wonderfully "healthy" substances as strychnine (rat-posion) and low grade "bathtub" speed (basically cooked up over-the-counter cold medicine).

Having never mixed cocaine (never found it appealing) and LSD myself, I cannot truely say for sure. But one drug (coke) providing the front brain stimuli, and the other (LSD) providing the "creative clarity" I would say it is highly likely that this did in fact work. Although I really really really don't recommend anyone actually try to prove my theory, as bad LSD trips are a very serious and very ugly thing which can do some really serious psychic damage.

Now, let me also caveat this by saying that all of this is based on ~10 year old experiences, but I highly doubt that the world (and the drug trade) has changed all that much since then.