10 alternatives to programming on your summer vacation
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A few days ago I talked with my friend Vidi about summer holidays. His plans where quite what could be expected from a programmer: mostly programming and maybe a few short visit outdoors if the weather is good. But mostly programming.
That made me think that we programmers really are a funny breed: Although we do coding all day long five days a week the first thing we do at home is think about some of our own programming projects. Just for fun! I’ve never heard of a doctor who was doctoring on her free time (or maybe I just don’t know enough doctors), just for fun, so why are we like this? I’m not sure, but I hope I’ll understand it some day.
But now it’s time for summer holidays. It’s the time when we should be spending time with our loved ones, our friends and family. And they aren’t always exactly thrilled to look at us fiddling with our computers all day long. That’s why I have collected a list of 10 activities that share some of the best qualities of programming while still being interesting to the non-programmer human beings. I’m also wrestling with the same problem, so if you have more ideas, feel free to share them with me in the comments!
- Board games: Chess (or some chess variant), checkers or strategy games like Carcassonne can be just as challenging to the mind as the interesting problem solving situations we encounter in programming. As an additional plus you can enjoy these games outdoors.
- Build your own technical gadget: Instructables has a great collection of instructions for creating interesting and sometimes useful technical devices such as the mad scientist lamp or a Pringles wind turbine.
- Build a Lego Mindstorm robot: This is probably too hard for small kids (I’m sure it’s too hard for mine at least) but for older children building your own robot and teaching it to “think” is an unforgettable experience.
- Plan a real life action game for your neighbourhood children: For example a maze made from furniture with different missions might be a great success. And you would be working as a game designer and developer - just without the actual code.
- If the above ideas are too far from actual programming, try teaching your children some programming (or grand children, or why not even your spouse) by using a simplified learning environment such as Scratch or Hackety Hack.
- Make a family web site: HTML is simple enough so that your family members will be able to learn how to do basic stuff with it. And then you can do your tricks to polish the site to look just as amazing as your family.
- Commodore 64: If you ever had a Commodore 64 (or some other computer from to good-old-eighties) why not spend an afternoon digging into your old games and Basic programs. You get to show your kids what you were up to when you were young and live some of your best memories again. If you have friends with similar memories, you could even have a Commodore 64 theme party!
- Read programming books: At some point during your summer vacation you won’t have much to do. It could be that your family is reading books or watching a movie. If you still have an itching feeling to start coding, grab a book on a new topic you would like to master.
- Participate in a coding Dojo: By participating in a coding event such as a Coding Dojo or a Game Jam you get to do programming, but you also have an opportunity to learn something new and meet new people. If there isn’t any coding dojos in your home town, you could consider starting one.
- Write code: If nothing else helps, turn on your computer and do what you do best - create software. But do it at a time when it’s not away from your loved ones: at night, or even better, early in the morning.
Most importantly: keep your mind open for different ways to see programming possibilities in your everyday life. Be proudly a geek, but make it accessible for less geeky people too. This way everyone can have their share of the fun.
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July 2nd, 2007 at 5:36 pm
see google’s programmers search engine http://devshots.com
Devshots returns Google search results, but emphasize on programming related sites and resources. So the search result will be smart and accurate.