I am posting this topic as a curiosity. I am trying to break into the video game programming industry, and I am curious to see if there any members on these boards that program.
If there are I would greatly appreciate it if you would tell me about your experiences in programming. I mainly ask, because it seems like a contradictory of terms in my case. Lacking attention seems to imply an inability to be focused on details. A person lacking ability to focus on details would seem like they have a huge handicap when it comes to a job that is nothing but details.
If you are not thoroughly confused by the last paragraph, than congratulations. If you are, please let me know.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Thanks,
Kevin
I've been programming for 5 years now and was only diagnosed with adult adhd about a week ago.
I find that there are lots of challenges and problem solving in this industry so when you get those it does excite you a bit and so you can focus on it the problem I always found is once I had 80% of the solution I would start losing interest and then the last 20% would take longer and usually have more errors in them, I countered this by doing very thorough testing on my apps, of course lacking attention to details some bugs will still slip through but there is a staging testing phase usually where the client tests and although it isn't great to let bugs through anything you miss is usually picked up there so you can fix them. I did find that a lot of the code that was challenging that I enjoyed was error free but the ones that were more boring and repetitive had more mistakes.
The big problems I found was when I started a knew job I would be motivated and learn and perform very well but once I had been there a little while I would get bored and uninterested and then my work would degrade. The other thing is programming requires that you learn all the time and read up on latest technologies which is fine when you are interested in a certain part but then when your not or you get bored (or just bored with programming in general, which can happen once you've done all the interesting stuff) with what you learning I found it extremely difficult to focus and remembering what you have read. The way I've dealt with this problem is by researching things as I needed it. This would make me slower than other people since they could recall from memory how to do something while I always had to refer back which can add a bit of extra pressure, especially since I always procrastinate and leave things till the end.
So short answer yes I think you can be a programmer if you want to be. I managed all these years without even knowing I had adhd so with that knowledge I'm sure you can find ways of coping with anything.
As for me I hope the medication works, it would be nice to only have to read a page once rather than 6 times. ;)
HI Kevin,
Absolutely you can do game programming. I'm not a game programmer but I'm 49 and have been programming since I was about 20. And only recently diagnosed with ADHD. What I think is important with ADHD is finding something you really like to do to overcome that difficulty in starting or finishing a project.
Some ADHD people excel in different areas. For me it was programming. Like Fusion79 said there is always something new to learn.
I think I'm struggling now because it isn't new. A lot of todays technology is old stuff rewraped. But to a young programmer it's all new. Especially game stuff is constantly changing.
One thing that programming does for me is treat me with immediate reward. At least for the programming I do. Lot's of UI.
Another thing you'll learn is a lot of your coding buddies will have ADD/ADHD. It's a profession that seems to attract them :-). Usually flex hours. Creative people. And often an industry that will tolerate swings in your productivity (assuming your really good at least some of the time).
So I'd say don't hold back. You may invent the Star Trek Holographic Room.
One thing that helped me also is competition with peers, it drove me.
Here is a great link on the topic.
It's a little hard for me to separate the bipolar from the ADD, because I was compsci sucessful major for two years in college right before BP hit. My first summer internship (when I'm sure BP wasn't a factor), I did very well in debugging. I think because it was a job I was paid/forced to do. I mean what if you drove a truck? You're not going to take a side street and drive around for an extra hour, its just your job. The next summer we even got really creative about working on writing code to do the tedious job we were doing...
Anyway my third internship was a disaster. I think I'm worse ADD than many and probably did less work than most ADDers would think about sinking to. We're talking like three hours solid work in a full workweek. I didn't have games, IM, nothing. I'm beyond puzzled what I did all day. The thing was, at this point it was my third time and I was left all to myself! I didn't even have any working with me on the project this time. It was just "go ahead, and report back in a couple months." My report as I quit sort of said "39.5 hrs / week tetris, 2 months".
Anyway I'm pretty sure most of the failure the third time was from the lack of structure, not cuz BP was about to hit. That is to say,
ADHDERS NEED STRUCTURE
ADHDERS NEED STRUCTURE
ADHDERS NEED STRUCTURE
If you want to do programming, I'd take a guess that you'd do poorly trying to start your own business or something, but might do better in a driving, thriving environment where there's a rigid structure and deadlines set, etc.
I feel I succeeded in programming and I hate deadlines and structure.
I need freedom to work or I shut down.
But I understand what you mean. I would say in my case clear goals help a lot but structure just makes me rebel.
I do agree starting a company might be tough but I wouldn't discourage it.
I just had a great session with a therapist and he explained ADHD nicely.
He said it's poorly named. It should be called Attention Deregulation Disorder.
Meaning sometimes you are HYPER FOCUSED and you will cover every minute detail on what your focused on. And there will be other times you can't even focus on what needs to be done to get yourself to work (get dressed, eat, find keys, drive, lock car etc.).
This describes my situation perfectly. I'll work on a problem (a piece of code or a bug) for 48 straight hr's. I'll skip meals and wait going to the bathroom. But there are other times I'll leave the car door open in the driveway or put a cerial box in the fridge (3 days in a row).
Some brilliant successful people are ADD because they could be hyper focused on something huge. It's that they can't always choose when to be focused is the problem (I should say condition, because it doesn't have to be a problem).
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