Are all coders basically autistic?

[StanVanman]

Was reading this (it's really well done), and I decided to try out a couple of the games I'd never heard of, one of which was Viper III.

It's actually not bad, but:



I've always wondered how the hell this happens. How do you invent a game whose main controls are up and down, look at a keyboard with FOUR ROWS OF KEYS ON IT and think to yourself, "You know what, I'm going to choose two on the same row"? Who DOES that?

I've seen people explain this as "Ah, but the Speccy handles keys in half-rows of five so it's easier that way", but WHAT THE RATMANGLING SORT OF EXCUSE IS THAT? If you can't handle coding up and down keys unless they're on the same row, MAYBE YOU'RE NOT READY TO BE A PROGRAMMER YET. People are supposed to be PLAYING this thing FGS. And you can clearly handle coding TWO different half-rows, since you've put fire on a different one, so why not three?

Who thinks that's okay? Who actually thinks "Meh, I'll just make them use M and N for up and down, screw 'em"? What's wrong in their brains? And whatever it is that's wrong in their brains, is it somehow beneficial to being a coder, or does it just give you a predisposition to it?

[Robbeasy]

Everyone looked at Ultimate Play the Game games and thought 'if its good enough for those best sellers, its good enough for me'

[SteveSmith]

It is disappointing that some otherwise great games are severely hindered by poor keyboard layouts (I'm looking at you Ranarama).

[Joefish]

When you say 'all coders', do you mean the ones who coded, say, QAOPM as well?

Perhaps the question should be, what sort of publisher, whose job it is to promote and sell this to actual people, took this on and didn't think to say, 'you know what, we like it, but the controls are a bit fiddly, can you just maybe tweak them and then we'll write you a nice big cheque'.

But yes, this guy probably went on to design some of your favourite user interfaces and menus of open-source software. Or maybe UK government websites.

[8BitAG]

It really isn't appropriate to use the word "autistic" in the sense you have in this thread's title.

[SkoolKid]

It really isn't appropriate to use the word "autistic" in the sense you have in this thread's title.

Agreed. Aside from the negative connotations it seems intended to invoke, what would poor key choice (or poor UI design generally) have to do with autism?

[PeteProdge]

Agreed. Aside from the negative connotations it seems intended to invoke, what would poor key choice (or poor UI design generally) have to do with autism?

I have to echo the sentiments here, and I was diagnosed as autistic ten years ago. I wouldn't choose those key choices and that's nothing to do with my neural state. The context in which "autistic" is being framed here is effectively an insult. The OP should try educating himself on the matter.

[Wall_Axe]

Yeah a surprising number of games did this.
I think movie perhaps had the cursor keys 4567 which is insane.

It is confusing because making a game requires 10x the knowledge that it takes to read the keyboard properly.

Maybe they tested it on joystick and the keyboard was an afterthought.
If you owned several joysticks you might not be bothered about anyone who doesn't own them.

[Sokurah]

Agreed. Aside from the negative connotations it seems intended to invoke, what would poor key choice (or poor UI design generally) have to do with autism?

I don't think it's too bad. I mean, it's not worse than calling a friend a ... c-unt because he says something silly.
I just take it as an exaggeration of "what the hell were going through their heads when making that decision?" and not something actually related to autism.
Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, don't read too much into things.

[StanVanman]

Yeah a surprising number of games did this.
I think movie perhaps had the cursor keys 4567 which is insane.

It is confusing because making a game requires 10x the knowledge that it takes to read the keyboard properly.

Maybe they tested it on joystick and the keyboard was an afterthought.
If you owned several joysticks you might not be bothered about anyone who doesn't own them.

As far as I can tell it doesn't even have support for any joysticks...

[SteveSmith]

But yes, this guy probably went on to design some of your favourite user interfaces and menus of open-source software. Or maybe UK government websites.

Credit where credit is due, the UK govt has a terrible record for IT failures, but IMHO the gov.uk website is one of the most usable websites on the internet.

[StanVanman]

I don't think it's too bad. I mean, it's not worse than calling a friend a ... c-unt because he says something silly.
I just take it as an exaggeration of "what the hell were going through their heads when making that decision?" and not something actually related to autism.
Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, don't read too much into things.

The world wouldn't be the world nowadays if people weren't queueing up to tone-police everything anyone says.

[SkoolKid]

I just take it as an exaggeration of "what the hell were going through their heads when making that decision?" and not something actually related to autism.

Hmm, I'm not convinced. By that logic, the title might just as well have been "Are all coders basically gay?". (And I would regard that as inappropriate too.)

[ParadigmShifter]

It's not like autism prevents you doing amazing things either

[StanVanman]

Hmm, I'm not convinced. By that logic, the title might just as well have been "Are all coders basically gay?". (And I would regard that as inappropriate too.)

That's a ridiculous analogy. It is not a documented facet of homosexuality that it can make you blind to empathetically considering other humans or better at certain kinds of technical tasks.

[SkoolKid]

It is not a documented facet of homosexuality that it can make you blind to empathetically considering other humans or better at certain kinds of technical tasks.

That's kind of my point:

I just take it as an exaggeration of "what the hell were going through their heads when making that decision?" and not something actually related to autism.

In other words, by that logic, the title might just as well have been "Are all coders basically [insert irrelevant adjective intended to be derogatory and that also happens to identify a certain subpopulation]?". Which is clearly silly.

[Joefish]

I read it as various degrees of autism limiting someone's ability to imagine how someone else might prefer their controls to be, or what is more natural or intuitive to the masses, such as having the UP key above the DOWN key, rather than side-by-side. The sort of understanding that I find so often lacking in open-source projects because the teams are all highly focussed engineering coders, not human-interface designers. I take exception to the 'all coders' phrasing when the matter is clearly limited to a few specifically awkward examples. It also shows a lack of understanding to think you can say who is and who isn't autistic, since it's a continual scale that everyone is on somewhere.

Ironically, I know from experience of various people, someone with autistic traits playing the game may take the literal interpretation 'those are the keys, that's how you play the game, dummy', or, in another expression of similar traits, the complete opposite, i.e. 'why aren't these keys the same as that other game?' Both of which thoughts may just as equally occur to someone who isn't particularly autistic after all. But that's nothing compared to the feedback you might get from kids on your work, who sometimes really have no social filters whatsoever!

Anyway, onto the next thread, 'Are all people who post on the internet barking-mad narcissists?'

[Wall_Axe]

As far as I can tell it doesn't even have support for any joysticks...

Lol ok there's no excuse then

[Stefan]

Who actually thinks "Meh, I'll just make them use M and N for up and down, screw 'em"? What's wrong in their brains? And whatever it is that's wrong in their brains, is it somehow beneficial to being a coder, or does it just give you a predisposition to it?

So you are basically saying that you do not have your Spectrum slanted at a left angle squeezed in between the kettle and the telly?

[8BitAG]

I just take it as an exaggeration of "what the hell were going through their heads when making that decision?" and not something actually related to autism.

Then there are better words to use. And that was the original point of the comment.

When words are constantly used in a negative context it becomes impossible to disassociate them from those negative connotations. Autism and neurodiversity already have a huge negative stigma attached to them. I make no apologies about saying I'm uncomfortable with this thread title. The OP is at perfect liberty to ignore the comment, which appears to have been done anyway.

[StanVanman]

I read it as various degrees of autism limiting someone's ability to imagine how someone else might prefer their controls to be, or what is more natural or intuitive to the masses, such as having the UP key above the DOWN key, rather than side-by-side.

Yes, exactly.

[firelord]

I would use different keys:
U:Up , D:Down and F:fire
They are much easier to remember...

[ParadigmShifter]

I prefer N, S, E, W. UDLR good as well. For asteroids etc. which require rotation obvs C(lockwise) and W(iddershins). Flight games can use F(ore), A(ft), P(ort), S(tarboard)

Seriously though stuff like that probably came from old-school coders who used VI as an editor which used H and L for left and right and J for down, K for up. Because not all terminals had cursor keys. Dark Star default controls has up and down on the same row. And the less said about Halls of the Things the better

[bluespikey]

It really isn't appropriate to use the word "autistic" in the sense you have in this thread's title.

Agreed. 'Are some developers secretly cephalopods?' Would be a better title

[Dr beep]

Many games have control in just 1 portaddress, like QWERT or Sinclair I and Sinclair II have 12345 and 67890

It easier to test the keys pressed and is shorter.
Having said this, in most of my 1K games in the ZX81 I allow redefining keys once and then play the game with those keys.
So it is possible to have a larger keyinputroutine without seamingly “strange” combinations.