Are all coders basically autistic?

[Lee Bee]

I find that hard to believe. Scramble (1981) is one of the first side scrolling shooters and was a huge arcade hit.

I didn't say Defender was the only prominent horizontal shooter. I just believe there are so few that their number is dwarfed by the number of vertical ones.

[ParadigmShifter]

Scramble of course was a vertical shooter because the CRT was rotated 90 degrees :p

[Lee Bee]

In '83, horizontal shooters were almost none-existent, with Defender being just about the only prominent example.

I find that hard to believe. Scramble (1981) is one of the first side scrolling shooters and was a huge arcade hit.

OK I've checked through quite a few articles about early shooters, including this and this from the Shoot 'Em Up Wiki, and as far as I can tell, it really does seem (correct me if I'm wrong) that Defender and Scramble (both 1981) were the only two significant horizontal flying shoot-em-ups prior to Gradius in 1985. Meaning the genre simply didn't exist in the early 80s.

And given that not everyone lived near an amusement arcade, Mark Pollard might never have even seen a horizontal shooter when he made Viper III. This might explain why he committed the unforgivable crime of making the game right-to-left when everyone knows all horizontal shooters must be left-to-right!

[Seven.FFF]

I can’t see if anyone mentioned this yet but the cursor keys on every single Sinclair/Amstrad Spectrum model are in a horizontal row!

Tastes and conventions change over the years, and have never been set in stone. Most people can adapt to different conventions without needing to resort to slurs about other people who have nothing to do with the situation.

[Joefish]

That shmup wiki is a bit crap. No mention of Sky Kid for a start, which does scroll from left-to-right.

I remember being very disappointed that Penetrator didn't flip around and scroll the other way as you fly back out of the base.

[Lee Bee]

…without needing to resort to slurs about other people who have nothing to do with the situation.

With respect, I really don't think the OP was trying to be offensive. IMHO, it was just humor. I don't see anything personal or nasty about his rant, and in fact he extended his criticism to "all coders" (perhaps including himself). In fact, he called the game "clever and addictive" so this doesn't seem like a personal attack against the author.

I know humour is subjective, but much of the best humour entails complaining about, criticising, or insulting someone or something. Where would society be if we couldn't angrily mouth off about what irritates us? I'm a huge South Park fan and they make fun of just about everyone, including my own religion, which I'm absolutely fine with. (Looking forward to their big event this week.)

If a comedian's material is genuinely distasteful or crosses a line, the audience will naturally respond by not laughing and leaving. A tragedy of modern times is for venues and broadcasters to start banning and censoring popular comedians on the grounds of "offence". To me that's a slippery slope toward the stifling of artistic expression and real comedy.

[Seven.FFF]

I never said it was an attack against the author. It's autistic people who aren't well served by that kind of unthinking treatment, not coders.

You wouldn't say something was gay or retarded, or the person who wrote it was a spastic, without similar cringing all round. Even though those words have been suitable material for humour in the past.

It doesn't have to be an autistic person who finds it cringeworthy, or "finds it offensive" in your terminology, as if that somehow invalidates the cringeworthiness.

It's weird that I even have to explain this, honestly.

[ParadigmShifter]

Agreed. In SJOE I have banned (= you don't score points and it won't echo the word) SPAZ and CRIP (unless you turn on CUSS mode) since they are offensive and banned in US tournament Scrabble. In CUSS mode the full UK list is allowed which includes all sorts of offensive words of course.

EDIT: SPAS is ok of course you can go for a luxury break in those resorts.

[sn3j]

I find that hard to believe. Scramble (1981) is one of the first side scrolling shooters and was a huge arcade hit.

Also related: Super Cobra

[Lee Bee]

You wouldn't say something was gay or retarded

I'll reserve comment on the former of those words as it's a highly controversial topic and we try to keep political discussion out of these forums. But I must say, the latter of those words though is an extremely common put-down found in everyday conversation, especially in America. It's no different to calling something crazy, stupid, moronic, insane, mental, lunatic, and so on. Consider: have you ever called anything "stupid"? Would that be offensive to someone of a low IQ? What about saying "that's just crazy"? Should we therefore police our language in case there's any possible offence to anyone? As far as I'm aware, no one with a learning difficulty was ever personally insulted by such language. I have ADHD, my mum is severely handicapped - a cripple and a spastic while my dad has extreme dyslexia and learning difficulties, and we all use phrases like the above in everyday conversation.

[R-Tape]

Fellas this hasn't been the most on-topic thread from the off, but can we try and steer vaguely back to key choices or scrolling please!

[stupidget]

Fellas this hasn't been the most on-topic thread from the off, but can we try and steer vaguely back to key choices or scrolling please!

Completely agree. Some of these threads are starting to become somewhat WoS-ish in their I'm right, you're wrong, they're wrong, they're right manner!!!! I come here to talk about my beloved speccy and spend a brief bit of time pretending I don't live in a remarkably fecked up world and tit-for-tat comments bore that absolute arse off me.

[8BitAG]

Fellas this hasn't been the most on-topic thread from the off, but can we try and steer vaguely back to key choices or scrolling please!

When a thread asks in its title "are all coders basically autistic?" and basically questions if there's something "wrong" with their brains, you are going to get people responding and challenging that specific point. There are more appropriate ways to frame a conversation around bad key choices without reinforcing negative stereotypes about certain groups of people. The thread wasn't called "Why do programmers make bad key choices?" The comments here would certainly have been off topic if it was.

With the current title of the thread it would seem to be actually very on-topic to have a conversation about whether neuro-diverse people are particularly attracted to or proficient at coding; and also educate people about what "autism" actually is. That's a conversation that was started very much in that first post by the original poster.

Direct quote:

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?

[Joefish]

But I must say, the latter of those words though is an extremely common put-down found in everyday conversation, especially in America.
...
I have ADHD, my mum is severely handicapped - a cripple and a spastic while my dad has extreme dyslexia and learning difficulties, and we all use phrases like the above in everyday conversation.

Not sure either of those count as justification! Certainly what is common usage varies considerably between social groups, not just across different usage of the language.
I would count 'retarted' as referring specifically to a learning difficulty or limited intellect, something that is not a person's fault, and thus would be insulting. But 'stupid' is more of an attitude, which is more within someone's control. Having a learning difficulty does not prevent someone from wanting to learn more, nor does it even mean they necessarily have a limited intellect to go with it. And even those that do are still capable of knowing the limits of their own abilities. That, to me, is quite the opposite of 'stupid'. Highly intellectual and intelligent people seem quite capable of making 'stupid' decisions or wildly unfounded assertions which are entirely their own fault.

So you could say that 'stupid', directed at someone evidencing a learning disability, is an insult to them. But when someone has just done something genuinely 'stupid', when they should be expected to know better, calling them 'retarted' is inappropriate.

I find these descriptions fascinating, although again, they only codify one interpretation of the word:
https://bonpote.com/en/the-5-basic-laws ... stupidity/

[PeteProdge]

Wow, I really underestimated how distant someone could be from normal social discourse. Those justifications for those vile childish insults truly are grim reading.

I'll hold my hands up and admit to having used the ableist 'R' slur in the past, but that was decades ago as a naïve youth and not something I'd do these days. We're not in the playground any more and anyone over the age of 16 still talking like that must be trying their luck at being an 'edgelord' - which of course is the antithesis of charisma and wit.

Anyway, the cursor key layout on the Speccy was a massive pain in the butt to deal with, I could never see that being viable. And I don't think the PC gaming way of using WASD is optimal either.

[R-Tape]

Sorry fellas - we're locking the thread. It couldn't really be a key choice discussion from the off, and it's not really for the broader discussion of language. People have had their say, and if they think minds can be changed on this there are PMs.