Go and Computer

[MJK]

It suddenly interests me that quite a lot of go players have a profession related to computers (programmer, software developer/engineer/architect etc., computer scientist, (mathematician)).

Why so?

[moboy78]

I would imagine it's because many people in those fields have encountered go during their careers and, to better understand what go is and how it relates to their work, have taken up the game.

[oca]

I would imagine it's because many people in those fields have encountered go during their careers and, to better understand what go is and how it relates to their work, have taken up the game.

This is 100% correct in my case...

[Uberdude]

I am such a person but it was not through my career I found Go, and I expect I am normal in this regard. I expect it's more that in the West the kind of person who likes playing board games is usually the more geeky computer/science type and so they are the ones more likely to give Go a try*. Also computers being weak at it is probably an attraction for such people. As for skill at the game, do we have more ability or work-harder at it on average than the arty types? Perhaps, though far harder to say. And the broader type of person who plays in Asia suggests perhaps not.

* Having said that I learnt of the game from a friend of mine who is a big games fan (from toy soliders - he works at Games Workshop - to board games) who has a theology degree, yet I (physics) didn't really play games before Go. But I got addicted to it more =). Perhaps another aspect is that mathsy/sciency/computery types like the elegant mix of logic, patterns and creativity in go.

[Hayang]

I've done some programming and design, and I find that Go is attractive because it involves creative problem solving. I think all of the professions you mentioned have that in common to a strong degree.

These days it's hard to come across a game of Go out on the streets unless you look for it. So people who are on the computer a lot have more chances of exposure online.

[MJK]

And the broader type of person who plays in Asia suggests perhaps not.

I've done some programming and design, and I find that Go is attractive because it involves creative problem solving. I think all of the professions you mentioned have that in common to a strong degree.

These days it's hard to come across a game of Go out on the streets unless you look for it. So people who are on the computer a lot have more chances of exposure online.

작문연습?ㅎ

Well in Korea from the 90s to early 2000s private go classes were very popular around the country and many children born in the 90s learned go in these places. I'm not sure how the older generation was exposed to baduk, but in either case computer was not a factor to make people play go.

Well, personally I am also a CS student and I just find it interesting and quite beautiful the visualisation and logical decision making to play a move in this game.

[Polama]

I've found programming and playing go to feel similar in a few ways.

The big one is the sense of operating on multiple scales at once. When programming I'm solving a particular problem directly, but another part of my mind is running through questions of integration, efficiency, and what aspects of this code might need changing in the future. Similarly in Go I'm looking to defend a cut, but also at some level wondering if there's a bigger move elsewhere, how different defenses would impact other parts of the board, and contemplating the aji left behind.

In both cases the "whole board situation" can't fit in your head at once before long, and you have to efficiently context swap your attention to different areas of the board/program, in particular ones that aren't necessarily clearly related.

I've also found that the experience of feeling lost while looking at a mess of code and trying to figure out what to do next is very similar to the feeling I get when my opponent's groups are all alive and I don't see any productive looking moves on the board.

I've met a lot of people who hate programming because you have to be so precise, but that there's also no way to be sure you did it all correctly. I've seen people make the same complaints of go.

I do suspect the main reasons are the cultural ones listed by other people, but I do think math, programming and go are all particularly cross-brain undertakings, requiring both creativity and logical ability.