This line made me think of what I believe is an important principle for building software: Yes, by God, we will trick you into becoming a better writer if that's what it takes – and it always does. Stack Overflow has many overtly gamelike elements . . . The idea is that "real life" tasks can be made more interesting by making them more like video games. See the WSJ book review for Reality is Broken. I like this idea a lot, and I think it will improve software UI for all sort of things, if people apply it to their projects. I suspect smartphone development will help motivate such work. I'm building a desktop app right now, and even before seeing the WSJ article, I often asked myself how I could make it more like a video game.