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Ask HN: Are most of us developers lying about how much work we do?

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Re: Ask HN: Are most of us developers lying about how much work we do?

#711

Post by therealdrag0 »

Karawebnetwork wrote: post #41

I have never done what you describe, except perhaps in times of illness when it was understood that working less was a reasonable accommodation (in that particular case, I had leftover brain fog from general anesthesia). I've never heard of any colleagues doing it either. I would never snitch if it happened, but I would certainly consider that person untrustworthy or think that they have an undisclosed condition that…

I agree. I once had a coworker who I KNEW was under performing. They went from 'normal' output to just checking in and out.

It was pretty frustrating and de-moralizing as it felt like they weren't pulling their weight. Among teams there is a social contract, it's not all just between an employee and the company, it also impacts your coworkers.

Re: Ask HN: Are most of us developers lying about how much work we do?

#713

Post by rramadass »

viceroyalbean wrote: post #694
odonnellryan wrote: post #635

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The normals? Come on guys. Plenty of software devs are actually working during the day. What are you guys doing if you're not working? Reading articles? Playing Halo?

I didn't interpret the comment to be about not working, but rather about the non-linear nature of programming work. If you have 100 documents to process then you are halfway through after 50 and it will presumably take a similar amount of time as the first 50 did. When writing code you might have written 10 lines of code in the past week, but the next day you write 200 because you've been thinking about the structure…

>about the non-linear nature of programming work

You hit the nail right on the head.

This is the main thing that non-programmers (i.e. Management) need to understand about "Programmers" and the key to "Manage" them effectively.

Re: Ask HN: Are most of us developers lying about how much work we do?

#716

Post by Qub3d »

WalterBright wrote: post #591
cvwright wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just wanted to point out that this > I truly believed in the mission, worked hard, was paid a lot, achieved great things and was overall very satisfied. and this > used to leave at 5pm sharp are not mutually exclusive. We have this weird thing in tech where we think that, to be passionate, you have to work yourself into the ground. But this is stupid. There's organizational psych research going back decades showing t…

> going back decades Longer than that. In WW2, factories increased hours to 60 to increase production. The workers were all on board with this. Production increased for a while, and then dipped below the 40 hour results. Some experimentation showed that to get a sustained increase in production, the working hours would be increased for a time, and then brought back to 40, back and forth. Personally, I'm well aware th…

NPR's Planet Money just did a great look at this: https://www.npr.org/2021/10/27/1049786108/nice-work-week-if-...

Its very interesting--the research they present suggests that people worked much less before industrialization. It jumped massively as lots of low-skill people took factory jobs for the first time and worked 12+16 hour days, but since then has steadily declined again.

This was the big takeaway for me:

"...some of the leading economic thinkers of the last century expected the gradual shortening of the work week would just keep going. None other than John Maynard Keynes, one of the most important figures in economics - and imaginary friend to the show - famously predicted that we would all be working a 15-hour work week by 2030."

What a crazy idea. Or is it?

Re: Ask HN: Are most of us developers lying about how much work we do?

#717

Post by ploxiln »

> Do people regularly run into coworkers like me during their career and simply ignore it because they find it too awkward to criticize them? Have I just been incredibly lucky and every boss I have had is too incompetent to notice? Do I have imposter syndrome and I am actually a 10x developer whose laziness makes them a 1x developer?

Lazy developers don't really bother me, if you do a couple hours of high-quality work a week I'd have no complaint. (Many weeks I do as little, some weeks I do a decent amount of real work :) The problem is developers making negative progress, usually messes that need to be cleaned up ... and it's an awkward situation, no matter your relative authority. I'm in the "we should consider them lines spent, not lines produced" camp.

An old disputed quote:

> I divide my officers into four classes as follows: The clever, the industrious, the lazy, and the stupid. Each officer always possesses two of these qualities.

> Those who are clever and industrious I appoint to the General Staff. Use can under certain circumstances be made of those who are stupid and lazy. The man who is clever and lazy qualifies for the highest leadership posts. He has the requisite nerves and the mental clarity for difficult decisions. But whoever is stupid and industrious must be got rid of, for he is too dangerous.

Re: Ask HN: Are most of us developers lying about how much work we do?

#718

Post by abootstrapper »

viceroyalbean wrote: post #694
odonnellryan wrote: post #635

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The normals? Come on guys. Plenty of software devs are actually working during the day. What are you guys doing if you're not working? Reading articles? Playing Halo?

I didn't interpret the comment to be about not working, but rather about the non-linear nature of programming work. If you have 100 documents to process then you are halfway through after 50 and it will presumably take a similar amount of time as the first 50 did. When writing code you might have written 10 lines of code in the past week, but the next day you write 200 because you've been thinking about the structure…

If you really have a breakthrough you rewrite that 200 lines of code from last week to 10.

Re: Ask HN: Are most of us developers lying about how much work we do?

#719

Post by zachthewf »

bandyaboot wrote: post #666
ckaygusu wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Poincar%C3%A9 > He never spent a long time on a problem since he believed that the subconscious would continue working on the problem while he consciously worked on another problem. This is definitely a thing. Intellectual labor just isn't physical labor.

I can’t even count the number of times that I’ve had to give up on a problem after banging away at it for an afternoon only to solve it in 20 mins the next morning. Almost never fails.

Taking a break and going for a run sometimes does this for me as well.
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