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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?

#721

Post by sbayeta »

ryanschneider wrote: post #672
i_dont_know_ wrote: post #18

I think there's also something to be said for passive processing. Sometimes I'll know I need to write some code or some function and I'll just think about it in the back of my head while doing other things, sometimes for a whole day or two. Then I'll sit down and write it in like 20-30 minutes. Did I work 20-30 minutes, or have I been working for a day or two? I would say a day or two, and the 20-30 minutes was the t…

Rich Hickey’s “Hammock Driven Development” talk largely agrees with this view: https://youtu.be/f84n5oFoZBc

Awesome!

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

#722

Post by 67929 »

williamdclt wrote: post #90

I don't know about "most of us", but certainely not all of us. I work a solid 7h a weekday (not all of which is at 100% productivity, but all of which is work), and I know for a fact my colleagues work at least as much as I do (I personally think most of them work too much). And I seriously doubt you'd be able to reach anywhere near an acceptable output working Personally, it makes me uncomfortable to think that ther…

You work at a startup. Try being engineer number 2348219589211 at . You can work your ass off on real work and still get out climbed in a heartbeat by people better at politics and schmoozing. Most companies are like this for employees; they extract your potential business value for their direct sales value.

In these environments you don't feel so bad when people are gaming the system. If it's all a popularity contest at the end of the day anyways, what does it matter? Do your bare minimum to fulfill the contract such that you can sleep peacefully.

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

#723

Post by MauroIksem »

I've run into people like and usually i just ignore it. Other people doing more work definitely know, but don't say anything. It's a hard thing to bring up and it's harder to prove and if management likes you then complaining just hurts the other person.

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

#725

Post by _em_ »

i_dont_know_ wrote: post #18

I think there's also something to be said for passive processing. Sometimes I'll know I need to write some code or some function and I'll just think about it in the back of my head while doing other things, sometimes for a whole day or two. Then I'll sit down and write it in like 20-30 minutes. Did I work 20-30 minutes, or have I been working for a day or two? I would say a day or two, and the 20-30 minutes was the t…

Yeah, I am kind of similar boat. I actually has opportunity to implement certain algorithms which were pivotal in launch of specific products. I spent perhaps 3-4 hours implementing the whole thing but i kept thinking about the core problem for a week, so much so that i started dreaming about it. (this dream thing happen quite often).

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

#726

Post by 67929 »

novok wrote: post #509

As a relatively new manager, you figure out relatively quickly who are the workhorses and who are not as productive. If I were to guess, you were probably in the lower half ranking of people usually in that manager's mind. You might be more skilled than average, but also more lazy so that might average out your performance too. Not the best but you deliver value eventually so the manager feels like its worth more to…

> It has probably effected your career, you could've gotten promoted faster, but did not.

Nah, I disagree. I've worked my ass off at companies, gotten standing ovations from regular users who knew what the work I did meant, and still gotten terrible raises. Contrast that to simply leaving a company every 2 years, and I get an amazing pay increase. Your skill, contribution, and talent have nothing to do with your promotion speed. If anything, the harder you work on real skills, the less likely you are to be promoted in my mind. The best climbers I've seen have been also the most bereft of real skills.

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

#727

Post by chrisweekly »

ok_dad wrote: post #690
chrisweekly wrote: post #687

You're cheating yourself. It's never too late to start over but for crying out loud, can you really consider yourself "lucky" to be coasting through life contributing, learning, and growing at the absolute minimum level? I'm sure there are many others out there with similar experience; I hope some of you wake up and start living fully before it's all over.

Work is, for many people, not the most important thing in life. I prefer time with my family and son over working any day.

I happen to share those values -- but they're entirely unrelated to the post and my response. OP isn't trading work effort for family time; they're putting in decades of traditional work hours while mostly pretending to work.

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

#728

Post by frankthedog »

20after4 wrote: post #675
ww520 wrote: post #662

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely. Sometimes for the whole day I remove code because of dead path or rewrite part of the code because of wrong initial design. Am I adding negative productivity?

At a previous job, the boss awarded praise, and "points" each week for the developer who removed the most code from production. Counted as lines of code deleted according to git. (Points were redeemable for schwag from the company shop. They were highly desirable and nearly cash equivalents). Deleting code is arguably the most valuable work you could be doing.

That can turn into code golf quickly which makes reading the code later take 2-10x longer. I like the spirit oh this but the incentives are off.

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

#729

Post by hindsightbias »

oceanghost wrote: post #112
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.

Most of the best ideas I've had in my career were in the shower before work. The problem is making that a regular occurrence.

Steve Jobs had a theory that hot water on the blood vessels in the back of the neck increased blood flow to the brain.

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

#730

Post by derekp7 »

what_is_orcas wrote: post #50
i_dont_know_ wrote: post #18

I think there's also something to be said for passive processing. Sometimes I'll know I need to write some code or some function and I'll just think about it in the back of my head while doing other things, sometimes for a whole day or two. Then I'll sit down and write it in like 20-30 minutes. Did I work 20-30 minutes, or have I been working for a day or two? I would say a day or two, and the 20-30 minutes was the t…

> Did I work 20-30 minutes, or have I been working for a day or two? I would say a day or two, and the 20-30 minutes was the time needed to produce the deliverable of that work. I would say that I do this too. There's a lot of stuff I can more or less do on autopilot and stuff that requires actual attention and finesse , for lack of a better word. I feel like management thinks that I'm good at my job for all of the a…

The way I explained it to my boss, is to give him a list of numbers to add up in his head and come up with a total. He looked at the list for a couple minutes, then gave me the answer (I framed the whole thing as a riddle). I then looked at him and said it looked like he wasn't working on the problem for the last couple minutes. He replied that he was thinking during that time. My reply back is "That is what I have to do the majority of the time on my projects, is think about it then spend a relatively short amount of time spitting out the answer. The problem is I also have to look busy while I'm doing it". He then saw the light.
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