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Ask HN: How do prolific programmers go about their daily lives?

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Re: Ask HN: How do prolific programmers go about their daily lives?

#71

Post by koder2016 »

tjholowaychuk wrote: post #63
tjholowaychuk wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is how I feel as well. I used to put more time into open-source and just code in general, now it's more of a means to an end for me, with the odd "passion" project. Life is short, don't waste it all working, even if it's what you enjoy, there are many other things to enjoy and experience. I refuse to work with companies now that put over 8-10 hours a day in, it's just too much, and fosters a competitive environm…

Also, I would say, even if you think coding is fun or enjoy it, ask yourself if that's what you want to be remembered for, or if you had a year to live would you be happy with having blown it all away on software. I'd bet the answer is likely no. It makes me sad when people in the community pass away and it seems that everyone is just talking about their work, there's so much more to a person (and life) than that.

Substitute "coding" with "painting" or "philosophy" and suddenly it becomes OK to be remembered solely for your masterpieces.

Re: Ask HN: How do prolific programmers go about their daily lives?

#72

Post by koder2016 »

reinhardt wrote: post #55
donatj wrote: post #8

Honestly until I met my wife, I spent the majority of my time at home building open source projects I knew would save me time later at work, and probably more time overall because the code will be less specialized to the project. This was almost every single night after work. My wife came along and showed me though that there is more to life than programming and I have to thank her for that. She's a wonderful gruf wo…

Great post. What I find most striking is how does one's (future) wife just "came along" when spending most time at home building open source projects. I mean, I rarely code any more for fun after work (and to be honest, often during work), I am actively looking for someone to get together and let me tell you, it's a bitch. Granted, I'm only searching online but then again I'm not looking for marriage material necessa…

Usually people get banned for mentioning this, but google for Reddit RedPill.

Re: Ask HN: How do prolific programmers go about their daily lives?

#73

Post by autoreleasepool »

koder2016 wrote: post #71
tjholowaychuk wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, I would say, even if you think coding is fun or enjoy it, ask yourself if that's what you want to be remembered for, or if you had a year to live would you be happy with having blown it all away on software. I'd bet the answer is likely no. It makes me sad when people in the community pass away and it seems that everyone is just talking about their work, there's so much more to a person (and life) than that.

Substitute "coding" with "painting" or "philosophy" and suddenly it becomes OK to be remembered solely for your masterpieces.

Yeah, I disagree with the sentiment of the gp. I wouldn't mind being remembered for my code at all.

> if you had a year to live would you be happy with having blown it all away on software.

yes, honestly.

Re: Ask HN: How do prolific programmers go about their daily lives?

#75

Post by askafriend »

ktaylor wrote: post #74

I'm a relatively successful coder and entrepreneur. My one tip for you that can change your productivity by an order of magnitude: Stop wasting your time reading/posting/liking on sites like HN, Facebook, etc.

How do you keep up with what's going on in the community?

Re: Ask HN: How do prolific programmers go about their daily lives?

#76

Post by collyw »

donatj wrote: post #8

Honestly until I met my wife, I spent the majority of my time at home building open source projects I knew would save me time later at work, and probably more time overall because the code will be less specialized to the project. This was almost every single night after work. My wife came along and showed me though that there is more to life than programming and I have to thank her for that. She's a wonderful gruf wo…

Kind of curious how you managed to attract a wife with that lifestyle.

Re: Ask HN: How do prolific programmers go about their daily lives?

#77

Post by collyw »

koder2016 wrote: post #72
reinhardt wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great post. What I find most striking is how does one's (future) wife just "came along" when spending most time at home building open source projects. I mean, I rarely code any more for fun after work (and to be honest, often during work), I am actively looking for someone to get together and let me tell you, it's a bitch. Granted, I'm only searching online but then again I'm not looking for marriage material necessa…

Usually people get banned for mentioning this, but google for Reddit RedPill.

That's a toxic place full of butthurt loosers many of whom seem to hate women. At least the seduction reddit is a bit more light hearted.

Re: Ask HN: How do prolific programmers go about their daily lives?

#78

Post by cprayingmantis »

eibrahim wrote: post #23

Thanks for asking this. I have always wondered the same and I look forward to the answers. I am not as prolific as many of the people you are probably thinking of but I am slightly above average. Here are a few things that WORKED FOR ME: - Learn & use GTD - life changing. I use omnifocus but you can do it with pen & paper - Automate as much as you can - checkout keyboard maestro and many other tools - Use your calend…

Starting out it seems hard just to work 8 hours a day when everyone else is in the office for 10 or 12. How do you balance this?

Re: Ask HN: How do prolific programmers go about their daily lives?

#79

Post by zwischenzug »

thisisnotanexit wrote: post #69
zwischenzug wrote: post #7

I've automated large chunks of my life. I have a JIRA for everything I do with customized workflows, and among many other projects I built this: http://hnalert.tk to mail me when subjects interesting to me come up on HN. I recommend reading 'Getting Things Done' and working at your own pace. Focus on the things you're motivated to do, not what you think you should be doing - that's what a paid job is for!

I'm getting an internal server error when I try to set up an alert on http://hnalert.tk

Fixed; apologies.

Re: Ask HN: How do prolific programmers go about their daily lives?

#80

Post by EvanPlaice »

honksillet wrote: post #11
zgardner wrote: post #2

We don't spend our time on HN

I found that I can skim HN without getting sucked in hours. Reddit however I have had to block in /etc/hosts .

Same here. My old job had a very feast or famine tempo which ended up with me getting stuck in a nasty facebook + reddit + arstechnica feedback loop between the feasts.

Blocking all 3 via /etc/hosts broke any interest I had in FB and Ars but I eventually added Reddit back to the list permanently.

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