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Top developers can have a life outside coding

belenalbeza.com

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Re: Top developers can have a life outside coding

#41

Post by firasd »

Wonnk13 wrote: post #35
patio11 wrote: post #23

I propose the Daenerys Targaryen test. If you know who Daenerys Targaryen is, you do not have "no time." You have priorities which included "I wish to know who Daenerys Targaryen is." No judgement! I do, too! But if you know who Daenerys Targaryen is and you're dissatisfied with your career growth, you should attempt to consciously be aware of the fact that you can choose different things in the future. It takes minu…

> You almost certainly know one topic well enough to post something which clears that bar of utility on any given day I'm only 27, but I don't believe this. I know just enough to know I don't know anything deeply. Does the internet need another github page regurgitating the same stuff as everyone else?

I used to write quick blog posts some years ago, and post on social media often, but I never wrote something I considered a professional article because of hesitations like you're expressing: it needs to be 'uniquely insightful', it needs to be 'applicably useful', it needs to be 'well written.'

Then one day I was like 'screw it' and started posting to Medium. I've written ~7 things so far, quick articles, tutorials, or reposting a slideshow I made for other reasons, and they have all been read and been provided recommendations/likes/shares/feedback to some degree. In terms of career growth, it's not been an instant magical boost, but it's more like 'networking' in that it enables people to connect with you, laying groundwork for collaboration in the future.

The thing is, certain people you can reach at a certain time are a unique factor in what drives interest in your writing. Maybe someone didn't see the other github page, but they saw yours. Give it a shot.

Re: Top developers can have a life outside coding

#42

Post by pjmlp »

TickleSteve wrote: post #28
jkot wrote: post #9

I think this article is detached from reality. Most people who contribute to OS are on low income, unemployed or students. Top developers in banks and startups dont have time for that, or are forbidden by their company. Being "top developer" is one of the most family friendly jobs that ever existed. You can work remotely at your own time. I quit cubicle and started working on opensource because I had family. > you mi…

Despite rumours to the contrary... remote working is still a very small minority of coding work. The overwhelming majority of coding work (at whatever level, top or bottom) is carried out 9-5 in offices. Also "top developer" != "open source developer".

Yep! It angries me that I always have to fight for remote work, but it is not a problem for the teams down the corridor that just outsourced the work somewhere in this universe.

Re: Top developers can have a life outside coding

#43

Post by badminton1 »

UK-AL wrote: post #33
badminton1 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are referring to a spokesman or entrepeneur. A good developer is not necessarily those.

But if your a cto, you often are spokeperson and a developer at the same time. That's what he's saying

"Top developer" doesn't necessarily mean top in terms of hierarchy in a company, it can mean top in terms of productivity.

Re: Top developers can have a life outside coding

#44

Post by stedaniels »

the_mitsuhiko wrote: post #40
jkot wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All hours? Sometimes I code with a baby on my lap. They are in next room when I take break. And little baby sleeps like 16 hours a day. It has some trade-offs, we dont have a car or macbooks, but it works just fine.

> And little baby sleeps like 16 hours a day. That will end soon :)

Reading jkot's comments in not sure who's disconnected from reality. I do love coming across people who think they are doing things right and normal, everyone must think the same as then. Such ignorance is always astonishing. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised.

Re: Top developers can have a life outside coding

#45

Post by ACow_Adonis »

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #27
ACow_Adonis wrote: post #18

You can be hired into a position in an arbitrary hierarchy by having a life outside of coding. You can be popular while having a life outside of coding, or have something you wrote become popular. If that's what you mean by "top developer", then yes, I completely agree. If you mean "the skill of actually programming", then no, that's absurd. Would you tell someone they can be a "top sports player", if they have a lif…

I think people are reading too much into the word "top," which appears nowhere outside the headline. Variants on the phrase "good developer" appear several times, and should perhaps be the focus; "top" may have been a poor choice of words, but I think the intent is clear on a charitable reading.

Be that as it may, I think the point still stands.

My self and my (now) wife, as a living example, generally try to live close to work. We've rented for 10 years, moved 5 times now, and lived in a 1 bedroom apartment together for 5 of those and try to live without a car. Sacrifices many of our friends simply do not contemplate as "possible" On top of that, I've done my best to learn as much as I can on work's time.

All other things being equal, will the person who makes life choices, be it living out in the burbs, watching TV, having children earlier, partying or drinking, etc etc, be top developers, relative to me/us?

No. In fact, I can squeeze in hobby/health that takes place with the time/money (albeit not one that uses space) savings afforded by these sacrifices and still compete with them, and the synergies afforded will still probably put me ahead.

Now there are some people, perhaps those with rich parents who gave them access to computers earlier than me, buying them big spatious houses adjacent to where they work, with all the right connections and contacts who can probably out-compete...and as hard as this is to admit, probably out-ability me, but that's life, and that's reality.

But the other reality, in addition, is developer wages and conditions, ESPECIALLY in the US, are rediculously/obscenely high at the moment, and I'm well aware that there are people below me in terms of living conditions who are probably even hungrier for those positions than myself.

Could you be a "top developer" without putting in the extra hours that the top developers do? Either because you love it or because you're making a strategic decision to do so?

All other things being equal, I don't think so.

And if you DO, i think its probably because its due to being in a social structure that pretty much thumbs its nose at even trying to live up to the ideal of a meritocracy...

Re: Top developers can have a life outside coding

#46

Post by pjmlp »

stevetrewick wrote: post #7

> We, as an industry, are going to a dangerous place when we don't just expect, but require people to keep working after work. For what values of 'industry'? I mean, I totally agree that if this is your local view then you are in a bad place but IME this is far from universal.

Sadly the IT fashion industry tends to follow SV, like other industries follow Paris, Berlin and Mailand.

Re: Top developers can have a life outside coding

#47

Post by jwdunne »

jkot wrote: post #9

I think this article is detached from reality. Most people who contribute to OS are on low income, unemployed or students. Top developers in banks and startups dont have time for that, or are forbidden by their company. Being "top developer" is one of the most family friendly jobs that ever existed. You can work remotely at your own time. I quit cubicle and started working on opensource because I had family. > you mi…

It's funny actually. I recently heard a GCHQ radio ad for a software development role. The entire pitch was the nature of work preventing it from being taken home and as a result enjoying family time.

Re: Top developers can have a life outside coding

#48

Post by patio11 »

Wonnk13 wrote: post #35
patio11 wrote: post #23

I propose the Daenerys Targaryen test. If you know who Daenerys Targaryen is, you do not have "no time." You have priorities which included "I wish to know who Daenerys Targaryen is." No judgement! I do, too! But if you know who Daenerys Targaryen is and you're dissatisfied with your career growth, you should attempt to consciously be aware of the fact that you can choose different things in the future. It takes minu…

> You almost certainly know one topic well enough to post something which clears that bar of utility on any given day I'm only 27, but I don't believe this. I know just enough to know I don't know anything deeply. Does the internet need another github page regurgitating the same stuff as everyone else?

Github pages seem to be a very suboptimal way to publish for professional purposes unless you decide to design them, since the credit for whatever you publish there goes to Github rather than to you. (Not an exaggeration, either: I got quoted in the BBC recently as "this page on Github.")

I don't know what you know, but I bet it is a lot more than what you think you know. I was 27 once, too. My day job at the time involved scintillating subjects like dealing with edge cases in parsing the CSV file format used to encode the results of the central Japanese university examination. (センター試験) A fun edge case, which you absolutely have to handle correctly, is how to calculate the English subscore for someone who has a medical waiver from the speaking comprehension portion on account of being deaf.

I assert without fear of contradiction that if I had published on that topic, in Japanese or English, I'd be the world's leading publicly accessible authority on that question. How many posts in that genre would it take to totally own that file format, which is only documented in a single out-of-print booklet whose copies are guarded like cherished relics of an ancient civilization the likes of which we'll never see again? My over-under is ten.

There are higher saliency problems in the world than that CSV file -- oh goodness, are there -- but there are hundreds of people with hiring authority who care about that CSV file very keenly indeed. (I'd not particularly recommend working for any of them, but one problem at a time right.)

What's the weirdest problem you've solved in the last year?

Re: Top developers can have a life outside coding

#49

Post by radicalbyte »

jkot wrote: post #39
manmal wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have little kids? If yes, how many hours can you cut off daily without feeling bad for not spending time with them?

All hours? Sometimes I code with a baby on my lap. They are in next room when I take break. And little baby sleeps like 16 hours a day. It has some trade-offs, we dont have a car or macbooks, but it works just fine.

It worked great for me with one kid, but with a baby and 2.5 year-old it's impossible. Sometimes caring for both together as one person is impossible (i.e. if both are ill).

My son was amazing, he slept 16 hours, giving me 5-6 hours during the day and 2-3 in the evenings to work. Working at the same time was great.

My daughter however sleeps very erratically alone, however she sleeps OK on a person. So you have a baby in your arms for 9 hours of the day and a toddler running around causing mayhem (and demanding attention).

So, yeah, if you're lucky then it works.

Those sleeps will stop though, with my son he was sleeping 4hrs / day up until he was 26 months. Which is about as long as I lasted having a work-at-home day :)

Re: Top developers can have a life outside coding

#50

Post by paganel »

ACow_Adonis wrote: post #18

You can be hired into a position in an arbitrary hierarchy by having a life outside of coding. You can be popular while having a life outside of coding, or have something you wrote become popular. If that's what you mean by "top developer", then yes, I completely agree. If you mean "the skill of actually programming", then no, that's absurd. Would you tell someone they can be a "top sports player", if they have a lif…

> There's a little thing called opportunity cost, and whether we like it or not, how far you can walk down a particular skill-set is DIRECTLY RELATED to how much time and work you put into it.

Not sure about painters and musicians, but professional sportsmen burn pretty rapidly, both physically and mentally. You can be the best coder in the world at 25-30-35, but if you devote your time to coding and coding alone you will eventually burn out. It's not a matter of if it's only a matter of when.

I'd rather be an average-to-mediocre coder who codes well into his 40s and 50s then having to deal with depression and end-of-world scenarios brought about by burn out and the feeling that it's no use in you writing code.

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