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What it feels like to be in the zone as a programmer

dopeboy.github.io

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Re: What it feels like to be in the zone as a programmer

#91

Post by mmariani »

helm33 wrote: post #56
snarf21 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As another anecdata, the only way I've landed there more intentionally is with the two beer buzz. Working late on a project that is behind and you grab two slices and a six pack. Two beers in (and one every hour) and all of a sudden you just start tearing through code. I've had this happen to me countless times. I think it is because a lot of engineers have a brain that is spinning 1000% all the time and a couple of…

>choosing your line and focusing on executing it, everything else in life falls away. For me, this is skiing. Complete focus and attention on the task at hand. Winter, come soon.

Oh yeah! Cycling fast gets me there too. It's weird, just put your brain in a position of risk and your get pretty quickly to focus zen. I wish I had a a simple formula like this to get in the zone more often when programming.

Re: What it feels like to be in the zone as a programmer

#92

Post by luckydude »

Back when I worked at Sun, and got in the zone all the time, I worked on a ~32 hour daily clock. Because some of the work I was doing would take me about 8 hours to get back to the state of mind where I was yesterday. So instead of working 8 hours I would work for about 16, so I actually made 8 hours of forward progress. The 32 hour "day" was so I could have the rest of a normal day to eat, sleep, etc.

This got to be common enough that someone made a clock, where you could move the hands, it said "Larry will be in here" and stuck it on my door. I think it was sort of a joke but I think some people actually used it.

I couldn't come close to doing anything like that now. And at 55 years old, I can tell you that the days where you get in the zone, for me at least, are few and far between. I used to be able to just go there, now it sort of happens to me and I have to drop everything else and ride it before it fades away.

Re: What it feels like to be in the zone as a programmer

#93

Post by travmatt »

sktrdie wrote: post #4

I get this too, but it's very draining - similar to doing an intensive workout, or given a talk at a conference. The negatives are obvious; less sociable, more easily irritated, wanting to be by yourself. After you've spent a day in the zone, you're not really "party material". The positive (apart from being very productive) is that I use it to get my negative feelings out of the way - anything that is bothering in m…

"""" The negatives are obvious; less sociable, more easily irritated, wanting to be by yourself. After you've spent a day in the zone, you're not really "party material". """

That hits close to home. Ive thought about this a bunch and it feels as though setting up the mental context of programming, the implicit model I have of how a programs operates and what is happening, is an expensive process. I do wonder what exactly is being depleted in this process - glucose? Neurotransmitters? And whether it'd be possible to supplement this such that I minimize the cost of such operations.

Re: What it feels like to be in the zone as a programmer

#94

Post by travmatt »

hacker_9 wrote: post #10
sktrdie wrote: post #4

I get this too, but it's very draining - similar to doing an intensive workout, or given a talk at a conference. The negatives are obvious; less sociable, more easily irritated, wanting to be by yourself. After you've spent a day in the zone, you're not really "party material". The positive (apart from being very productive) is that I use it to get my negative feelings out of the way - anything that is bothering in m…

> Being in the zone is like getting an adrenaline rush Really disagree here, I find it's the total opposite more like a serenity and calmness. I also can get into it easily enough if I sit down with a plan of action and am not just writing code blindly and getting frustrated. If I find I can't enter the 'zone', it's usually because of some distraction (meeting coming up, feeling ill, not happy with the work, noisy op…

That wasn't the comparison to andrenaline though; rather, that both 'zones' are states that you may consciously place yourself into.

Re: What it feels like to be in the zone as a programmer

#96

Post by gprasanth »

EliRivers wrote: post #43

Oh yeah, here comes the zone, here comes the zone, it's taken an hour of intense study of all this code but now I can see all the pieces at once inside my head and I can feel exactly how to thread this code right through the middle of all of it and - COLLEAGUE LEANS OVER FROM NEARBY DESK IN OPEN OFFICE: "Hey buddy, what's the password for the - oh no, wait I remember." Wait, what was I doing? What's all this code on…

http://heeris.id.au/2013/this-is-why-you-shouldnt-interrupt-...

Re: What it feels like to be in the zone as a programmer

#97

Post by engnr567 »

When I was single, for most of my big projects I used to get 70-80% of the work done in 4-5 days of being in the zone. And then spend months on changing the bells and whistles. Now I have to be home at a reasonable hour and hopefully in a good mood. So I have become hesitant to even get into the zone, because getting out of this state of high efficiency would make me extremely irritable.

How do married people or those with kids balance such bursts of creativity with personal commitments to their family ?

Re: What it feels like to be in the zone as a programmer

#98

Post by dustinls »

derping69 wrote: post #63
falcolas wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No amount of control of my environment will put me in the zone when I'm working on boring code. Crud framework? I'll be reading HN while going through the motions. Code review? Time for some stimulating music (though not too stimulating, I do need to pay attention to the code review). But give me something interesting - a real challenge - and I'm able to get into the zone, the hours flying by like they were minutes.…

>No amount of control of my environment will put me in the zone when I'm working on boring code. adderall

Adderall just allows someone with ADD to get their thoughts from their head to the screen without the house of cards collapsing somewhere in between.

Re: What it feels like to be in the zone as a programmer

#99

Post by SimonPStevens »

engnr567 wrote: post #97

When I was single, for most of my big projects I used to get 70-80% of the work done in 4-5 days of being in the zone. And then spend months on changing the bells and whistles. Now I have to be home at a reasonable hour and hopefully in a good mood. So I have become hesitant to even get into the zone, because getting out of this state of high efficiency would make me extremely irritable. How do married people or thos…

I usually don't start work on side projects until the kid(s) are asleep. Only works while they are young I guess. My wife has always been understanding of my personal projects, provided I don't let them dominate every waking hour.

When they are older I plan to teach them useful complimentary skills. Graphics design. Testing. Copywriting. Marketing. Sales. :-)

Re: What it feels like to be in the zone as a programmer

#100

Post by QuercusMax »

I find that doing TDD makes it much easier to get in the zone; more importantly, it helps to get back into the zone if I get off track.

I typically stub out a bunch of tests (just empty methods named based on what I plan to test), then go one by one and fill in the tests and write the implementations.

In the codebase I work in, we use a lot of mocks / fakes, so I typically write my tests "in reverse" - first the verification of results, then the mock / fake expectations for what methods should have been called. Then I'll write the actual implementation, and then fill in the mock inputs.

This way, if I get interrupted, it's very easy to transition back into what I was working on, as I make sure to always leave a breadcrumb trail for the next piece (when I run my test, the failure will give me a hint as to the next step to take). And since I have a bunch of stubbed out test methods, once one bit is finished, I can move onto the next one and repeat the process.

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