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Impact of a Night of Sleep Deprivation on Novice Developers’ Performance (2018)

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Re: Impact of a Night of Sleep Deprivation on Novice Developers’ Performance (2018)

#21

Post by chasd00 »

wallflower wrote: post #10

When I was younger, like many people, I thought of all-nighters as a thing to brag about. Now, I see sleep deprivation as a serious health debt that you pay nosebleed compound interest rates on. If you get less than your preferred amount of sleep, everyday living can become more complicated. Simple tasks can become dangerous. Do not walk down stairs without holding the hand rail if you are tired! Also, my sleep track…

i use to think this way too.

When i was HS living out in the countryside of North Texas the father of a friend of mine would take me hunting and target shooting a lot. He said he did an experiment once where he shot 3 groups of 5 shots then measured his precision and accuracy. Next, he drank a beer (i know, not the wisest thing to do) then repeated the shooting exercise. He did this for a few iterations and his conclusion was that it didn't matter that he didn't feel the effects of the alcohol right away, his shooting steadily declined on each iteration.

I think sleep is the same way, whether or not you immediately notice you're not getting enough sleep your performance steadily declines.

Re: Impact of a Night of Sleep Deprivation on Novice Developers’ Performance (2018)

#23

Post by chasd00 »

cocochanel wrote: post #15
Robotbeat wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some of this is just aging, though. When younger, I could do all nighters regularly and bounce back quickly. Can’t do it any more without, as you say, nosebleed interest.

The harsh reality. Many of the lifestyle habits simply become exponentially harder as we age.

i watch my kids bounce back from and fight through illness in awe. My wife says i suffer from "man colds" but when i have a fever i'm completely incapacitated. I just lie in bed and think "... so this is how it ends" heh

Re: Impact of a Night of Sleep Deprivation on Novice Developers’ Performance (2018)

#24

Post by dtwhitney »

chasd00 wrote: post #19

Three team leads were sitting at an airport bar waiting on a flight. The first says "my developers are so strong they can code all day without a single break". The second lead replied "my developers are so dedicated they will work through the night without rest until the job is done". The third listened intently and then replied "my developers are professionals, they eat when they are hungry and they sleep when they…

Aww come on! No punch line?

Re: Impact of a Night of Sleep Deprivation on Novice Developers’ Performance (2018)

#25

Post by rimliu »

lr4444lr wrote: post #20
heymijo wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"as a serious health debt" Except, sleep isn't a debt because the loss can't be repaid. This is one of many important things I have picked up from Dr. Matthew Walker who wrote "Why We Sleep" and has been doing the podcast rounds lately. Not to pick on you at all. It sounds like you have made some big realizations and are making fantastic changes. Realizing I can't make up sleep to pay off the "debt" has been eye open…

I don't know if you have children yet, but I regret to inform you if you don't that significant sleep deprivation is in your future unless you plan to extensively involve caregivers outside of you and your spouse.

No necessary. We were lucky, but our daugher gave us very little trouble in this regards. She was breastfed, so feeding her at night was a minimum hassle at night and wife barely had to wake up for it. Not sure where on the rule-exception continuum this expierience falls, but my point is that having a newborn does not guaranty you an miserable existance in the zombie mode.

Re: Impact of a Night of Sleep Deprivation on Novice Developers’ Performance (2018)

#26

Post by dakics »

I've bought recently one of those cheap wrist bands.

One of the most important features for me was ability to measure sleep quality in terms of "daily hours of deep sleep," whatever that scientifically means.

Over the course of several months, I've been able to identify things which affect my sleep quality:

* eating late: bad

* drinking late: one beer... not really that bad

* answering work emails until midnight: REALLY BAD (even while drinking soothing chamomile tea during soft rain) etc.

I'm trying as reduce as many "bad" things as possible as I can feel a huge difference between 30 mins and 3+ hrs of deep sleep, as measured by the device.

I feel much better during the day, can work more productively and, most importantly, my "fuse" seems to be much longer.

Probably best $30 ever spent.

(still missing weekend code binges of early 20s, though :/ )

Re: Impact of a Night of Sleep Deprivation on Novice Developers’ Performance (2018)

#27

Post by FrojoS »

leesec wrote: post #18
heymijo wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"as a serious health debt" Except, sleep isn't a debt because the loss can't be repaid. This is one of many important things I have picked up from Dr. Matthew Walker who wrote "Why We Sleep" and has been doing the podcast rounds lately. Not to pick on you at all. It sounds like you have made some big realizations and are making fantastic changes. Realizing I can't make up sleep to pay off the "debt" has been eye open…

This book, and "The Case Against Sugar" have been, by far, the two most impactful books in my life in recent years. They've genuinely changed my life for the better.

What is your opinion on this, quite damning review? http://www.stephanguyenet.com/bad-sugar-or-bad-journalism-an... as well as this one https://nutritionsciencefactcheck.com/2017/07/20/the-case-ag...

Re: Impact of a Night of Sleep Deprivation on Novice Developers’ Performance (2018)

#28

Post by flyingpenguin »

itamarst wrote: post #8

This isn't a very surprising result: there's a whole body of research showing sleep deprivation reduces cognitive abilities. So why do programmers still sleep less than they need to? Often it's because they're working long hours, and to get time for the rest of their life they cut back on sleep. If that's you—it doesn't have to be that way. You can set boundaries at work ( https://codewithoutrules.com/2019/04/03/sett…

I think caffeine and other uppers play a large role as well. I am sitting at a desk doing nothing but I need my brain to be in the state its in when I am doing harrowing physical activity.

My quality of sleep reflects this.

Re: Impact of a Night of Sleep Deprivation on Novice Developers’ Performance (2018)

#29

Post by mettamage »

AstralStorm wrote: post #5

Not exactly the best experimental design here. Instead, canadian cross should be used which would reduce and detect variation between individuals. (Same devs on multiple occasions, sometimes well slept, sometimes not. Matching tasks for both groups. Learning effect is controlled by swapping group order of task execution. This is fully factorial fully crossed design.) However, the magnitude is indeed big and the resul…

IMO, as far as research has been done in this field: the only point they need to make with experiments at the moment is that it has a huge impact.

Hopefully, they now are able to get amazing grants because of these results to study it more in-depth.

The politics of science >= doing actual good science [1]

[1] Provided the right intentions are there (advancing truthful knowledge of humanity)

Re: Impact of a Night of Sleep Deprivation on Novice Developers’ Performance (2018)

#30

Post by bluejekyll »

rimliu wrote: post #25
lr4444lr wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if you have children yet, but I regret to inform you if you don't that significant sleep deprivation is in your future unless you plan to extensively involve caregivers outside of you and your spouse.

No necessary. We were lucky, but our daugher gave us very little trouble in this regards. She was breastfed, so feeding her at night was a minimum hassle at night and wife barely had to wake up for it. Not sure where on the rule-exception continuum this expierience falls, but my point is that having a newborn does not guaranty you an miserable existance in the zombie mode.

Based on my personal experience with two kids, it’s completely random what type of kid you’ll get. My first would wake every hour at night and require a lot of effort to get back to sleep, this lasted until he was at least a year. My second was far better, but still created sleep deprived parents for the first four months.

Having at least 3-4 months of an infant after birth (the forth trimester) be difficult to sleep and calm down is quite normal. And based on the anecdotal data from my friends in similar points of their lives, even average.

The outliers are the ones who sleep through the night immediately (which can be dangerous) and those who wake up every sleep cycle.

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