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The Price of (Dev) Happiness: Part One

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Re: The Price of (Dev) Happiness: Part One

#3
post #2

I had no idea that some people like to code standing up; why is this? (Genuine curiosity, someone enlighten me please :))

Sitting for a very long time is bad for you. It causes increased chance of death, causes your back to hurt, makes you fatter, and lets your energy level go down after hours of doing it.

It's not so much the "coding" part as the "sitting at a desk for 10+ hours a day" part that makes standing desks so attractive to programmers.

http://pressroom.cancer.org/index.php?s=43&item=257

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/175656.php

Re: The Price of (Dev) Happiness: Part One

#4
post #2

I had no idea that some people like to code standing up; why is this? (Genuine curiosity, someone enlighten me please :))

I haven't done it a lot, but I like to pace when I'm thinking about a hard problem. Having my computer at standing height means I can go straight from thinking through the problem to coding the solution without the attention shift of settling back down to a sitting desk.

Reportedly, there are also health benefits to standing rather than sitting.

Re: The Price of (Dev) Happiness: Part One

#5
post #2

I had no idea that some people like to code standing up; why is this? (Genuine curiosity, someone enlighten me please :))

There is a lot of discussions about this on Hacker News and generally people who work standing are happy about it.

See eg http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2828948

For more http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/submissions&q=sta...

Re: The Price of (Dev) Happiness: Part One

#6
post #5
post #2

I had no idea that some people like to code standing up; why is this? (Genuine curiosity, someone enlighten me please :))

There is a lot of discussions about this on Hacker News and generally people who work standing are happy about it. See eg http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2828948 For more http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/submissions&q=sta...

I tried to do it exclusively at one place. Did not work out as well, but once I got a stool could vary the amount I did, that worked out well.

Re: The Price of (Dev) Happiness: Part One

#7
post #2

I had no idea that some people like to code standing up; why is this? (Genuine curiosity, someone enlighten me please :))

Here's a write up I did, that includes more links on why I switched to it: http://jessenoller.com/2011/04/25/switching-to-a-standing-de...

Re: The Price of (Dev) Happiness: Part One

#9
post #2

I had no idea that some people like to code standing up; why is this? (Genuine curiosity, someone enlighten me please :))

I switched to a sit-to-stand desk for comfort.

Buttocks and legs would get sore if I sat too long a day. I only learned about it being healthier for you after I started using my desk.

I alternate every hour or so for an hour.

Re: The Price of (Dev) Happiness: Part One

#10

How many dev shops still give everyone workstations? Our company is entirely on laptops and I don't know a single person here that wants a workstation.

Depends on the shop, and the needs of that shop.

If your development necessitates that you run one or more virtual machines on a consistent basis, the 8GB memory limitation of most laptops bites your hand almost immediately. If you work on VLDBs, the lack of storage and I/O bites your hand almost immediately. If your developers largely don't need to be mobile, you're paying a significant premium for mobility and sacrificing power when those sacrifices aren't necessary. If you develop games or iPad applications, the lack of display real estate annoys the crap out of you almost immediately.

Different strokes for different folks.

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