Part 2: How I dealt with a burnout
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Part 2: How I dealt with a burnout
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Re: Part 2: How I dealt with a burnout
#2"It would take about six weeks, and the deliverables included an iPhone app, an iPad app, a web application (both backend and frontend), and two Mac applications. It was very interesting, and I managed to get everything done"
Simply: wow. You're a shipping MACHINE. Good on you!
Re: Part 2: How I dealt with a burnout
#3Diddums.
Re: Part 2: How I dealt with a burnout
#4"It would take about six weeks, and the deliverables included an iPhone app, an iPad app, a web application (both backend and frontend), and two Mac applications. It was very interesting, and I managed to get everything done" Simply: wow. You're a shipping MACHINE. Good on you!
Well, it was a working prototype. The end result definitely wasn't ready for shipping yet.
Re: Part 2: How I dealt with a burnout
#5it seems like a transformation from programming itself as a goal to delivery of product/service whatever achieved with programming. I personally favor this view of programming as a tool not as a goal
Re: Part 2: How I dealt with a burnout
#6Diddums.
Doldrums more like? ;)
Re: Part 2: How I dealt with a burnout
#7When we're young (varsity age) we're unstoppable. I worked 18 - 20 hour days for about 2 years! But, we're not really. It takes its toll on the body (and the brain), slowly, without you realizing it, so you don't have an opportunity to rectify it before it takes you out completely.
Balance. Work hard, sure, it's fun, but exercise, eat well, and sleep. You have to fill up the tank once in awhile too...
Re: Part 2: How I dealt with a burnout
#8Seems like extreme shipping needs breaks of equal time :)
Re: Part 2: How I dealt with a burnout
#9Yeah, a month of 100 hours work weeks can be bad. Three months are much, much worse.
It's not just hours, though; what's worse is that "no time to stop for gas, we're already late" mentality of all deathmarches. So you end up working from unrealistic specs implementing architecturally unsound decisions using wrong tools and digging through a mess of unreadable ad-hoc code along the way. For 100 hours a week, no less.
It's funny, but what helps me most to recover after a deathmarch is more programming -- but done right this time. Something small, something smart, something that needs more thinking than typing. Maybe Euler project or codegolf, or maybe your own small scheme or forth implementation, or something :)
Re: Part 2: How I dealt with a burnout
#10The most notable part of this post for me was this quote:
> I went through a major transformation during my burnout: I now see programming as a means, not an end.
People, which is more typically a fallacy of youth, waste a lot of time arguing about pointless crap like Python vs Ruby (which are so similar technically that it's basically an argument about idioms).
Part of this I can understand: people often argue about things as a formative stage for their own views.
This also manifests itself with programmers trying to make the code "perfect", which will often entail overengineering or constant refactors (note: lack of sufficient refactoring/rewriting is a problem at the other end of the spectrum).
Another antidote to programmer burnout is this: go get a non-programming job if you've never had one. There are few better cures for your current woes than seeing how much worse things could be.