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1x Programming

tim.mcnamara.nz

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Re: 1x Programming

#121

Post by linspace »

qsort wrote: post #47
angarg12 wrote: post #25

I praise 1x programmers, but for reasons that might go against the grain in HN. I'm from Spain so our working ethic is different from the Anglo-Saxon world. "Work to live, don't live to work" as the saying goes. My principles for a 1x programmer: * Work is a means to an end. A job should support the lifestyle you want to achieve, not be an end on itself. * 9-to-5 is a perfectly reasonable schedule. Fiercely protects…

I'm from Italy, very similar country, very similar work ethic. I agree that, if anything, it's people like me who are weirdly obsessive about their jobs to be the odd ones out. I have a couple drifts about that, though: - I spend 40+ hours a week in front of a terminal. That is a lot of time. Trying to do a good job and finding interest in what I do is at least in part a self-defense mechanism: if I'm invested in wha…

> Trying to do a good job and finding interest in what I do is at least in part a self-defense mechanism

This. Gamification, but for real prizes.

Re: 1x Programming

#122

Post by zimpenfish »

jjav wrote: post #116
angarg12 wrote: post #25

I praise 1x programmers, but for reasons that might go against the grain in HN. I'm from Spain so our working ethic is different from the Anglo-Saxon world. "Work to live, don't live to work" as the saying goes. My principles for a 1x programmer: * Work is a means to an end. A job should support the lifestyle you want to achieve, not be an end on itself. * 9-to-5 is a perfectly reasonable schedule. Fiercely protects…

> Some will argue that one could never be a good developer following those principles. I'll argue those people need a reality check based on how things work in every other profession. My dentist is a great dentist but she works 8am-3pm and most decidedly does not spend an additional 8 hours slogging through leettooth exercises on topics barely realated to the practice of dentistry. My friend is a respected surgeon, b…

> I'll argue those people need a reality check based on how things work in every other profession.

Unfortunately, at least in my recent London experience, those people tend to be the ones having the yay/nay in hiring decisions.

Re: 1x Programming

#123

Post by addaon »

dsr_ wrote: post #28

In Peopleware, DeMarco and Lister write: Count on the best people outperforming the worst by about 10:1. Count on the best performer being about 2.5 times better than the median performer. Count on the half that are better-than-median performers outdoing the other half by more than 2:1. What nearly everyone who has read that remembers is the following: The best people outperform the average by 10x. Spot a difference?

The problem with dealing with these concepts quantitatively rather than qualitatively is that the deeper you dig, the less sense this sort of statement makes. There's two ways to read your quote. If "the best people" are the best in an absolute sense -- say, the top ten in the profession -- then the chance that /your team/ will sample the long tail of these high performers depends on the size of the team, but is nearly zero for any reasonable team size. And the distribution described is non-normal, with long tails skewing towards high performance. So if /the/ best people outperform /the/ worst by 10:1, /your/ best will outperform /your/ worst by less than 10:1. Alternately, if the statement is true for a typical team, then the expectation varies significantly with team size -- which has changed (in my impression, for smaller overall teams in many cases) since Peopleware was written.

Re: 1x Programming

#124

Post by systemvoltage »

angarg12 wrote: post #25

I praise 1x programmers, but for reasons that might go against the grain in HN. I'm from Spain so our working ethic is different from the Anglo-Saxon world. "Work to live, don't live to work" as the saying goes. My principles for a 1x programmer: * Work is a means to an end. A job should support the lifestyle you want to achieve, not be an end on itself. * 9-to-5 is a perfectly reasonable schedule. Fiercely protects…

I’m the complete opposite as far as it can be.

Work is life. I don’t want to spend a third of my life on something that’s just a “means to an end”. It is me. It is mine. It is my expression. It’s the result of everything I’ve got to give to this world.

So, to each, their own. This game is better played when you have skin in the game (equity, control, recognition).

Re: 1x Programming

#125

Post by systemvoltage »

_moof wrote: post #77
angarg12 wrote: post #25

I praise 1x programmers, but for reasons that might go against the grain in HN. I'm from Spain so our working ethic is different from the Anglo-Saxon world. "Work to live, don't live to work" as the saying goes. My principles for a 1x programmer: * Work is a means to an end. A job should support the lifestyle you want to achieve, not be an end on itself. * 9-to-5 is a perfectly reasonable schedule. Fiercely protects…

I once had a boss who espoused all these principles while simultaneously telling us we needed to work nights and weekends to hit completely arbitrary deadlines. (American aerospace company.) I honestly couldn't believe what I was hearing. I stuck around just long enough to hit my cliff, buy a little stock, and then run for the hills.

You can always raise a question (especially in a meeting where your entire team is present): “What’s driving the deadline?”

And then let your boss fumble if they are making things up, aka arbitrary deadlines.

Re: 1x Programming

#126

Post by BlargMcLarg »

weinzierl wrote: post #119
angarg12 wrote: post #25

I praise 1x programmers, but for reasons that might go against the grain in HN. I'm from Spain so our working ethic is different from the Anglo-Saxon world. "Work to live, don't live to work" as the saying goes. My principles for a 1x programmer: * Work is a means to an end. A job should support the lifestyle you want to achieve, not be an end on itself. * 9-to-5 is a perfectly reasonable schedule. Fiercely protects…

I fully agree with you, that it is important to keep your day job separate from the rest of your life and be able to detach yourself from work. However, I believe strongly that you can only have a happy life if you love what you do in your day job too. 9-to-5 are too many hours to be miserable and wait for end of your work day[*]. Also you spend a lot of time with your colleagues. Life is short, don't waste that time…

This falls apart when there are less jobs than individuals who would be happy in that job (extrapolated to all fields and interests), or conflicting interests appear. Realism doesn't always mesh with that ideal.

Re: 1x Programming

#127

Post by linspace »

angarg12 wrote: post #25

I praise 1x programmers, but for reasons that might go against the grain in HN. I'm from Spain so our working ethic is different from the Anglo-Saxon world. "Work to live, don't live to work" as the saying goes. My principles for a 1x programmer: * Work is a means to an end. A job should support the lifestyle you want to achieve, not be an end on itself. * 9-to-5 is a perfectly reasonable schedule. Fiercely protects…

> I'm from Spain so our working ethic is different from the Anglo-Saxon world.

People adapt to their environment. I don't think there is anything ethical involved. Most people have found that their best trade off is not caring too much about their careers, a byproduct of decades of incredibly low mobility inside the job market, because of high unemployment and the legal framework. This is not longer true for software, companies are hiring like crazy, salaries are going up and people are jumping ships.

Re: 1x Programming

#128

Post by overgard »

To me, a big part of multiplying your programming efficiency isn't about a crazy investment of time or ruining your other priorities in life, it's more about objectively looking at how you work and removing or minimizing the things that are a waste of time. It's really about self reflection. Are you spending a lot of time hunting and pecking through menus? Why not learn the keyboard shortcuts? Are you confused about part of your tech stack, maybe the build system? It might be worth a couple hours to get a solid foundation rather than leaving it as a mystery box. There are huge improvements in time saved from cleaning up a lot of little things.

The other thing, I think, comes down to losing your religion. For instance, people tend to treat SOLID religiously. I won't claim whether those principles are right or wrong, but what I don't see a lot of programmers do is consider why they believe those things (a blog told them to do it?), and whether those concepts fit into what they're currently doing. Is dependency injection actually simplifying your life? I'm not saying it's a bad idea, I just think a lot of programmers cargo cult things without considering the context they were invented in. The most efficient coders I know rarely over-architect things.

Re: 1x Programming

#129

Post by rtlfe »

weinzierl wrote: post #119
angarg12 wrote: post #25

I praise 1x programmers, but for reasons that might go against the grain in HN. I'm from Spain so our working ethic is different from the Anglo-Saxon world. "Work to live, don't live to work" as the saying goes. My principles for a 1x programmer: * Work is a means to an end. A job should support the lifestyle you want to achieve, not be an end on itself. * 9-to-5 is a perfectly reasonable schedule. Fiercely protects…

I fully agree with you, that it is important to keep your day job separate from the rest of your life and be able to detach yourself from work. However, I believe strongly that you can only have a happy life if you love what you do in your day job too. 9-to-5 are too many hours to be miserable and wait for end of your work day[*]. Also you spend a lot of time with your colleagues. Life is short, don't waste that time…

> I believe strongly that you can only have a happy life if you love what you do in your day job

This is bad news for the huge amount of people with jobs like trash collector or grocery bagger.

Re: 1x Programming

#130

Post by klipt »

jjav wrote: post #116
angarg12 wrote: post #25

I praise 1x programmers, but for reasons that might go against the grain in HN. I'm from Spain so our working ethic is different from the Anglo-Saxon world. "Work to live, don't live to work" as the saying goes. My principles for a 1x programmer: * Work is a means to an end. A job should support the lifestyle you want to achieve, not be an end on itself. * 9-to-5 is a perfectly reasonable schedule. Fiercely protects…

> Some will argue that one could never be a good developer following those principles. I'll argue those people need a reality check based on how things work in every other profession. My dentist is a great dentist but she works 8am-3pm and most decidedly does not spend an additional 8 hours slogging through leettooth exercises on topics barely realated to the practice of dentistry. My friend is a respected surgeon, b…

> My friend is a respected surgeon, but when he clocks out of the hospital he goes cycling and to the beach.

But to become a surgeon, he probably had to put in ridiculous hours for years as a med student and then resident.

Going through that gauntlet is what earned him the reasonable hours and good pay, by reducing his competition.

Similarly the people doing leetcode are doing it to stand above the competition and make big bucks in silicon valley. The people working reasonable hours in Spain are making much less extravagant salaries.

Basically the general rule is if you desire above average money, you have to put in above average effort at some point in your career.

If you want to put in average effort, you have to be happy with average salary. Which is fine for many people.

But you won't get FAANG/surgeon pay if you never put in above average effort.

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