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The 501 Developer Manifesto

501manifesto.org

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Re: The 501 Developer Manifesto

#101

Post by gruseom »

undantag wrote: post #87
gruseom wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did this cause friction on your team? Or did everyone feel good about the arrangement?

I really thought there would have been more friction. Of course everybody was affected by the tight schedule and initially bad their reservations about one of us not pulling his weight in hours, but as time passed we were all going to him for advice, asking him to review our code. However, the people in management/business made some sweeping remarks about our team "not working as hard as the other teams" in passing.…

It's fascinating how healthy teams find the right balance in unpredictable ways. The principal thing is that they be allowed to do it. Managers who operate on the assumption that they're supposed to decide matters so often intervene to wreck them. It seems strange, but it's simple cognitive dissonance. It's psychologically difficult for middle managers who add no value not to interfere, because that would mean admitting that they add no value. So in order to prove they deserve their authority, they interfere and cause harm. That's not true of everybody in such positions, of course. The smarter ones understand that mostly what they need to do is nothing, just let people work - sort of like the new-age Buddhist saying, "Don't just do something, stand there!" But it's true enough in bulk that that whole organizational form is irrational. It is gradually being replaced.

In any case, you've provided a nice example of how issues like working hours are subsumed by team dynamics. That's where action is.

Re: The 501 Developer Manifesto

#102

Post by zacharyvoase »

gnosis wrote: post #98
zacharyvoase wrote: post #31

“It’s just a job.” It's just 8 hours a day. 5 days a week. Roughly 25% of your life. Another 33.3% is spent asleep. Maybe you commute to work; maybe that takes you 45 minutes each way. That's 4.4% of your life spent driving, walking, on trains or buses to get to your job. You're going to spend a small percentage of your life on the toilet; another small percentage in supermarkets buying food, in a kitchen preparing i…

"It's just 8 hours a day. 5 days a week. Roughly 25% of your life." That's only if you're lucky. At least in America, 10 or more hours a day is quite common. In the tech field, some weekend work is also not unheard of. In some companies and industries (like game development, startups, finance, not to mention insane shifts that nurses and doctors are forced to work), death marches and sweatshops where you work 14 to 1…

Oh, absolutely. The extra work we all put in has to be from love and passion, not bullying and pressure. I've experienced burnout before and I hear alarm bells any time I see 'fast-paced', 'exciting', 'ninja', 'rockstar', or any other term that implies chronically-high cortisol levels.

Re: The 501 Developer Manifesto

#103

Post by gnosis »

debacle wrote: post #3

I thought this was going to be another one of those 'Internet Manifestos.' I was very pleasantly surprised. This is something I am definitely behind, even though for me it isn't just a job. I love programming, but for years my programming at home has languished because my programming at work is a soul-sucking endeavor that leads me to have a sinking feeling every time I look at the Komodo icon on my home PC. I think…

"You need a communion of individuals to create a semi-fraternal organization that looks like a union on the outside but inside is a diverse collective of brilliant minds."

It's very sad that decades of right-wing propaganda has made "union" a dirty word.

This is especially true in the technology field, which is so infested with libertarians that you'd feel the need to qualify your suggestion for the formation of what is essentially a union by saying that it only "looks like a union on the outside".

Why not just come out and call it a union? Why couldn't a real union have "a diverse collective of brilliant minds" on the "inside"?

A union is just an organization of professionals who try to collectively improve their working conditions and compensation. There's absolutely nothing wrong with or shameful about this.

The time for a technology workers' union has been long overdue in the US. We shouldn't feel ashamed to suggest its formation or to call it what it is.

Re: The 501 Developer Manifesto

#104

Post by cgmorton »

gruseom wrote: post #27
elemenohpee wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But some of this sounds too much like a defense of those whose dedication to learning stops at the office door. I don't think it's fair to characterize it that way, there are other things to learn about outside of programming. I spend a lot of time learning about biology, sociology, economics, philosophy, etc. I spend time learning more about friends and partners. I spend time learning about myself. Yours is exactl…

Yours is exactly the mentality that the article is addressing, the one that does not see value in or respect any activity not directly related to coding. I certainly don't see that in what bguthrie wrote.

"In return, you must recognize that the success of the projects on which we work together depends largely upon the degree to which you treat us with respect, both as skilled professionals and as a diversity of autonomous living people."

It's probably this part.

Re: The 501 Developer Manifesto

#105

Post by gruseom »

cgmorton wrote: post #104
gruseom wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yours is exactly the mentality that the article is addressing, the one that does not see value in or respect any activity not directly related to coding. I certainly don't see that in what bguthrie wrote.

"In return, you must recognize that the success of the projects on which we work together depends largely upon the degree to which you treat us with respect, both as skilled professionals and as a diversity of autonomous living people." It's probably this part.

bguthrie didn't write that.

Re: The 501 Developer Manifesto

#106

Post by gnosis »

Xylakant wrote: post #96

My major problem with 501 developers is that it's hard to tell those that say "it's just a job, but I take pride in my craft and do it well" from those that say "It's just a job. period." without pride and love for the craft. It's fine to leave by 5:01 or even 4:59 and I actually urge my coworkers to do so, but it's not fine to leave by 501 when you dropped the ball at 4:59 and leave the rest of the team to clean you…

Why can't the mess be cleaned up the next day?

And, honestly, just how often does do people in your team drop the ball right before leaving for the day? Every day? Every other day? Every week even?

If someone's dropping the ball so frequently, perhaps they're either in the wrong job or need some serious training and mentorship from more capable members of the team.

And if it doesn't happen particularly often, what are you complaining about?

Re: The 501 Developer Manifesto

#107

Post by gnosis »

cristiantincu wrote: post #88

“A master in the art of living draws no sharp distinction between his work and his play; his labor and his leisure; his mind and his body; his education and his recreation. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence through whatever he is doing, and leaves others to determine whether he is working or playing. To himself, he always appears to be doing both.” —L.P. Jack. Via Frank Chimer…

Sensible people get paid for playing. That is The Art of Life.

-- Alan Watts

Re: The 501 Developer Manifesto

#108

Post by jquery »

tjpick wrote: post #62
jquery wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much does playing video games pay these days?

Like anything: quite well, if you are good at it.

If you're the best in the world at anything there's an audience, sure. But don't pretend it's available to anyone who's passionate about it. I'm passionate about casually playing various games with my fiance while drinking a beer. Who's going to pay for that?

Re: The 501 Developer Manifesto

#109

Post by Jebus »

mapleoin wrote: post #83

I'm at the beginning of my career. I moved to a different country because I couldn't find a job I liked in my own country. I really like programming and I started doing it in my spare time in high school and I still do it in my spare time. But, I wholeheartedly agree with this article. I need to go home at 5 in order to keep liking programming. Sometimes I go home to program on a pet project or to learn something new…

What city do you live in?

Re: The 501 Developer Manifesto

#110

Post by mattbriggs »

chc wrote: post #63
driverdan wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Make a living doing something you love. If you don't love programming then do something else.

I think this is the nearest real-life equivalent to "let them eat cake" I have ever seen. Are you going to pay me to play Xbox with my brother or go out to dinner with my wife and talk about interesting books we've read? Neither is anybody else. For most people, the set of "things I love" and "things people will pay me to do" intersect very little if at all. (I don't actually have this conundrum. There are a few thin…

I'm sorry if this is offensive, but try expanding your horizons.

I love music, and I decided that I spent too much of my life staring at a screen, so I took up the guitar. I am terrible at it, but the feeling you get beating a hard boss on xbox is only a pale shadow of the feeling I get when I am playing music (even badly). And the feeling I get when playing music by myself is only a pale shadow of what I feel when I get together with some friends and some beers, and we play music together.

I love eating, and I found I was spending too much money at fancy restaurants, so I decided to learn how to cook. Cooking dinner during the week after a long day of work is bullshit, but going out on the weekend to a farmers market, getting amazing ingredients, coming home and making something that is wonderful is an amazing feeling. Even more then that, sharing it with your wife, or the rest of your family is even better. Watching people you care about close their eyes with pleasure after taking their first bite of the food you put your heart into is really wonderful, and hard to beat.

Last thing is programming. I am really good at programming, and spend a lot of time perfecting my craft. Several years ago I found I no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't make a good UI to save my life, I didn't enjoy the software I made. So I decided to change that. The first time I solved a problem for someone with software, and did it in a way that left them amazed and delighted, I felt better then all those years banging around with frameworks and sql statements. It was even a small rush either, it was something that was downright addictive. Nowadays I call myself a front-end developer, and I love collaborating with good designers to bring great software to life. But it isn't about twiddling bits for me, it is to make parts of other peoples lives that were kind of rough and not pleasant more joyful.

Creating is hands down the most fulfilling way I can use my time, to the point that consuming is only something I do now if I am too beat from doing creative things. I like to pretend I'm a gamer, but I can't really play a game for more then a few hours now without feeling bored and unfulfilled. I love to read, but nowadays the most time I have for fiction is to wind down before sleep, or in audiobook form on my way to do something else. I used to spend so much time and gain so much enjoyment out of those activities, but actually taking the time to get ok in a few creative disciplines, and the years I spent enjoying those things seem pale by comparison.

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