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The 501 Developer Manifesto

501manifesto.org

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Re: The 501 Developer Manifesto

#111

Post by sireat »

driverdan wrote: post #51
bfirsh wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not everyone who programs loves programming, but everyone needs to make a living. You are lucky that what you love also makes money.

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

I like the following advice "Work at the job you do not actively hate", this might be paraphrasing Buffett. Very few are lucky that their most enjoyable pastime that they are good at is also the highest paid.

As it has been noted, for most of humanity some sort of purely consuming task seems most enjoyable these days.

I would much rather play strategy video games or chess, but there is a very limited market for good players. Also, it has been noted playing anything for money actually changes your enjoyment of that task. Corollary - if you are the best at something in the world - you can create your own profession.

Programming is something that I enjoy, but it is not something i want to do 24/7. However, it is well rewarded.

Re: The 501 Developer Manifesto

#112

Post by eli_gottlieb »

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…

So if someone doesn't love their job enough to spend MORE than 37.5% of their waking hours at it, the solution is to find a job they'll love THAAAAAT MUCH?

No, obviously the solution is to minimize the time spent working, either way.

"Only when we are free from working to live, will we be free to live to work."

Re: The 501 Developer Manifesto

#113

Post by eli_gottlieb »

nahname wrote: post #77
chc wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Do something you love is referring to creative passions. Find something creative you love to do and make it your profession. Think of the people making the games you enjoy and how many of them must enjoy what they do because of the obvious quality in the product they are producing. Try to find that for yourself. If you only love consumption habits, try taking up new hobbies. There must be something that you will enjo…

Do something you love is referring to creative passions. Find something creative you love to do and make it your profession.

Again, this is roughly equivalent to "let them eat cake." Creative professions are famously unremunerative.

Re: The 501 Developer Manifesto

#114

Post by eli_gottlieb »

gnosis wrote: post #103
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…

It's very sad that decades of right-wing propaganda has made libertarians think that a trade union is anything other than a rightful exercise of the Freedom of Association.

Re: The 501 Developer Manifesto

#115

Post by eli_gottlieb »

shadowfiend wrote: post #21

“Playing fußball in the pub with our friends over playing fußball in the office with our team leader” Talk about a false dichotomy. I evade this problem by being friends with the people I work with. Overall, I think there are some good distinctions made here. And there is a good point to the thing: “To us it is just a job, but we still do it well.” I almost feel like the page should lead with that. That this isn't an…

It's not that false a dichotomy. I once started a job with a team I thought were awesome people... when I interviewed.

Once there I realized that none of them were all that social with each other, and I didn't want to be outside-of-work friends with most of them, either.

Re: The 501 Developer Manifesto

#116

Post by eli_gottlieb »

pnathan wrote: post #45

I don't really want to work with people who are unmotivated and just "Do their time and go". I've done it; I've worked in crappy jobs. Those jobs were, e.g., cashier at fast food joint. Or stocker at department store. Everyone wanted to leave. No one wanted to be there. I am not really up to dealing with the harsh cynicism and assumptions of uselessness of our work with someone who leaves as soon as possible. Doesn't…

Actually, bare minimum would be clocking in at 9AM and leaving at 5PM. I'm not sure where you're getting 8:30AM.

Re: The 501 Developer Manifesto

#117

Post by eli_gottlieb »

Tangaroa wrote: post #55

Does anybody really look down on employees who leave work at the time that they agreed to leave work when they took the job? I can't imagine this being a problem, although I can see the desire for employees who value the work more than they value keeping to a strict schedule. An interesting problem would often keep me working late, and I would feel guilty for billing the company for unauthorized overtime when I could…

In the USA this is a big issue, because computer programmers aren't entitled to overtime pay.

Re: The 501 Developer Manifesto

#118

Post by eli_gottlieb »

markrendle wrote: post #33

Look, the people you are "pitying" are the people you depend on: we make your operating systems, your languages, your frameworks, your tools; we invent the things you use; we create your social networks; we abstract away the things you find too hard; we built the very internet you're using to mock us. Do not fuck with us, for without us, you would be a clerk in a dusty room writing out invoices with a pen.

Look, the people you are "pitying" are the people you depend on: we make your operating systems, your languages, your frameworks, your tools; we invent the things you use; we create your social networks; we abstract away the things you find too hard; we built the very internet you're using to mock us.

Wrong. Absolutely wrong. The opposite, in fact, is true.

For every programmer working overtime at his paid job as a Ruby on Rails rock-star producing an advertisement-backed web application, there need to be several more clocking out of their paid jobs at 5:01PM to go home and write open-source operating systems, languages, frameworks, and tools without being paid.

Because most of the time, the essential infrastructure all the paid businesses rely is created by unpaid volunteers working off the clock (or at least it started that way!), or even better: researchers.

Re: The 501 Developer Manifesto

#119

Post by eli_gottlieb »

Xylakant wrote: post #95
SarahJane wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are you assuming "501 developers" don't do any of the things you list? I think the point is that you can have balance in your life and be a good & passionate coder.

Because they say so in the manifesto. They feel pity and respect for people that build an open source project. Without Open Source: No MacOS in it's current form, no php (facebook), no ruby (twitter), no linux (google), no apache (large parts of the web). Granted, there are paid OS-developers nowadays, but most is still for fun and passion and not paid for.

Which is precisely why open-source programmers have to be 501'ers. If we stayed late every night at our paid jobs, how would we ever do our unpaid jobs?

Re: The 501 Developer Manifesto

#120

Post by jon501 »

gnosis wrote: post #106
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 ar…

perfect, exactly. this kind of "501ers drop the ball and repeatedly let down their colleagues" is just the kind of chuckleheaded received wisdom that the ninja coders have been putting about for too long. we should all challenge it.
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