Many years ago, before mobile internet was reasonable and before wireless internet was available, and before even electrical outlets were something which could be counted on to be present on trains, I took a 6 hour train ride. I had no laptop. I printed out, on paper, the entire source code of the project I was working on, and brought a red pen. I read through the whole thing, from start to finish. Many subtle bug fi…
I program on the subway
131–140 of 213 posts
Re: I program on the subway
#132Re: I program on the subway
#133Earlier quoted context omitted.
I use two of these: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B077JX7GBL?ref_=ppx_hzsearch_conn_d... it lets me tent at nearly 90 deg which is great. And it is also good for reclining on my LC4, where I use two Perriand berger stools as armrests and a Levo laptop stand. For something sturdier I use Ulanzi super clamps with extensions. The Glove80 (which is fantastic, as a 15 year Kinesis Aadvantage user prior) also has a tripod mount…
Very informative, thanks
Re: I program on the subway
#134Earlier quoted context omitted.
[flagged]
Why would you ever think this an acceptable thing to say?
Anyway, I just flag/downvote and move on.
Re: I program on the subway
#135Re: I program on the subway
#136When I was living in Paris I had a 20 min ride from home to work each day. I picked up the habit to read during those 40 total minutes and I was going through books like I had never been able to, because while 40 min is not a lot, it’s about 150h per year. One easily underestimates the power of consistency.
I also used to read my commute but stopped it after I finished "for whom the bell tolls". I was so moved that I ended up crying in the bus and I would have liked to experience that feeling in the privacy of my home rather in the morning bus with 9 hours still on the clock.
Re: I program on the subway
#137When I used to ride Caltrain to/from work, I would often have an uninterrupted stretch of 45+ minutes in a cozy single seat (I would always take an upper deck seat in the "gallery" car) to either doze off or use this time to focus on something. I would get so much done on those days if I managed to avoid the sun blasting too much sunlight on my screen/seat. This commuter rail experience is probably familiar to many o…
> This commuter rail experience is probably familiar to many of us, but it's specific to commuter rail - being a passenger on a subway or in a car/bus is too chaotic or bumpy to do this.
I second this. It is hard for me to do anything productive on a bus because the stop/start frequency is too high and more physically demanding than a train.Re: I program on the subway
#138I used to do work on Caltrain, which used to be like 3 hours of my commute and didn't have any internet, so I would carefully plan what I could do beforehand. My code deploys to a machine that's very different from my laptop, but I had a Docker container set up to cross compile things and loaded up the docs beforehand, so as long as I planned out what I wanted to do. These days Caltrain is faster and has occasionally…
Re: I program on the subway
#139This is essentially how I work on hobby projects these days. My bus commute is about 45 minutes each way and I find this to be just enough time to get work done. I also try not to work on these projects outside of my commuting hours; this gives me time to mull problems over rather than jumping headlong into writing code. The lack of internet on the bus has not really been a problem since I plan ahead and make sure an…
Re: I program on the subway
#140Here is a description of the daily commute by Michael Milken, 1980s junk bond king, as told in "Predator's Ball" by Connie Bruck: At 5:30am each weekday in the early 1970s, a bus pulled up to a stop in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, and a young man lugging a bag that bulged with papers mounted its steps. He was making the two-hour commute to New York City, where he worked at the investment banking firm of Drexel Firestone…
This is dedication. Unfortunately I can't program on a bus, I get motion sickness. Subway works very well though! It insulates me from most distractions. The only problem is that the longest subway commute I ever had was about 45 minutes; solid 2 hours would allow for so much more! :)
He said the benefit was being able to spend more time with his family at night when he got home. He knew he would have some time on the train, so not having to crack his laptop to get in some coding after dinner allowed him to spend a lot more time handling the kids and spending time with his wife.
"Work/Life balance achieved!" he used to proclaim with a big smile when we'd sit and chat.