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How to Survive 80+ Hours of Programming Every Week

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Re: How to Survive 80+ Hours of Programming Every Week

#51

Post by mcphage »

sauldcosta wrote: post #10
kw71 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can it be put as, a list of ways to counter the signals that your body is trying to tell you to stop? I think survival would mean that you aren't killing yourself. While reading this, I kept asking myself if a medical doctor would agree with you. I think that it would take quite a bit of effort to find one that does.

I am not a medical doctor, nor do I make any claims to be. I have simply found a few things that work in a specific case and am sharing them in hopes that others in similar situations might benefit.

> am sharing them in hopes that others in similar situations might benefit

I think what would help others in similar situations would be advice how to get out of those situations.

Re: How to Survive 80+ Hours of Programming Every Week

#52

Post by VLM »

adekok wrote: post #24

It was well established in the 1930s that workers peak productivity is at about 40 hours of work a week. Anyone who thinks they can be more productive at double that, for long periods, is either superhuman, or deluding themselves. Get out, see your family, watch a movie, go for a walk. Be a human , and not a programming machine.

"go for a walk"

I've been in this game since '81 and when I talk to other "old people" we all seem to agree that the hardest technical challenges were solved out on the trail, over a beer with fellow programmers, while lifting weights, while posting to HN, while playing games with the kids... while younger people automatically assume the only way to work on a problem is by sitting in front of a screen while typing as fast as possible.

This does not only apply to problems that are knowledge/skill limited. Error rates explode on grunt manual labor beyond a certain number of hours. Ops suggestions probably do help increase the number of hours slightly, but almost certainly not to 100+ hours or whatever op is claiming. If you're just going to have to redo all the work tomorrow morning, or are too sleepy to see a way to turn 10 hours of grunt labor into 30 seconds of automation, then stop anyway because you probably will have a better faster idea tomorrow.

Re: How to Survive 80+ Hours of Programming Every Week

#53

Post by koonsolo »

sauldcosta wrote: post #45

Just want to clear up a few things, since this is getting more attention that I thought it would. 1) I am not saying you should do this. I code this much because I'm a co-founder of a pre-funding startup and am working hard to get my company off the ground, and because I enjoy coding. 2) Programming 80+ hours a week is absolutely insane. I'm not saying I'm anything special because I do it or that people who do it are…

If I was in your shoes, I would try to optimize my output instead of optimizing the hours behind my computer. Think about it.

You say you still have time to do research, so do some research on working 40+ hours for more than 1 month. With your 80+ hours/week for 11 months, your productivity has turned way negative compared to doing half of those hours.

Let me put this in other words: If you had worked the past 11 months at 40 hours a week, you would have produced more than the 11 months you did now on your insane 80+/week.

Take a day off, get some good night sleep, read this again, and think about it. Don't believe me? Do some research.

Re: How to Survive 80+ Hours of Programming Every Week

#54

Post by VLM »

sauldcosta wrote: post #3
melling wrote: post #2

Eye patches to reduce the headaches, wrist braces to help with the pain, etc... It's probably best to avoid getting to this situation. At some point years from now, your body won't be happy if this continues. In addition to a little more rest, you might want to take 10 of those hours a week and add a little voice recognition, for example, into your tool chest: http://ergoemacs.org/emacs/using_voice_to_code.html

Agreed. And just to be clear, I'm not suggesting anyone should program this much. But I think some people are forced into this situation, especially in certain settings. My goal with this post is to provide a list of things that might help alleviate side effects.

"help alleviate side effects"

My engineering advice is your complicated solutions to avoiding the results of screen glare and the results of background noise would be to clean up at the source rather than at the symptoms. Don't require exotic vision hacks to work around screen glare if you invest in good lighting and top quality matte screens, don't require special comfy headphones if you're in a good (quiet?) acoustic environment. If your environment sucks, change it don't adapt to it

You do correctly implement that strategy with posture and the chair, I've met many people thrilled to spend tens of thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours on chiropractic and back pain therapy just to avoid spending hundreds of dollars on a really good chair and hours working on posture, meditation, tai chi type stuff and/or stretching.

Re: How to Survive 80+ Hours of Programming Every Week

#56

Post by Rainymood »

adekok wrote: post #24

It was well established in the 1930s that workers peak productivity is at about 40 hours of work a week. Anyone who thinks they can be more productive at double that, for long periods, is either superhuman, or deluding themselves. Get out, see your family, watch a movie, go for a walk. Be a human , and not a programming machine.

"go walk"

I suggest biking is also very relaxing and nice! Just take a small bike ride, it always clears my head ...

Re: How to Survive 80+ Hours of Programming Every Week

#57

Post by trimble-alum »

Wearing wrist braces while typing can actually increase injury. They should be worn when not working, especially during sleep, because a large fraction of RSI injury is accumulated by a number of people that exhibit nocturnal contracture during sleep (drawing of hands to chest centerline, bending and curling of the wrists and fingers also). Also, light strength training is often very helpful.

I went through RSI in my early 20's (while writing a research compiler), did a ton of research and have been symptom free for two decades.

Re: How to Survive 80+ Hours of Programming Every Week

#59

Post by restalis »

Wearing headphones for prolonged hours is not healthy, especially the type that cover all the ear. The ears need air circulation, otherwise there is a high risk of infection (as bacteria develop faster in closed, warm and wet spaces). The best thing is to agree with your colleagues to some common music theme (chill-out or something) and listen/accept/bear that as an increasing-productivity factor rather than something that you'd need to enjoy.
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