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Maker's schedule, Manager's schedule (2009)

paulgraham.com

11–20 of 76 posts

Re: Maker's schedule, Manager's schedule (2009)

#11
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a reference to cost of context shift. Context shift matters a bit less for a manager since they are by definition juggling things already. Doesn't not matter...but less

I'm aware of context switching but that doesn't apply to finite tasks that fit within a predefined timebox of e.g. less than half a day. And there are a lot of those out there. Presupposing that all programming is in the pursuit of grand designs (i.e. it take half a day to a day to make meaningful progress on any task) is the only thing that would justify it. But the reality is, it isn't like that except for a subset…

In professional context, development is driven by a business need: a "feature", a "change", or a "fix". Feature usually requires large number of tickets and multiple iterations, change require few tickets and one or two iterations, fix usually 1 ticket. Each ticket may require number of required steps to be completed, such a coding, testing, integration testing, documenting, reviewing, CI, QA, pushing to production, in production monitoring, reporting,etc. Nobody, except junior developers, will write a unit test out of blue sky. The simplest ticket: a "fix", may require reproduction, automatic test case, debugging, fix in the code, testing, update of documentation, review, CI, QA, push to production, reporting. You can do all that in one sit (half a day), keeping details in the head (harder, but faster), OR you can write off details from the head to the ticket, and then do tasks step by step in small bites, hour by hour, in multiple days (easier, but order of magnitude slower).

Re: Maker's schedule, Manager's schedule (2009)

#12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That isn’t made up in the slightest. Creative thought processes take time to get into the flow state. Frequent disruptions to this are deeply frustrating and almost every dev I’ve worked with has made similar remarks. Poor meeting scheduling is a guaranteed way of ensuring your devs have little to no motivation to do anything. In a previous job we called Wednesday “Meeting Wednesday” because total meeting time was at…

Your rarity is another man's frequency. Defining all programming in terms of long drawn out creative endeavours isn't very useful, which is the point I was making to begin with.

Yes, both of you only contributed anecdotes and no data. (Neither did I)

Re: Maker's schedule, Manager's schedule (2009)

#13
When I started doing the pomodoro technique I learned to jot down some notes before taking a break from programming. If there’s more complex things going on it’s worth writing down more in a specification, ticket, etc.

For me, the context switching issue can often be mitigated by dumping my brain into written form. Much like testing, it often feels like things are being slowed down, but usually pays itself back.

With this approach, I usually find that an hour of uninterrupted time is sufficient.

Of course, this doesn’t somehow mean that meetings are an effective use of time. In my experience, most meeting time is wasted because people are not writing down and organizing what is in their head.

Re: Maker's schedule, Manager's schedule (2009)

#14
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a reference to cost of context shift. Context shift matters a bit less for a manager since they are by definition juggling things already. Doesn't not matter...but less

I'm aware of context switching but that doesn't apply to finite tasks that fit within a predefined timebox of e.g. less than half a day. And there are a lot of those out there. Presupposing that all programming is in the pursuit of grand designs (i.e. it take half a day to a day to make meaningful progress on any task) is the only thing that would justify it. But the reality is, it isn't like that except for a subset…

Not everything needs to be grandiose. You may need to understand three complex dependencies to write ten lines of code, while thinking of what you actually want to do at the same time. If it took ten minutes to do but 60 minutes to get in the right headspace, hour chunks would still be useless.

Re: Maker's schedule, Manager's schedule (2009)

#15

Interesting article that makes some good points but this part >They generally prefer to use time in units of half a day at least. You can't write or program well in units of an hour. That's barely enough time to get started. Seems ... made up? There are all sorts of things you can do in an hour as a programmer: update a test, fix an automation script, fix and/or test a bug. Not all programming starts with grandiose a…

With ADHD it's true, unless I'm on some kind of medication, I need time to get into something and once I'm in it's really hard to stop. So if I'm starting to work on something at 17:30 that could take all my night.. I have to plan my day taking this thing into account

Re: Maker's schedule, Manager's schedule (2009)

#16
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a reference to cost of context shift. Context shift matters a bit less for a manager since they are by definition juggling things already. Doesn't not matter...but less

I'm aware of context switching but that doesn't apply to finite tasks that fit within a predefined timebox of e.g. less than half a day. And there are a lot of those out there. Presupposing that all programming is in the pursuit of grand designs (i.e. it take half a day to a day to make meaningful progress on any task) is the only thing that would justify it. But the reality is, it isn't like that except for a subset…

> Presupposing that all programming is in the pursuit of grand designs (...) is the only thing that would justify it.

Inversely, chopping up developers' days might be one way to keep them small, bug-fixing, value-tweaking, code-pasting peons.

Re: Maker's schedule, Manager's schedule (2009)

#17
I’m inclined to agree with all this but when I’m conversation with someone who has only ever been in a Manager schedule, what would you recommend I point to as actual evidence?

Specifically on the cost of meetings to developers.

Re: Maker's schedule, Manager's schedule (2009)

#18

Interesting article that makes some good points but this part >They generally prefer to use time in units of half a day at least. You can't write or program well in units of an hour. That's barely enough time to get started. Seems ... made up? There are all sorts of things you can do in an hour as a programmer: update a test, fix an automation script, fix and/or test a bug. Not all programming starts with grandiose a…

> There are all sorts of things you can do in an hour as a programmer: update a test, fix an automation script, fix and/or test a bug.

Free time to work between meetings is rarely filled efficiently. An one hour gap is either filled by something that's finshed in 45 minutes with the remaining 15 minutes difficult to fill, or filled by something that takes 1.5hrs and therefore requires a context switch.

With meetings its different. They last one hour because they last one hour, not because the content takes one hour to discuss.

But like 1 hour slots for work the same is true for fixed 2-week sprints.

And for containers on shelves, which cannot be placed where the frames are.

Re: Maker's schedule, Manager's schedule (2009)

#19
post #17

I’m inclined to agree with all this but when I’m conversation with someone who has only ever been in a Manager schedule, what would you recommend I point to as actual evidence? Specifically on the cost of meetings to developers.

I have been both an engineer doing engineering work (I hate the word “maker”) and a manager. I found this article infuriating and still do.

This article is a pure product of this period when software developers thought themselves as extremely special and above such petty issues as having to attend meetings. It’s entitlement masquerading as wisdom. The truth is everyone has to balance their time between obligations and slots they can allocate to do longer work. Writers have to meet their editor. Artists have to plan for the logistic of their exhibitions. That’s part of life.

You can work for a bit do something else and get back to what you were doing. If you can’t that’s an issue with you, not the nature of your work.

Re: Maker's schedule, Manager's schedule (2009)

#20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That isn’t made up in the slightest. Creative thought processes take time to get into the flow state. Frequent disruptions to this are deeply frustrating and almost every dev I’ve worked with has made similar remarks. Poor meeting scheduling is a guaranteed way of ensuring your devs have little to no motivation to do anything. In a previous job we called Wednesday “Meeting Wednesday” because total meeting time was at…

Your rarity is another man's frequency. Defining all programming in terms of long drawn out creative endeavours isn't very useful, which is the point I was making to begin with.

The quote doesn’t say that no programming tasks can be done in blocks of an hour, but rather that programming well cannot.
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