Some reasons to work on productivity and velocity • Hacker News Board

Re: Some reasons to work on productivity and velocity

#181

Post by fijiaarone » Wed, Oct 20, 2021, 1:11 AM UTC

tessierashpool wrote: post #154

zaptheimpaler wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very well put. This was sort of my attitude to programming years ago - to try to get really good at the craft. But the question is, is that going to be rewarded or recognized at all? Who makes more, the programmer dedicated to their craft and domain getting better every day, or the leetcode expert who jumps from one FAANG to another getting 30% raises each time? What is the track for promotion at most companies - bei…

I think you're kind of mythologizing both FAANGs and Leetcode here. Leetcode won't get you further than doing amazing work and making your co-workers and colleagues happy. The OP is about how to get serious upgrades in the work you do. Leetcode is a thing that gets you in the door. Likewise, FAANGs are not in every case "beautiful environments with amazing people dedicated to the craft of engineering." The most toxic…

Principal engineer can be an astonishingly lucrative role.

Nearly as lucrative as mid-level manager.

Re: Some reasons to work on productivity and velocity

#182

Post by fijiaarone » Wed, Oct 20, 2021, 1:24 AM UTC

handrous wrote: post #51

agumonkey wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

after doing a few kinds of jobs: - food retail: producing hundreds of sandwiches an serving hundreds of customers back to back, teaches you about productivity - landwork: 8000 picks per day teaches you about work maybe i'm masochistic, but whenever I see people relaxed at work, neither doing much nor thinking much, I consider it's not work. There's no difference between what they do and me at home chilling.

I've done tough physical labor, and repetitive physical labor. They may wear out the body (or may invigorate it, depending on the load), but the mind is fresh even after 8+ hours, in my experience. And it feels good . After six hours of typey-typey in front of a screen I feel used up . Worthless. Dead. And that's a very good day—four is more typical for "how long can I do computer work before I just want to curl up a…

Having done both -- there is as much problem solving in digging a ditch as in building a web application.

And that's not denigrating programming, it's pointing out the reality that physical work requires mental effort too.

Re: Some reasons to work on productivity and velocity

#183

Post by maxjmartin » Mon, Oct 25, 2021, 7:44 PM UTC

ptr wrote: post #104

Does anybody know if there’s a Mac app that randomly pops up a “what are you currently working on?” dialog? No automatic stuff like trying to find out using the foreground application and no explicit starting and stopping of activities, just simple sampling?

Sounds like tagtime https://github.com/tagtime/TagTime