81–90 of 105 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
On personal projects I have entered a flow state so deep that, when my wife interrupts me to remind me I skipped breakfast and now it's lunchtime, it takes me a few moments to actually be able to understand her. It's like she's speaking a foreign language. I have never had that happen at a day job.
This is a perfect way to get into intermittent fasting!
So what happens when your company's roadmap consists of technical slop and they won't pay you to learn things like differentiable programming? Do you think they're going to pay you to write Vue.js until you retire? This strategy might work for a few years, but is a long-term career hazard. You are in charge of raising your own bar.
Well.. this assumes that coding (all coding?) is a burden.. I agree with the article in that coding _for_ work, outside of normal work hours, isn't something to strive for. I did that a lot when I was young, but that was not only when it was necessary due to the strained time schedules we had then, it was also because I literally hungered for it. I needed to. So I would go back to work after dinner and hack away to f…
If that's what you want to do with your time, cool. This article is aimed at people who don't want to do that but feel like they have to.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If that's what you want to do with your time, cool. This article is aimed at people who don't want to do that but feel like they have to.
You get better at coding, just like any other skill, the more you do it. So yeah, it's ok to not code at home. But all else being equal, the people who do are better coders.
But if they are really trying to get better, then they have to do 'deliberate' practice. Just grinding through things isn't the end-all-be-all. You have to really be trying.
I know that's a bit glib, but I think that there has been some good work done in this area of 'deliberate' practice recently. Cal Newport, Dan Coyle, Josh Waitzkin, Tom Sterner, and others have written a fair bit about the deliberate part.
A good intro with good sources is here: https://jamesclear.com/deliberate-practice-theory
I think this goes deeper than coding, we live in a world of “Give it you’re all”, but really the only thing we should be giving it all for is what makes us happy. Over the last 25 years of coding, I’ve always stuck to the 9-5 (ish), 5 days a weeks. I’m not rich, but do alright and I’m fairly happy. I actually have time to do things that are not coding outside of work. The world needs driven people that give it their…
I think this goes deeper than coding, we live in a world of “Give it you’re all”, but really the only thing we should be giving it all for is what makes us happy. Over the last 25 years of coding, I’ve always stuck to the 9-5 (ish), 5 days a weeks. I’m not rich, but do alright and I’m fairly happy. I actually have time to do things that are not coding outside of work. The world needs driven people that give it their…
I don't think the world needs driven people. Maybe a few, but not many for sure. So maybe things get produced or invented at a slower pace, but people have time to enjoy a meaningful life, well sign me up.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You get better at coding, just like any other skill, the more you do it. So yeah, it's ok to not code at home. But all else being equal, the people who do are better coders.
I think it a lot more nuanced than that. People that go home to work on github repos that are essentially just copy-pasting from HackerRank are not doing themselves any favors. I mean, sure, their repo looks better to HR drones. If that is what they are worries about, no problem. But if they are really trying to get better, then they have to do 'deliberate' practice. Just grinding through things isn't the end-all-be-…
Not only that, but the types of coding you can do at home are often much different than your work. Most hobby projects won't give you a chance to process terabytes of data or serve data to hundreds of millions of clients or send bytes across the country with microwaves. So if your job is related to any of those things, you're not going to improve much at home.
Also, much of what companies value in software developers isn't raw coding ability. You have to be able to work with other people, understand business requirements, convince people to help on your work, etc, etc. From that perspective, somebody who spends their evenings at bars talking to strangers might be building more important career skills than the person who codes all night.
Well.. this assumes that coding (all coding?) is a burden.. I agree with the article in that coding _for_ work, outside of normal work hours, isn't something to strive for. I did that a lot when I was young, but that was not only when it was necessary due to the strained time schedules we had then, it was also because I literally hungered for it. I needed to. So I would go back to work after dinner and hack away to f…