A bit over fifteen years ago, developer Joel Spolsky wrote:
It makes me think of those researchers who say that basically people can't control what they eat, so any attempt to diet is bound to be short term and they will always yoyo back to their natural weight. Maybe as a software developer I really can't control when I'm productive, and I just have to take the slow times with the fast times and hope that they average out to enough lines of code to make me employable.
What drives me crazy is that ever since my first job I've realized that as a developer, I usually average about two or three hours a day of productive coding. When I had a summer internship at Microsoft, a fellow intern told me he was actually only going into work from 12 to 5 every day. Five hours, minus lunch, and his team loved him because he still managed to get a lot more done than average. I've found the same thing to be true. I feel a little bit guilty when I see how hard everybody else seems to be working, and I get about two or three quality hours in a day, and still I've always been one of the most productive members of the team. That's probably why when Peopleware and XP insist on eliminating overtime and working strictly 40 hour weeks, they do so secure in the knowledge that this won't reduce a team's output.
But it's not the days when I "only" get two hours of work done that worry me. It's the days when I can't do anything.
The writer reckons the key to a productive day of writing software lies most in just getting started at the beginning of it. Do Soylentils have tried-and-true tricks to getting into the flow of writing code, or is it always catch-as-catch-can?
(Score: 3, Funny) by DeathMonkey on Thursday July 27 2017, @06:13PM (3 children)
Headline could use a little context.
I think that's what all the little text under it is for. Not that I read it, too busy working!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by wonkey_monkey on Thursday July 27 2017, @07:02PM (2 children)
None of it explains what "Fire and motion" means.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Thursday July 27 2017, @07:15PM (1 child)
Gee your ass in motion or else you're fired?
(Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Thursday July 27 2017, @07:22PM
What is this, Wheel of Fortune?
systemd is Roko's Basilisk