do serious programmers have a life?

[blmblm]

School is different; it's supposed to rot your brain.

Only someone deeply cynical about the educational system would say
this!

Those who retain a little idealism would make other claims about
what school is supposed to do. At the college/university level, I
would claim that this includes exposing them to new ideas, improving
their ability to think critically and communicate clearly, teaching
them to learn on their own, and giving them conceptual frameworks on
which to hang technical or other details they will learn later.

Now, whether an actual school achieves any of these aims is another
matter. Some schools probably don't really even try. Some try but
don't succeed, or don't succeed with all students. Some do succeed,
at least with some students. If you're at a school that doesn't try,
or that tries but doesn't succeed with you (and there can be lots of
explanations for why that would happen, many of which are not the
student's fault), then yeah, "rots your brain" isn't too far off
the mark. But I think it's deeply cynical to say that that's what's
*supposed* to happen. , sort of.

In work, you should be accomplishing one small feature of one big program,
over and over again. This is fulfilling and good for you; it won't feel the
same.

I'm not sure I agree with everything here, but I agree with what
I think is the overall point: If your assigned tasks don't relate
in any obvious way to any interesting goal, it's a little hard to
feel motivated to do them or to get much sense of accomplishment
out of doing them well. This could happen with school or a job.
If what you're doing *does* contribute in some way to a goal that
feels meaningful, that can make all the difference.

[ snip ]

 

[Baxter]

Baxter wrote
(in article <[email protected]>):


Despite the stereotype you seem to wish to reinforce, it's not
really accurate.

Actually, you're the one perpetuating a stereotype.

Then he probably isn't cut out for that kind of work schedule
either.

This has pretty much been the case with everyone that I worked with that put
in long hours.

It's a myth that you have to work long hours to show dedication.
Employers love it because they think they're getting something for nothing.
Employees are hurt by it because it puts blinders on them.

 

[Randy Howard]

Baxter wrote

Actually, you're the one perpetuating a stereotype.

You're not paying attention then.

This has pretty much been the case with everyone that I worked with that put
in long hours.

Note that I never said anyone should work all day and all night
as the extreme examples people are raising in this thread.

It's a myth that you have to work long hours to show dedication.

I simply don't believe that 9 or 10 hours fairly regularly, or
even 12 in a pinch is a big deal. There is nothing magical
about "40" in a week.

 

[Phlip]

It's a myth that you have to work long hours to show dedication.
Employers love it because they think they're getting something for
nothing.
Employees are hurt by it because it puts blinders on them.

The goal is "energetic work".

Each individual's ability to work energetically varies over time, and
averages over time. The average of the averages among many individuals might
be 40 hours a week, so employers should _modestly_ cap that as a _general_
hedge against burnout.

The other goal is teamwork; being there when your teammates are there. So
even if you could work late, don't. Come in fresh tomorrow, at the same time
as your teammates come.

Heroism is not sustainable.

 

[Victor Bazarov]

[..]
I simply don't believe that 9 or 10 hours fairly regularly, or
even 12 in a pinch is a big deal. There is nothing magical
about "40" in a week.

Nothing magical, it's simply the law. You can't legally *make* me
work longer. Everybody works more than 8 hours when it's needed,
just like everybody would spend nights next to a sick relative's bed.

You make it sound like working 9 to 10 hours constantly is normal.
It's not. In many organizations I've seen, if you have to stay late
and work longer hours, it often means you aren't cut out to do what
is required in the time alotted, the non-magical 40 hours a week.
Such workers are most likely slacking during the day. That's all.

V

 

[gds]

Excluding the factors of the brain capability, i.e I am not asking
about this factor, if you are a single, aside from enjoying coding or
debugging, how do you make time to eat properly, i.e healthily w/o
spending big bucks at special healthy food places and also take care of
life's daily chores w/o feeling like a robot. Any time for social
activites with people other than programmers?

Is feeling like a robot a typical description of a programmer's life?

I think it depends on the person and their situation. Some people
prefer to put in a lot of hours. Others don't, but circumstances
(e.g. a disorganized project) force them to. Then there are people
who are fortunate enough to gain the upper hand in their
company/project/whatever, so they can refuse work that would otherwise
cause them to give up their social life.

As it turns out I have dealt with these sorts of issues many times
during my career, and am starting to think that there is a "glass
ceiling" that separates me from not having to give up so much of my
personal life for work.

--gregbo
gds at best dot com

 

[Baxter]

I've known many companies (and worked for a few) that expected you to put in
long hours (even though you were salaried). Could even be they wanted you
to burn out so that they wouldn't have to pay high salaries and retirement.

 

[amanda992004]

Default User wrote:

Don't feed the trolls, blah blah blah.

I wasn't going to say anything but decided to say this to you: You are
judgemental and in your trying to act like a professional, you missed
being a human.

 

[amanda992004]

Default User wrote:

Don't feed the trolls, blah blah blah.

I wasn't going to say anything but decided to say this to you: You are
judgemental and in your trying to act like a professional, you missed
being a human.

 

[amanda992004]

I meant "missed out of being human".

 

[Duane Bozarth]

It would be nice if all bosses are like you as I am the type of person
who fits in that category.

In that case I would have to interject the question of why you bring up
the previous question?

Re: the original thread subject--programmers are no different than any
other class of professionals--some are workaholics, some aren't. Some
are productive, some aren't. IOW, they're people, just like doctors,
engineers, whatevers....

 

[amanda992004]

why you bring up the previous question?
Well, in my experience, programming is more time consuming compared to
Chemistry (talking about grad school study of Chemistry) . If I get
stuck, I get stuck for a long time. Back then, when I wa staking Java
in Srping 2002, I didn't know about asking for help in ngs. So some
bad memory (of losing time unnecessarily) stayed with me.

Re: the original thread subject--programmers are no different than any

other class of professionals--some are workaholics, some aren't. Some
are productive, some aren't. IOW, they're people, just like doctors,
engineers, whatevers....

Well, I was talking in tiemrs of productive and responsible ones.

 

[Default User]

Default User wrote:

I wasn't going to say anything but decided to say this to you: You
are judgemental and in your trying to act like a professional, you
missed being a human.

That does not compute.




Brian

 

[gds]

Well, in my experience, programming is more time consuming compared to
Chemistry (talking about grad school study of Chemistry) . If I get
stuck, I get stuck for a long time. Back then, when I wa staking Java
in Srping 2002, I didn't know about asking for help in ngs. So some
bad memory (of losing time unnecessarily) stayed with me.

I've never held a full-time position in any other field except
software engineering so I can't really say what other fields are
like. However, to compare software engineering with another thing I
do on the side (unpaid), perform with a chorus, I find that the
results I get from chorus tends to scale linearly with the effort I
put into it. OTOH, I find that it takes much more effort to achieve
the same kind of result in a software engineering effort (unless I am
the only developer and the things I depend upon change rarely if
ever). I find that there are often unseen complexities and also
annoying bugs that need to be fixed. These annoying bugs aren't very
interesting from a computer science standpoint but the customers/users
feel they should be fixed.

Sometimes, if people have early success they can get put on a fast
track and get to work on the high-level architecture of software
rather than be forced to fix the annoying bugs.

Read Frederick Brooks' THE MYTHICAL MAN-MONTH for more thoughts of
this type.

--gregbo
gds at best dot com

 

[blmblm]

The goal is "energetic work".

Each individual's ability to work energetically varies over time, and
averages over time. The average of the averages among many individuals might
be 40 hours a week, so employers should _modestly_ cap that as a _general_
hedge against burnout.

The other goal is teamwork; being there when your teammates are there. So
even if you could work late, don't. Come in fresh tomorrow, at the same time
as your teammates come.

Yipes. One of the things that always appealed to me about programming
jobs was that there was less emphasis on everyone working the same
9-to-5 hours. This is one of the things I find less than appealing
about the "pair programming" idea. I admit I haven't tried it, and
maybe if I had I'd understand how wonderful it is, worth giving up
telecommuting and flexible schedules, but .... As something of an
introvert, I'm skeptical.

Heroism is not sustainable.

Now that I agree with!

 

[Duane Bozarth]

I've never held a full-time position in any other field except
software engineering so I can't really say what other fields are
like. However, to compare software engineering with another thing I
do on the side (unpaid), perform with a chorus, I find that the
results I get from chorus tends to scale linearly with the effort I
put into it. OTOH, I find that it takes much more effort to achieve
the same kind of result in a software engineering effort (unless I am
the only developer and the things I depend upon change rarely if
ever). I find that there are often unseen complexities and also
annoying bugs that need to be fixed. These annoying bugs aren't very
interesting from a computer science standpoint but the customers/users
feel they should be fixed.

Sometimes, if people have early success they can get put on a fast
track and get to work on the high-level architecture of software
rather than be forced to fix the annoying bugs.

Read Frederick Brooks' THE MYTHICAL MAN-MONTH for more thoughts of
this type.

Being an engineer who has also written a lot of software of various
types, I don't see any real difference other than in the details of the
effort. Engineering is fraught w/ complexities as is, I suspect, any
other technical field.