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I had the same question. Is taking a whole day to set up an authentication system for a web application unreasonable? That's a pretty critical component and not

I had the same question. Is taking a whole day to set up an authentication system for a web application unreasonable? That's a pretty critical component and not necessarily simple. At my, erm, last company, it took multiple developers three months to set one up and we're still tweaking it. I'm with @funkysquid. A few extra hours to properly implement and test code that is going to see months if not year of critical frontline service seems like a bargain to me. Now if your managers are of a different opinion, or you're taking an extra long time to produce code in the end that still has a lot of issues, that's another matter.

tempestn 11y ago
Agreed here too. I graduated first in my class of 200-odd engineering students, then completed a Master's degree with a perfect GPA and a couple papers published (on top of my thesis). A couple years later I started web programming, eventually building a relatively successful web-based business. Nothing in the OP sounds like a symptom of slow thinking to me. Doing something reasonably complex with unfamiliar tools should take a bit of time. In fact, being able to keep focused and get something like that done in a single day sounds pretty impressive. Sure, if you already know the library you're using inside and out and have built such a thing before, maybe you could whip it out in a couple hours - maybe - but a day really isn't that long.
- PopeOfNope 11y ago
  if you already know the library you're using inside and out and have built such a thing before, maybe you could whip it out in a couple hours This is the key, I think. I was in the same boat as OP not so long ago in thinking that I was unreasonably slow. I'm not; I'm just a generalist. People who specialize in one specific area of technology can bang out something in their wheelhouse in a few hours because that's all they do, all day, every day. It makes them seem like superheroes. If you're working on a team with all specialists, it can make you look even slower by comparison. As for what to do about it, I'm stuck between either finding a specialty, going into management, selling my own software products (ie: work for myself) or finding a way of communicating my work in a way that makes me look like a superhero too.

tempestn 11y ago

Agreed here too. I graduated first in my class of 200-odd engineering students, then completed a Master's degree with a perfect GPA and a couple papers published (on top of my thesis). A couple years later I started web programming, eventually building a relatively successful web-based business. Nothing in the OP sounds like a symptom of slow thinking to me. Doing something reasonably complex with unfamiliar tools should take a bit of time. In fact, being able to keep focused and get something like that done in a single day sounds pretty impressive. Sure, if you already know the library you're using inside and out and have built such a thing before, maybe you could whip it out in a couple hours - maybe - but a day really isn't that long.

PopeOfNope 11y ago
if you already know the library you're using inside and out and have built such a thing before, maybe you could whip it out in a couple hours This is the key, I think. I was in the same boat as OP not so long ago in thinking that I was unreasonably slow. I'm not; I'm just a generalist. People who specialize in one specific area of technology can bang out something in their wheelhouse in a few hours because that's all they do, all day, every day. It makes them seem like superheroes. If you're working on a team with all specialists, it can make you look even slower by comparison. As for what to do about it, I'm stuck between either finding a specialty, going into management, selling my own software products (ie: work for myself) or finding a way of communicating my work in a way that makes me look like a superhero too.