6 ms·

"He is dead, too much hard living!". Too much hard coding would be more like it. Wow, those ones and zeros must have really been heavy! Every time I see lands

• swombat 17y ago
  I hate to agree with you but... Wait, no, I don't hate to agree with you. You're absolutely right. "Died from too much hard coding"? Yeah right. Coding is hard intellectual work. And, as you point out, if you're not happy with the trade-offs at work, you can always start your own business. It's really an awesome situation to be in, compared to what we could have been doing a hundred years ago. Everything's amazing but nobody's happy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8r1CZTLk-Gk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8r1CZTLk-Gk PS: I doubt the coding is what killed "John".
  • kscaldef 17y ago
    I have a friend, he writes software for NASA spacecraft. His job is not inherently physically demanding, but many of those who know him worry that he will "code himself to death" eventually. When crunch time comes, he buries himself in his work. Doesn't sleep, forgets to eat, etc., for weeks on end. He's ended up in the hospital multiple times. So, that's what I think of when I read the story of "John". This has nothing to do with "not [being] happy with the tradeoffs". These guys are perfectly happy acting like this; being the hero. But it's absolutely not something I'm going to encourage my friend to do to himself.
    • sonpo 17y ago
      Isn't this caused by his personality and drive and not the fact that he writes software for a big, "important" name? If he wasn't writing software, it seems like he would probably sell, paint, drive (or any other "career") himself to death, right? I wouldn't encourage it either, but it's probably just who he is. It seems like these type of careers just draw that type of driven person. This is just a guess, as I draw from my personal experience.
      • kscaldef 17y ago
        Sure, but what I think the article is trying to say is that programming is one of these careers that encourages people to spend _way_ too much time doing it, to the detriment of the rest of their lives; and, furthermore, that we do ourselves and our colleagues no favor by engaging in hero worship towards the most egregious examples of this. Simply because we can't change other professions, doesn't mean we can't improve our own. And just because there are some obsessive individuals who "work themselves to death" doesn't mean the rest of us need to try to match them (or encourage them).
        • derefr 17y ago
          And in fact, the fact that you can spend as much time as you like programming, without really needing a break due to any physical stresses inherent in the work, allows these people to abuse themselves both harder and longer than they could in any other field.
    • megablast 17y ago
      I used to be able to do that when I was young, it was great. Now, it is much harder to block everything else out, I would be so much more productive if I could do that. Of course, you need a break every now and again, and not eating/exercising is going to catch up with you, but I am guessing this guy is quite young.
      • kscaldef 17y ago
        He's in his thirties. But I don't think "productivity" to the point of putting yourself in the hospital is good for you at any age.
• bmj 17y ago
  Keep in mind, however, that every labor, whether intellectual or physical, exacts a toll on our bodies. Read jwz's stories of being nearly incapacitated by injuries brought on by long days at the keyboard with poor posture. I do agree, however, that many of us are lucky to have avoided the factory life. Read _Out of This Furnace_ sometime to appreciate the hell many immigrants lived through.
  • eru 17y ago
    On the other hand, idleness can be more exacting than labour. The health of unemployed people is worse than that of workers.
    • docgnome 17y ago
      Out of curiosity, do you have a citation for that? I'd be interested in reading about it.
      • eru 17y ago
        I heard the claim once in an interview with a German social-democrat who had to justify why making the labour market more flexible (i.e. removing some unemployment benefits in that case (see Hartz IV)) was in common people's interest after all. The guy cited a statistic that found long-term unemployed people comparable in misery to cancer patients. Long-term unemployment was (and still is) a big problem in Germany. However, a quick search on the internet for "health unemployed" (without the quotes), turns up articles like http://www.mja.com.au/public/issues/feb16/creed/creed.html http://www.mja.com.au/public/issues/feb16/creed/creed.html I also heard of other studies that found that top managers, despite having lots of stress on the job, are still more content and less prone to stress-related ills, than people who get their stress from being low on the social pecking order. (Perhaps somebody can find that study?)
• pw0ncakes 17y ago
  The "hard living" comment seems to imply drug use, a common cause of premature cardiac death. There was also mention of "coke" at the end of the OP, although it's ambiguous which unhealthy substance (the sugary one, or the deadly one?) was being described. I'd imagine that cocaine use is relatively rare in technology, but it occurs in finance quite a bit. That's the dirty not-so-secret of the long hours in investment banking. I also think it's safe to assume that cocaine use is a lot more dangerous than long coding binges.
  • kscaldef 17y ago
    I'd assume the same as a couple paragraphs earlier: "chugging coke and eating pizza at midnight".
  • strlen 17y ago
    I'd argue the sweet stuff can be quite dangerous as well when consumed in large quantities. There's the directly dangerous effect (weight gain, diabetes) and the secondarily dangerous effect (weight gain, low energy resulting in low self-confidence which triggers depression).
    • SamReidHughes 17y ago
      Coca-cola is definitely dangerous, and the temptation to power my way through coding problems with large amounts of Coke, which I could not resist for longer than a week, put me on the path of severe health problems, due not entirely to weight gain (since most Coke-based calories would substitute for other calories) but also from the practice of having a short term fix to any problems involving to consumption of sugar, not to mention the cycle of being tired -> drinking Coke -> being unable to sleep -> being tired the next day. After quitting (my job), I fell to a recreational level of Coke consumption, and my body is thanking me for it to this day. The scary question is whether I can maintain this through another development job...
• einarvollset 17y ago
  Don't be a fucking douche.
• hernan7 17y ago
  Sedentary work is bad for your health too, if taken to extremes. Lack of exercise, long hours sitting in front of your machine, stress, bad diet... that's not going to be good for your blood pressure.
• aarongough 17y ago
  I've been a programmer for 6 years, but I have also done quite a few labor intensive jobs. For me each has it's ups and downs. If you are sitting in a chair all day you are quite likely to develop postural and muscular problems, as well as being at a higher risk of obesity and other exercise related health issues. Working outside generally means a higher risk of (skin) cancer, but your body is doing what it evolved to do: carrying your consciousness around while you manipulate the physical world. Personally I find I have to go to great lengths at the gym to make my body feel like it is getting the exercise it requires when I'm coding, whereas when I'm working in a more physical job I generally feel very physically content at the end of the day... But, as always, to each their own.
• jacquesm 17y ago
  I had a pretty pointed argument with someone here not that long ago about never having 'worked hard', my position was that for the most part none of us have ever worked hard. Talk to someone building an asphalt road in the summer about hard work, or a farmer during a bad year, an ambulance driver or a police man. Hard work means that your body is going to fail you long before it normally would have, hard work means that your hands have calluses. We're bloody lucky that brains are rewarded as much as they are, I certainly wouldn't make it for a long time working in a mine or a field (the two options that you had roughly where I'm living not that long ago). Sure, working under pressure can be tough, and demanding customers can drive you to the brink of insanity. But only if you let it. You've been a cook, I worked in a mail room at the ripe old age of 17, scrawny little kid trying to drag a mailbag twice my weight. I didn't give up but I can tell you I came close those first weeks. It certainly helped me to appreciate my good fortune later in life.
  • goatforce5 17y ago
    My brother's a paramedic. From what I can gather, 50% of the job is sheer boredom... Sitting around waiting for something to happen. 45% of it being a taxi driver for people who don't really need an ambulance. 5% of it is being calm as you deal with blood and puke and failing bodies and screaming relatives. And a tiny bit of it is ignoring their safety training and climbing down ravines or crawling in to burning upturned cars. He gets paid the big bucks for the 5%. Occasionally i'll ask how his day was and i'll get a burning car kinda story and then he'll ask how my day was. "I'm an overpaid typist."
    • jacquesm 17y ago
      Firemen, policemen, same thing. Those jobs take a special kind of mentality to be able to do them well.
• donaq 17y ago
  Huh, how does comparing the current imperfect situation with an even worse situation make the current situation better? One might just as well say stuff like "You're LUCKY to have [insert contemporary OS]! Back in the day we used MS-DOS and didn't have mice so count your lucky stars!" when someone complains about their OS. A flaw is a flaw regardless of how much worse things used to be. Sure, be grateful for what you have (I am, just for the record), but don't rag on people who want to make things even better.
• nocman 17y ago
  First let me say that I agree with you on one thing: there are probably thousands of jobs that I feel fortunate to not have to do every day. And many of those are physically difficult professions that are taxing on the body. I also feel privileged to work in a profession where I get to do something that I enjoy, and I get paid for it. However, the situation you describe for yourself is not the same situation discussed in the article. You are making your own decision to work how ever many hours a day you work. And you are reaping the rewards from that work directly (I'm assuming you are self-employed, since you said you are your own boss). You are not being asked to work 80 hour weeks by someone else, and then not getting compensated even in the form of gratitude from your employer for going the extra mile to get something done for the company. I (and multiple friends of mine) have been in that situation before, and it's no picnic. When you are expected to deliver on deadlines that are beyond completely unrealistic, and are pressured on every side to "just get it done" by people who know absolutely nothing about developing software, and are reprimanded for coming in late after working long hours the night before it can be extremely hazardous to your health. Stress can kill you, and the body does need sleep. Long hours day after day for weeks on end catches up with you, and yes it can cause serious health problems. BTW, the fact that you are sitting on your backside the whole time actually makes the situation worse, not better. Happily, it has been a long time since I've been in that situation, and I intend to continue to do everything I can to keep it that way.
• mr_luc 17y ago
  I'd like to point out a contrarian view of conditions at some software shops that employ very wet-behind-the-ears programmers. I have worked in a union carpentry shop, as well as a Swift and Company kill floor. I also worked for 7 years as a programmer, 5 years working for others and 2 for myself -- in a part of the country where the market for that sort of work, and the pay, is just terrible. The carpentry job was better than programming as an employee, by far. At least at the places I worked. The prefab construction job was often extremely physical. It was often dangerous. Every day, I walked into work and there was a backlog of fully finished half-ton pre-fab walls that absolutely had to be moved out yesterday, all different sizes and bizarre shapes. My job was to use some combination of forklifts, hoists, bundles of styrofoam, truck strap, plywood and temporary structures to move, stack and pack the walls into the smallest space I could, and then load them onto a semi trailer with the then-largest industrial forklift that Clark made. Straps broke, racks turned over, thousand-pound walls sometimes fell or swung or crumbled a little too near for comfort, and other people didn't always work safe around you. You know why it was better than programming? Not because of the overtime pay or the view, although both were superior. It was better because reality asserted itself more often. If your boss thinks the hoist can lift 2X more than it actually can, that situation will resolve itself. Fast. When things go wrong, they go wrong fast and it's easy to assign blame. If your coworkers think that they can lift a 24-foot-long wall by attaching a hook to a single 2x8 stud, they'll find out quickly that they should listen to the people who have seen it done. We never ended up working like crack-addled beavers for 4 months straight because a team of yes-men convinced everyone that natural laws don't apply to us. Sometimes the company took on more work than it could actually handle. It became obvious very quickly, after a matter of only a few weeks. It didn't stagnate, dying horribly over the course of years as the backlog of unprofitable work dragged out into the infinite future. The existence of physical limitations made customers more reasonable; no one ever tried to order a 5-story Ruby Tuesdays for the price of a lemonade stand. The equivalent of that happened all the time at the software shops I worked for; I saw them take on jobs that called for the tracking and reporting of complex resource flows, stuff that would be ambitious for even a YC team with 4 months to kill, but the devs assigned were pure designers who had managed to learn just enough vbscript to provide some meaningful interaction on the website templates they sliced out of Photoshop. I know that there are people out there whose experience has been pretty different. Most of them probably react by moving to a better market, and that certainly seems a reasonable solution, although it wasn't mine. But to dismiss the reality of crappy programming jobs with a "wow, heavy ones and zeros" -- uh-uh. I literally enjoyed the kill floor better than one of my programming jobs. There are people out there who will abuse any humble, hardworking, inexperienced employees they have, and browbeat them into truly ridiculous efforts. I remember being 21 years old, being told that a project slated for delivery in 2 months had to be done for a demo to the execs of a chain of hospitals at the end of the week. I worked with zero sleep to get it done, because it was my project. At the end of the week, my boss slipped and cut his head playing with his kids in the McTreehouseMansion behind his McMansion. So on no sleep, I had to train all of these people in on the new system, people who were executives at our biggest account. I have public speaking experience; I put on a suit and did it. It was a big success. I didn't get overtime or a bonus, and I would by far have rather spent that week gutting hogs for a mere 10 hours a day and going home to relax afterwards.