3 ms·

Wait, there's organizations that let devs spend hours on a prototype in lieu of their normal work?

Harvey-Specter 8y ago
Wasn't Google famous for giving devs 20% play time to work on whatever passion project they wanted?
weavie 8y ago
That is my normal work. Our manager doesn't have a clue how systems work, so it's up to us to find the best way. I know the various areas we need to develop to push the system forward and it is up to me to find the best way to do it. If I learn something new that makes me rethink something, then I am more than welcome to revisit it and try out some new things. If it ends up with a better system then we all benefit. At the end of the day the work that needs to get done does get done. Obviously I do have to use my judgement to allocate time appropriately. If there is a customer screaming at accounts because they were overcharged or whatever, then it is quite obvious I need to resolve that issue rather than work on a new way to style our buttons, but for the majority of the time it is up to me. I do also spend quite a lot of my own time working on various things where it is a bit ambiguous as to whether it is 'proper' work or not. I enjoy the work I do because I don't feel like I am working in a sweat shop.. Maybe I'm just lucky to have always found a job where management trusts the developers.
matthewmacleod 8y ago
Yes! I would be really surprised if an organisation didn't expect that to happen! When solving pretty much any problem that I don't have an existing cookie-cutter solution for, I do some prototyping as part of the process of figuring out how it works. Sometimes I do this for arbitrary things that are irritating me, or that I think might be worth looking at. Nobody is sitting over my shoulder looking at everything I do and I'd be right out the door if that was ever the case. I'd expect professional software engineers to spend at least a bit of their time working on this sort of stuff!
- JustSomeNobody 8y ago
  > When solving pretty much any problem that I don't have an existing cookie-cutter solution for, I do some prototyping as part of the process of figuring out how it works. Sometimes I do this for arbitrary things that are irritating me, or that I think might be worth looking at. Well, of course this is how normal development works. This is the work I am talking about that would _not_ get done because the OP was working on a prototype to solve some _other_ problem.

Wasn't Google famous for giving devs 20% play time to work on whatever passion project they wanted?

That is my normal work. Our manager doesn't have a clue how systems work, so it's up to us to find the best way. I know the various areas we need to develop to push the system forward and it is up to me to find the best way to do it. If I learn something new that makes me rethink something, then I am more than welcome to revisit it and try out some new things. If it ends up with a better system then we all benefit. At the end of the day the work that needs to get done does get done. Obviously I do have to use my judgement to allocate time appropriately. If there is a customer screaming at accounts because they were overcharged or whatever, then it is quite obvious I need to resolve that issue rather than work on a new way to style our buttons, but for the majority of the time it is up to me. I do also spend quite a lot of my own time working on various things where it is a bit ambiguous as to whether it is 'proper' work or not. I enjoy the work I do because I don't feel like I am working in a sweat shop.. Maybe I'm just lucky to have always found a job where management trusts the developers.

matthewmacleod 8y ago

Yes! I would be really surprised if an organisation didn't expect that to happen! When solving pretty much any problem that I don't have an existing cookie-cutter solution for, I do some prototyping as part of the process of figuring out how it works. Sometimes I do this for arbitrary things that are irritating me, or that I think might be worth looking at. Nobody is sitting over my shoulder looking at everything I do and I'd be right out the door if that was ever the case. I'd expect professional software engineers to spend at least a bit of their time working on this sort of stuff!

JustSomeNobody 8y ago
> When solving pretty much any problem that I don't have an existing cookie-cutter solution for, I do some prototyping as part of the process of figuring out how it works. Sometimes I do this for arbitrary things that are irritating me, or that I think might be worth looking at. Well, of course this is how normal development works. This is the work I am talking about that would _not_ get done because the OP was working on a prototype to solve some _other_ problem.