5 ms·
> Programming all night in a do-or-die mode is fun and all until you get a bit older. For many people who lived this life they realize only too late that they d
by andrewmcwatters 4y ago
> Programming all night in a do-or-die mode is fun and all until you get a bit older. For many people who lived this life they realize only too late that they didn't spend enough time making friends and building a community around themselves of genuine relationships.
I feel like this is a false dichotomy that bad engineers tell themselves to justify not working hard at being a good engineer and instead screwing off.
Believe it or not, you can actually be a world class engineer and have a healthy life, who would have known? Weird.
- dkural 4y agoGreat engineers don't do all nighters frequently. Some of the best software engineers I've met (quantum computing for Amazon, ML for protein design, etc.), go to bed at reasonably early and get eight hours of sleep, exercise and eat regularly, and have downtime. My guess is this type of life discipline helps keep up productivity over the long term.
- agentultra 4y agoIt definitely does. In what few empirical studies on what makes programmers effective, sleep, is the primary contributing factor to low error rates [0][1]. Stress and overwork are probably close seconds. And some of these studies are cross-sectional across knowledge workers; iow, not just programmers. If you want to make it to your 40s and still be an effective IC you need to learn how to regulate yourself and follow a disciplined approach to work. Cognitive performance from chronic sleep deprivation takes years to show up. [0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2656292/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2656292/ [1] https://arxiv.org/pdf/1805.02544.pdf https://arxiv.org/pdf/1805.02544.pdf
- dkural 4y agoThank you for the links! Much better than my anecdotal observations :)