4 ms·

All money issues aside, 4 years is also around the time you tend to get really sick of working on the same problem with the same codebase. And that's an outsid

All money issues aside, 4 years is also around the time you tend to get really sick of working on the same problem with the same codebase. And that's an outside bound, when the problem and codebase you were working on were both good ones. The wall gets hit even sooner if you're working on something less interesting. All IMO and IME, of course.

jseliger 15y ago
All money issues aside, 4 years is also around the time you tend to get really sick of working on the same problem with the same codebase. Four years, incidentally, is also the length of time a PhD used to take, in both the sciences and the humanities. Now it's stretching towards six - seven for the sciences and ten for the humanities, which may contribute to burnout.
- Jach 15y ago
  There's also some speculative research that 4 years is about how long monogamous love of a wife can last barring other factors. It's been a while since I read about it, I think it was reasoned that presumably because in the old days when you fell in love you had a kid and by the time the kid turned 4 they didn't really need the full support of the father anymore to survive, so the father can start looking around and try to spread his genes further now the initial investment of the one is complete... I didn't find much evidence supporting this view at the time, and indeed the notion of "monogamous love" was itself poorly defined. But it's still fun to speculate on why 4 tends to show up so often in human activities.
  - adrianN 15y ago
    Most (all?) evolutionary psychology reeks of unbased speculation sprinkled with sciency words.
  - billybob 15y ago
    Rubbish. "Barring other factors" is a qualification big enough to drive a tractor trailer through, filled with millions of counter-examples on both sides. Many fathers love their mate for life or at least decades. Many others abandon her before the child is born. Whatever explains this variance is not biology. What evidence point to 4 years as normative? What evidence suggests that a 4-year-old doesn't need a father? "OK, kid, I see you're walking and making sentences. Here's a knife and some flint. Good luck."
  - AznHisoka 15y ago
    4 years may be speculative, but the principle is not. For those interested, Google "Coolidge effect"
  - jmaygarden 15y ago
    No, it's 7 years, and I have that on the high authority of an old Marilyn Monroe flick. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Seven_Year_Itch http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Seven_Year_Itch
ma2rten 15y ago
It's funny how far we have come from working for the same company for all your life.
- mikecaron 15y ago
  People who worked for the same company all their life did it for the pension. Those companies tended to care more for the people that worked for them. Those were the good-old-days when people were valued.
- samspot 15y ago
  I would be willing to stay at the same company all my life, however it is clear that corporations are not really interested in this.

jseliger 15y ago

All money issues aside, 4 years is also around the time you tend to get really sick of working on the same problem with the same codebase. Four years, incidentally, is also the length of time a PhD used to take, in both the sciences and the humanities. Now it's stretching towards six - seven for the sciences and ten for the humanities, which may contribute to burnout.

Jach 15y ago
There's also some speculative research that 4 years is about how long monogamous love of a wife can last barring other factors. It's been a while since I read about it, I think it was reasoned that presumably because in the old days when you fell in love you had a kid and by the time the kid turned 4 they didn't really need the full support of the father anymore to survive, so the father can start looking around and try to spread his genes further now the initial investment of the one is complete... I didn't find much evidence supporting this view at the time, and indeed the notion of "monogamous love" was itself poorly defined. But it's still fun to speculate on why 4 tends to show up so often in human activities.
- adrianN 15y ago
  Most (all?) evolutionary psychology reeks of unbased speculation sprinkled with sciency words.
- billybob 15y ago
  Rubbish. "Barring other factors" is a qualification big enough to drive a tractor trailer through, filled with millions of counter-examples on both sides. Many fathers love their mate for life or at least decades. Many others abandon her before the child is born. Whatever explains this variance is not biology. What evidence point to 4 years as normative? What evidence suggests that a 4-year-old doesn't need a father? "OK, kid, I see you're walking and making sentences. Here's a knife and some flint. Good luck."
- AznHisoka 15y ago
  4 years may be speculative, but the principle is not. For those interested, Google "Coolidge effect"
- jmaygarden 15y ago
  No, it's 7 years, and I have that on the high authority of an old Marilyn Monroe flick. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Seven_Year_Itch http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Seven_Year_Itch

ma2rten 15y ago

It's funny how far we have come from working for the same company for all your life.

mikecaron 15y ago
People who worked for the same company all their life did it for the pension. Those companies tended to care more for the people that worked for them. Those were the good-old-days when people were valued.
samspot 15y ago
I would be willing to stay at the same company all my life, however it is clear that corporations are not really interested in this.