5 ms·
article starts off on fallacious footing: "Let’s face it, doing about 30% better isn’t going to get you anywhere significant. And I’m not even going to start t
by dustingetz 15y ago
article starts off on fallacious footing:
"Let’s face it, doing about 30% better isn’t going to get you anywhere significant. And I’m not even going to start talking about why working 30% longer of course won’t bring anything significant in your company up by 30%, especially not the “doing better” – much has been written about this already."
dead wrong. there are reasons not to work long hours, but this article articulates none of them, hand-waving about exponential growth instead. There's a time to grow yourself, and there's also a time to ship your product.
"From a business point of view, long hours by programmers are a key to profitability. Suppose that a programmer needs to spend 25 hours per week keeping current with new technology, getting coordinated with other programmers, contributing to documentation and thought leadership pieces, and comprehending the structures of the systems being extended. Under this assumption, a programmer who works 55 hours per week will produce twice as much code as one who works 40 hours per week. In The Mythical Man-Month, the only great book ever written on software engineering, Fred Brooks concludes that no software product should be designed by more than two people. He argues that a program designed by more than two people might be more complete but it will never be easy to understand because it will not be as consistent as something designed by fewer people. This means that if you want to follow the best practices of the industry in terms of design and architecture, the only way to improve speed to market is to have the same people working longer hours. Finally there is the common sense notion that the smaller the team the less management overhead. A product is going to get out the door much faster if it is built by 4 people working 70-hour weeks (180 productive programmer-hours per week, after subtracting for 25 hours of coordination and structure comprehension time) than if by 12 people working 40-hour weeks (the same net of 180 hours per week). The 12-person team will inevitably require additional managers and all-day meetings to stay coordinated."[1]
[1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3547965 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3547965 (secondary source)
- darklajid 15y agoCan you please fly over to this place and tell my boss about these 25 hours? Don't mention the rest though - as a corporate drone I learned the hard way (a good amount > 70h/week for roughly a year) that there's only one correct reaction to requests like this from my manager: 1) Smile and say that you don't agree, point out what might work 2) Don't follow that request (in my home country it's even against the law as soon as you require certain amounts. Unless you're in very specific scenarios) 3) Go elsewhere And - the biggest lesson of all: Avoid peer pressure and congratulate your coworkers that don't back down and leave after a 10 hour day, instead of joking about his part-time job attitude. Cost me dearly to learn these lessons - but I'm sure I'll never forget those.
- oconnor0 15y agoThat assumes that a programmer working 70 hours is more productive than one working 40 hours.
- dasil003 15y agoI agree the article is off base, but the assumption in this citation is that programmer productivity is constant, which it is clearly not. It's not even just a uniform curve because being overworked can have a knock-on effect that decreases productivity even more. Basically, it's entirely ignoring the human aspect of programming, which I think was a lot easier to do in the 70s, because frankly, America had a better work ethic and were inherently more willing to be a good team player because back then nothing interesting happened except with major capital backing and a lot of team work. All else being equal, sure a single programmer is more efficient than two programmers because of a more comprehensive mental model, and lower communications overhead. But in this day and age, with no job security, and the possibility to strike out on one's own at the drop of a hat (because in the 70s you pretty much had to keep your job just to have access to a computer, let alone develop a product and make a living from it), it's not sufficiently motivating to tell people to work longer, it's also equally ineffective to say be 300% better (I would probably laugh out loud if I heard that). Somehow you need to create a vision that people really buy into that internally motivates them, which will result not only in longer hours worked, but also greater minute-to-minute productivity, and even more productive subsconscious work. This is all the more difficult when you realize that individuals have different motivations. But this is the quality that will most enable a great founder today. This is I believe what set Steve Jobs apart more than anything else.
- MattRogish 15y agoProductivity goes negative as a programmer will eventually create more and more bugs, ultimately overwhelming the system.
- neutronicus 15y agoI actually think that there's a sweet-spot number of programmers that isn't just 1. I really like having one or two people around to keep me honest.