4 ms·

Great article. At 8 hours a day, 40 hours a week - 10,000 hours of practice will take 250 work weeks to achieve. That’s about 5 years of nearly non-stop program

Great article. At 8 hours a day, 40 hours a week - 10,000 hours of practice will take 250 work weeks to achieve. That’s about 5 years of nearly non-stop programming. Realistically, it takes closer to 10 years to achieve that goal.

sonabinu 3y ago
This is true in any profession. Building intuition comes from doing more and more with incrementally difficult challenges. There comes a point at which one can make connections and apply what you know from one area into another, and creativity kicks in.
monkeynotes 3y ago
> At 8 hours a day, 40 hours a week - 10,000 hours of practice will take 250 full weeks to achieve. That’s about 5 years of nearly non-stop programming. Isn't this basically a software job? Like, get a junior role and work your way up over 5 years doing 40 hrs a week.
- throwawaaarrgh 3y ago
  If the only programming you do is generic commercial work, you won't get very good, especially if it's at the same job or on the same kind of project. You can learn more about programming by giving yourself new and challenging projects at home. Doing both personal and professional work is the fastest way to progress while learning lessons from both. (commercial work teaches you the "professional" side of software engineering, which has almost nothing to do with programming)
  - monkeynotes 3y ago
    > If the only programming you do is generic commercial work Congrats you've found an edge case. I've spent my whole life working in "commercial" settings, I've learned everything doing that, and it's all programming. I really don't know which places you work at where a software engineer doesn't do programming. That's the whole job, 8hrs a day. Fuck going home and slugging another 4hrs software, unless you have the energy in which case good for you, you can fast track.
jesse__ 3y ago
Realistically, it depends how much you enjoy programming. If you program a lot, you can easily hit 3k hours a year.. Most days I program 12 hours a day, most weeks 6 or 7 days a week. On a day I'm feeling very motivated I'll program for 18 hours. I've been doing this for close to 10 years. Occasionally I'll take a month 'off' and gear down to 3-4 days a week, still long days. By my conservative estimates, I hit about 3500h/year. I work this much because I fucking love programming, and there's nothing I'd rather do ( other than my daily surf in the mornings, of course :)
- syndicatedjelly 3y ago
  That’s great to hear. I said “realistically” because most people don’t program for 12 hours a day. I love programming, but I love other hobbies too. Everyone has the same 24 hours in a day :)
ska 3y ago
The 10,000 hour heuristic isn't particularly accurate, it's just popular. FWIW, 10 years professional experience seems to be about right, give or take, to make a solid developer. I don't think I've ever met anyone who really got there in 5. Some people shave a few years off by having done it obsessively as a teen also, but at some point that typically overlaps anyway. Of course there is also the old saw about 1 year, 10 times being a problem. I've met plenty of developers with >10 years experience that weren't that solid, too...
- pants2 3y ago
  I have a little over ten years experience, and when I read code that I wrote at 1-2 YoE it's shamefully bad, but after that it starts to get pretty good. I don't think anyone would notice a huge change between my code 5 years ago and today. I've moreso improved on soft skills. Though it probably helped that I had two mentors at a job 2 years in who were ruthless about reviewing my code.
  - ska 3y ago
    > I've moreso improved on soft skills. Which, among other things, are also vital. Oversimplified: 1-2 years of not knowing what you don't know. Then 3-5 learning how to write code, then 3-5 learning how to really write software. Most of that last learning curve happens outside the editor. That's a little to linear and non-overlapping, but the essence is true I suspect.

sonabinu 3y ago

This is true in any profession. Building intuition comes from doing more and more with incrementally difficult challenges. There comes a point at which one can make connections and apply what you know from one area into another, and creativity kicks in.

monkeynotes 3y ago

> At 8 hours a day, 40 hours a week - 10,000 hours of practice will take 250 full weeks to achieve. That’s about 5 years of nearly non-stop programming. Isn't this basically a software job? Like, get a junior role and work your way up over 5 years doing 40 hrs a week.

throwawaaarrgh 3y ago
If the only programming you do is generic commercial work, you won't get very good, especially if it's at the same job or on the same kind of project. You can learn more about programming by giving yourself new and challenging projects at home. Doing both personal and professional work is the fastest way to progress while learning lessons from both. (commercial work teaches you the "professional" side of software engineering, which has almost nothing to do with programming)
- monkeynotes 3y ago
  > If the only programming you do is generic commercial work Congrats you've found an edge case. I've spent my whole life working in "commercial" settings, I've learned everything doing that, and it's all programming. I really don't know which places you work at where a software engineer doesn't do programming. That's the whole job, 8hrs a day. Fuck going home and slugging another 4hrs software, unless you have the energy in which case good for you, you can fast track.

jesse__ 3y ago

Realistically, it depends how much you enjoy programming. If you program a lot, you can easily hit 3k hours a year.. Most days I program 12 hours a day, most weeks 6 or 7 days a week. On a day I'm feeling very motivated I'll program for 18 hours. I've been doing this for close to 10 years. Occasionally I'll take a month 'off' and gear down to 3-4 days a week, still long days. By my conservative estimates, I hit about 3500h/year. I work this much because I fucking love programming, and there's nothing I'd rather do ( other than my daily surf in the mornings, of course :)

syndicatedjelly 3y ago
That’s great to hear. I said “realistically” because most people don’t program for 12 hours a day. I love programming, but I love other hobbies too. Everyone has the same 24 hours in a day :)

ska 3y ago

The 10,000 hour heuristic isn't particularly accurate, it's just popular. FWIW, 10 years professional experience seems to be about right, give or take, to make a solid developer. I don't think I've ever met anyone who really got there in 5. Some people shave a few years off by having done it obsessively as a teen also, but at some point that typically overlaps anyway. Of course there is also the old saw about 1 year, 10 times being a problem. I've met plenty of developers with >10 years experience that weren't that solid, too...

pants2 3y ago
I have a little over ten years experience, and when I read code that I wrote at 1-2 YoE it's shamefully bad, but after that it starts to get pretty good. I don't think anyone would notice a huge change between my code 5 years ago and today. I've moreso improved on soft skills. Though it probably helped that I had two mentors at a job 2 years in who were ruthless about reviewing my code.
- ska 3y ago
  > I've moreso improved on soft skills. Which, among other things, are also vital. Oversimplified: 1-2 years of not knowing what you don't know. Then 3-5 learning how to write code, then 3-5 learning how to really write software. Most of that last learning curve happens outside the editor. That's a little to linear and non-overlapping, but the essence is true I suspect.