7 ms·

One year of solo dev, wrapping up the grant-funded work

99 points by asicsp 2y ago

deleted 2y ago
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l5870uoo9y 2y ago
> I know from experience that you get a lot smarter if you don’t work every waking hour of the day, and any project is realistically better off run by a refreshed smart guy than an overworked idiot that hasn’t seen daylight for a week. Good ideas are born in your free time when you put the daily work away and are able to zoom out. Returning Monday after a (long) weekend with a pair of new glasses can be profoundly productive.
- marginalia_nu 2y ago
  That's part of why it's so hard to keep away though; stepping away gives inspiration and what do you know, your day off was more like 4 hours off, aha!, and then 5 hours of coding. Well, that's not the only way it fails, but it genuinely do be like that sometimes.
- cph123 2y ago
  I have solved bugs by thinking in the shower - completely removed from technology for a short period of time can be helpful.
- almostgotcaught 2y ago
  I see this kind of thing very frequently and it feels like pandering - no one that is busy working 996 will see your advice and everyone that isn't definitely appreciates the reassurance that they're doing the right thing by taking a break. As a counterpoint, I worked 7 days a week for the last 2 years (tail end of my PhD) and although I don't recommend it to anyone (my health and well-being suffered) I have maintained high productivity the entire way through. I continued to have "aha shower moments". And if you think I'm lying, I'm exaggerating how much I work, I'll just say, start to finish my PhD took exactly 3 years and 2 months (first year was lighter because it was mostly coursework). I recently graduated and started as a senior in industry and I plan to keep up the pace for the next 1-2 years in order to reach principal.
  - marginalia_nu 2y ago
    I'm willing to concede it may be a software thing. There are definitely things where being tired doesn't really affect your output very much. Mental clarity in software has extreme leverage, probably among the biggest of any human endeavor. Your effectiveness as a programmer is largely a function of how well you can model the software in your mind. Often seeing immediately how to do things correctly vs bumbling forward can be 4 hours of work vs 2 weeks of work. Actually inputting the code is not the thing that takes time. You could write 50,000 lines of code in a day if typing was the only bottleneck. This is also in the context of a low-distraction environment where there are zero interruptions. If you're working in a busy office, staying late is usually a productivity boost because you finally get some quiet time to concentrate. Which, again, is good for clarity and hence productivity.
    - almostgotcaught 2y ago
      > I'm willing to concede it may be a software thing. There are definitely things where being tired doesn't really affect your output very much. I work on compilers and I'm pretty sure that counts as software. > Often seeing immediately how to do things correctly vs bumbling forward can be 4 hours of work vs 2 weeks of work. Actually inputting the code is not the thing that takes time. This presumes one only works on one workstream at a time. I have many distinct workstreams going at the same time (typically 3-4). When I'm blocked on one because of some ambiguity/uncertainty/ignorance I switch to another stream until I decide/find a solution for the first.
      - marginalia_nu 2y ago
        Wait, how do you make design decisions while working on another feature? When is the design work for the first feature done if you've switch to another task? I slip into this sometimes too, but I feel it's a procrastination pattern to avoid thinking about something difficult, and context switching doesn't really move progress on the original hard problem. It's something I typically try to avoid.
        2y ago
- blue_light_man 2y ago
  Also a profound way to waste your life.
eitland 2y ago
Had to look back at the deep bug you described and I am happy that someone looked into it[1] and got it fixed. Also happy that they so publicly acknowledged your work to narrow it down! [1]: https://github.com/oracle/graal/issues/8747 https://github.com/oracle/graal/issues/8747
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

99 points by asicsp 2y ago

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

> I know from experience that you get a lot smarter if you don’t work every waking hour of the day, and any project is realistically better off run by a refreshed smart guy than an overworked idiot that hasn’t seen daylight for a week. Good ideas are born in your free time when you put the daily work away and are able to zoom out. Returning Monday after a (long) weekend with a pair of new glasses can be profoundly productive.

marginalia_nu 2y ago
That's part of why it's so hard to keep away though; stepping away gives inspiration and what do you know, your day off was more like 4 hours off, aha!, and then 5 hours of coding. Well, that's not the only way it fails, but it genuinely do be like that sometimes.
cph123 2y ago
I have solved bugs by thinking in the shower - completely removed from technology for a short period of time can be helpful.
almostgotcaught 2y ago
I see this kind of thing very frequently and it feels like pandering - no one that is busy working 996 will see your advice and everyone that isn't definitely appreciates the reassurance that they're doing the right thing by taking a break. As a counterpoint, I worked 7 days a week for the last 2 years (tail end of my PhD) and although I don't recommend it to anyone (my health and well-being suffered) I have maintained high productivity the entire way through. I continued to have "aha shower moments". And if you think I'm lying, I'm exaggerating how much I work, I'll just say, start to finish my PhD took exactly 3 years and 2 months (first year was lighter because it was mostly coursework). I recently graduated and started as a senior in industry and I plan to keep up the pace for the next 1-2 years in order to reach principal.
- marginalia_nu 2y ago
  I'm willing to concede it may be a software thing. There are definitely things where being tired doesn't really affect your output very much. Mental clarity in software has extreme leverage, probably among the biggest of any human endeavor. Your effectiveness as a programmer is largely a function of how well you can model the software in your mind. Often seeing immediately how to do things correctly vs bumbling forward can be 4 hours of work vs 2 weeks of work. Actually inputting the code is not the thing that takes time. You could write 50,000 lines of code in a day if typing was the only bottleneck. This is also in the context of a low-distraction environment where there are zero interruptions. If you're working in a busy office, staying late is usually a productivity boost because you finally get some quiet time to concentrate. Which, again, is good for clarity and hence productivity.
  - almostgotcaught 2y ago
    > I'm willing to concede it may be a software thing. There are definitely things where being tired doesn't really affect your output very much. I work on compilers and I'm pretty sure that counts as software. > Often seeing immediately how to do things correctly vs bumbling forward can be 4 hours of work vs 2 weeks of work. Actually inputting the code is not the thing that takes time. This presumes one only works on one workstream at a time. I have many distinct workstreams going at the same time (typically 3-4). When I'm blocked on one because of some ambiguity/uncertainty/ignorance I switch to another stream until I decide/find a solution for the first.
    - marginalia_nu 2y ago
      Wait, how do you make design decisions while working on another feature? When is the design work for the first feature done if you've switch to another task? I slip into this sometimes too, but I feel it's a procrastination pattern to avoid thinking about something difficult, and context switching doesn't really move progress on the original hard problem. It's something I typically try to avoid.
      - 2y ago
blue_light_man 2y ago
Also a profound way to waste your life.

eitland 2y ago

Had to look back at the deep bug you described and I am happy that someone looked into it[1] and got it fixed. Also happy that they so publicly acknowledged your work to narrow it down! [1]: https://github.com/oracle/graal/issues/8747 https://github.com/oracle/graal/issues/8747

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]