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The real crime is that programmers have so little time for the exploratory work that the career requires that they have to do all of that off-hours. Doctors ca

The real crime is that programmers have so little time for the exploratory work that the career requires that they have to do all of that off-hours. Doctors can read medical journals and call it "working time". Most programmers have feces thrown at them if they're caught learning on the job. This is just something we have to suffer until we develop a stronger tribal identity and demand the conditions of a profession (including ethical rights and obligations that supersede immediate managerial authority). Do surgeons spend 40 hours per week, 50 weeks per year, cutting open bodies? Of course not. No one would allow it. They work a full work-week, but they spend a lot of that time keeping current with the field. That's how professions are supposed to work. Your metered work obligation is ~15 hours per week, and the other 25-40 you spend keeping current, networking, and performing other off-meter, self-directed work that is important to you and the profession. Now, hackathons. There are two things one should know about that. The first is that the association of programming with the night hours is a bit of cultural legacy. Forty years ago, when computing resources were shared and scarce, night was the only time you could get low-priority (exploratory) jobs to run. So the hobbyists (young people, usually with access through a connection or favor) did their work at night. Now, we have enough in the way of resources that people can work at any time. Some people are most productive between 6 and 10 in the morning. Others are best from 8 pm to midnight. Whatever works. The second is that hackathons seem, in many organizations, to exist to recapture the college lifestyle for people who haven't realized yet that It's Gone Forever. The hackathon recreates the "good old days" (?) of the 3:00 am, caffeine-fueled coding fests to get that hard-ass final project to work. It's not terribly unhealthy when you're a college student and have that kind of schedule autonomy (you can crash for a week) but it's a terrible idea to mix that lifestyle with the 9-to-5 regular workday. Also, most final projects are Done, submitted for a grade, and never need to be looked at again. This isn't the case for real-world software. I tend to see most company's 20%-time and hack-day programs as negative spaces that define anything programmers actually enjoy as "not real work" (because they can be tricked into doing it "for free"). I can't even count the number of times I've seen people using 20%T programs to do things that, if they didn't have short-sighted imbeciles for managers, would just be regular-ol' working time.

crusso 14y ago
Doctors can read medical journals and call it "working time" Where did you get that idea? I grew up in a family of doctors. If they aren't seeing patients, they aren't billing. They go to school an unthinkably long number of years and then they're put into a sleep depravation nightmare called "interning" for years before they get to have a career that normally includes "on call time" where they're woken up at all hours of the night to go save someone's life. Sitting around reading journals is what they do on their off time. Everything in your analogy is wrong.
- derefr 14y ago
  I would say that the expectation is "right" (ethically), and where it contradicts the world, it's the world, not the expectation, that is flawed :)
  - michaelochurch 14y ago
    Correct. I probably should not have invoked medicine, because (a) the doctor shortage has produced a culture of very long hours, (b) high fixed costs (e.g. malpractice insurance) skew the relationship between hours worked and payoff, and (c) there is a well-known and long period of intense professional hazing. The ideal of professionalism is a good one. It has been under attack over the past 30 years. Incidentally, both the medical and legal profession have suffered in opposite ways. The AMA imposed tight limits on medical school admissions in order to create a doctor shortage, and that has generated a huge per-doctor workload. On the other hand, the lack of control (and declining standards) in law has created a surplus of attorneys that has destroyed the professional culture in traditionally "white shoe" firms. Doctors suffer very long hours (especially as residents) because there is too much work. Lawyers live in an imploded culture because there is so little desirable work (per attorney) that the partners hold all the cards. This is irrelevant to software engineers, who should (by any standard or moral calculus) have the autonomy accorded a profession but, currently, do not. It's up to our generation to change that.
- michaelochurch 14y ago
  Perhaps I shouldn't have picked medicine as an example. The principle of professionalism is sound, but many of the traditional professions have departed from it. Law has outright imploded, while medicine has seen very long hours on account of the doctor shortage. If they aren't seeing patients, they aren't billing. Right, but 2000 hours per year wasn't traditionally the requirement. That may have changed. The professions have declined over the past 30 years. For example, before the legal profession went to hell, 1200 billable hours was the requirement. Remaining time was for networking, keeping current, attending conferences, etc. If you billed 1500 hours, you were a rock star and guaranteed to make partner. Enough money was made in the billed hours to pay for the off-meter stuff. They go to school an unthinkably long number of years and then they're put into a sleep depravation nightmare called "interning" for years That is true. Medical school and residency are extremely difficult. before they get to have a career that normally includes "on call time" where they're woken up at all hours of the night to go save someone's life. Obviously, medicine can't be limited to the 9-to-5 hours, because people get sick all the time. Regarding the very long work weeks, this problem was at least partially created by the AMA. They've been limiting medical school admissions to keep an artificial shortage of doctors. That has created an environment in which working hours are much more than they used to be.

crusso 14y ago

Doctors can read medical journals and call it "working time" Where did you get that idea? I grew up in a family of doctors. If they aren't seeing patients, they aren't billing. They go to school an unthinkably long number of years and then they're put into a sleep depravation nightmare called "interning" for years before they get to have a career that normally includes "on call time" where they're woken up at all hours of the night to go save someone's life. Sitting around reading journals is what they do on their off time. Everything in your analogy is wrong.

derefr 14y ago
I would say that the expectation is "right" (ethically), and where it contradicts the world, it's the world, not the expectation, that is flawed :)
- michaelochurch 14y ago
  Correct. I probably should not have invoked medicine, because (a) the doctor shortage has produced a culture of very long hours, (b) high fixed costs (e.g. malpractice insurance) skew the relationship between hours worked and payoff, and (c) there is a well-known and long period of intense professional hazing. The ideal of professionalism is a good one. It has been under attack over the past 30 years. Incidentally, both the medical and legal profession have suffered in opposite ways. The AMA imposed tight limits on medical school admissions in order to create a doctor shortage, and that has generated a huge per-doctor workload. On the other hand, the lack of control (and declining standards) in law has created a surplus of attorneys that has destroyed the professional culture in traditionally "white shoe" firms. Doctors suffer very long hours (especially as residents) because there is too much work. Lawyers live in an imploded culture because there is so little desirable work (per attorney) that the partners hold all the cards. This is irrelevant to software engineers, who should (by any standard or moral calculus) have the autonomy accorded a profession but, currently, do not. It's up to our generation to change that.
michaelochurch 14y ago
Perhaps I shouldn't have picked medicine as an example. The principle of professionalism is sound, but many of the traditional professions have departed from it. Law has outright imploded, while medicine has seen very long hours on account of the doctor shortage. If they aren't seeing patients, they aren't billing. Right, but 2000 hours per year wasn't traditionally the requirement. That may have changed. The professions have declined over the past 30 years. For example, before the legal profession went to hell, 1200 billable hours was the requirement. Remaining time was for networking, keeping current, attending conferences, etc. If you billed 1500 hours, you were a rock star and guaranteed to make partner. Enough money was made in the billed hours to pay for the off-meter stuff. They go to school an unthinkably long number of years and then they're put into a sleep depravation nightmare called "interning" for years That is true. Medical school and residency are extremely difficult. before they get to have a career that normally includes "on call time" where they're woken up at all hours of the night to go save someone's life. Obviously, medicine can't be limited to the 9-to-5 hours, because people get sick all the time. Regarding the very long work weeks, this problem was at least partially created by the AMA. They've been limiting medical school admissions to keep an artificial shortage of doctors. That has created an environment in which working hours are much more than they used to be.