4 ms·
I disagree here. If what you're saying is correct, then the following would be true: School != Work Learning new language != Work Testing new lang/framew
by RyanZAG 13y ago
I disagree here. If what you're saying is correct, then the following would be true:
School != Work
Learning new language != Work
Testing new lang/framework != Work
This is blatantly false, because doing these things may enable you to create something you couldn't before. Let's take two people. Person A only does code. Person B both codes and learns new theory. Person A creates something in X hours. Person B spends X/2 hours learning and creates something in X/2 hours. You can't say A has worked twice as long as B - both have put in X hours and gotten a result.
And so,
Learning new things on HackerNews = Work
Blogging to reinforce your understanding and help co-workers = Work
Setting up Github to speed compilations and testing = Work
Meetings to discuss new features instead of re-doing the same
feature incorrectly 5 times = Work
- easy_rider 13y agoThis is an important discrepancy between the words "working" and "producing". And even then, reading HN can be productive in your clauses. So it ends up just being semantics. However, in this article the author seemingly seems to want to say "Shipping Code", which is clearly just a small subset of work/being productive.
- sbjustin 13y agoI agree. Perhaps a better clarification would be billable work vs work?
- RyanZAG 13y agoNice one, but billable work is - by definition - whatever you can get someone to pay you for. If that's the case, I'm pretty sure there are a lot of people getting paid to be on HN, or sleep under a tree with their phone on and being on call. That would be billable work too, and very productive if you consider productive to be "how much money I made". And no, there isn't someone in the sky recording how many minutes you looked away from coding and deciding if you're an acceptable person or not. ;) The "work" vs "not work" is all in your head.
- ritchiea 13y agoIt really depends on what you're reading on HN, if you're reading about acquisitions or gossip or meta commentary like this, then definitely HN != work if you're reading a technical article then definitely HN = work. And I believe they're both useful information, but one of them definitely isn't work.
- dasil003 13y agoI would split the hair even finer and say if you're researching how to accomplish a particular task and you serendipitously find an article on HN then you're doing work, but that's pure luck since normally you would be Googling rather than surfing HN. Reading HN "for the [tech] articles" is at best like going to university—you may be preparing for future work, but all this abstract preparation and self-betterment is not the same thing as real work and we would be wise not to fool ourselves.
- ritchiea 13y agoI actually disagree. I believe abstract self-betterment is as important as what you are calling "real work". There's certainly a balance to be kept between direct production and abstract self improvement but they aid each other in a big way. I would say they are both part of "real work" as long as you don't stray so far into theoretical improvement that you lose sight of getting stuff done.
- wallio 13y agoYou make an interesting point that perhaps learning is NOT working. While learning can help you get more work done it is not work itself. In fact it is often an imitation of actual work - pretend or practice work: an essay the never get published, a program that never gets run or a calculation that never gets used. This is an interesting distinction and depends on the exact definition of "work". However work is clearly not the same thing as learning.
- visakanv 13y agoSo the argument here is sharpening axe != chopping wood The problem is that "sharpening axe" is not so clearly defined. Many people spend time sitting around comparing axes with the rationalization that they're learning more about axes and the art of sharpening axes and 8 easy steps to improve your swing... that includes me, I guess. Gotta go.