5 ms·

WakaTime – Quantify your coding

47 points by mhaehnel 11y ago

lowglow 11y ago
Alan Hamlett is awesome and I wish that team all the best!
kyriakos 11y ago
Used wakatime via phpstorm. Interesting product.
mikekchar 11y ago
As far as I can tell it measures the number of hours one has spent coding using each language. Does it measure anything else? I went to the site hoping that it would explain what metrics it is gathering and why those metrics might be useful. It might just be me, but I couldn't find that information.
- ekims 11y ago
  It also measures the time spent in a git repository. The free version sends you a weekly email with the breakdowns. I've used it for over a year now, really happy with it. You can also compare yourself to other developers, aka a leaderboard.
  - techiferous 11y ago
    > You can also compare yourself to other developers, aka a leaderboard. That's a feature with negative value. Top developers, at least in a business context, are those that help business realize their goals for their web product. One way top developers do this is to find solutions that involve writing less code, since code is a liability.
    - tttbbb 11y ago
      I found it useful when I saw myself on the top of the list some months ago and decided to take some days of because I was working way too much.
- welder 11y ago
  The example JSON response from this api resource is a good overview of the metrics gathered: https://wakatime.com/developers/#stats https://wakatime.com/developers/#stats
thomersch_ 11y ago
Reminds me of http://codeivate.com http://codeivate.com, I really like it although it has some rough edges
- felipesabino 11y ago
  unfortunately codeivate lost me when I switched to Atom.io... the plugin is on a queue for more than a year :( [1] [1] http://codeivate.userecho.com/topic/417377-atom-plugin/ http://codeivate.userecho.com/topic/417377-atom-plugin/
ricklancee 11y ago
I don't see the point of this other than the "cool i spend 50% more time in [insert language here] than [insert language here]" factor. Also: http://martinfowler.com/bliki/CannotMeasureProductivity.html http://martinfowler.com/bliki/CannotMeasureProductivity.html
- mhaehnel 11y ago
  For me, it's a tool to track my time i'm spending on which projects.
  - ricklancee 11y ago
    How do you track time that you spend on the project that is not done inside the editor; for example research?
    - xasos 11y ago
      Exactly my thoughts. Many projects are more about the research, and less about the time purely spent coding. Many times, my research time > coding time, so it would be cool if WakaTime made a Chrome plugin that could track that time.
      - exclusiv 11y ago
        I use rescuetime to track browser page titles. I use wakatime for tracking too.
    - tttbbb 11y ago
      I use emacs and one org mode file per project so it tracks kind of well as long as my research produces notes. As a proper Emacs user I also do my e-mailing there and my e-mail is in a git repository. Whenever I feel like I haven't got much done in a day I can usually verify that I it was because I spend like half a day writing e-mails instead of coding. One of the more surprising stats I have found out about myself is that I regulary spend about 5% project time writing git commit messages. I actually find the most value of wakatime that I can keep track of that I don't work too much on the "wrong" projects. Wakatime has helped me hold off things I should not focus on that much. Wakatime has at least somewhat reduced my imposter syndrome tendencies because I can use it to disprove the feeling that I'm not getting things done because it tells me that I got things done even if it was not the things I originally had plan to get done.
nileshtrivedi 11y ago
What I'd like to see is a tool that relates commits to bugs and feature which could have a dollar value assigned, therefore making it possible to capture value created in a given day/week/month.
sergiotapia 11y ago
cui bono What are they doing with my data?
heldrida 11y ago
I'm now using this to know in which projects I've worked during the week. I think it's quite expensive for what it is.
barryosull 11y ago
What questions can you answer with this data? Hours spent coding is a vanity metric, it doesn't offer actionable data.
philipmjohnson 11y ago
My research group investigated this approach to software metrics collection and analysis for about 10 years with an open source project called "Hackystat". We wrote around 50 papers and there was a startup based on our approach (that was later aquihired.) You can find a list of papers we wrote here: http://www.citeulike.org/group/3370/tag/hackystat http://www.citeulike.org/group/3370/tag/hackystat The first one, "Searching under the streetlight for useful software metrics" is our attempt to summarize the strengths and weaknesses of this approach. There are significant challenges associated with making this kind of data actionable, and significant political/social issues associated with collecting this data at all.

47 points by mhaehnel 11y ago

lowglow 11y ago

Alan Hamlett is awesome and I wish that team all the best!

kyriakos 11y ago

Used wakatime via phpstorm. Interesting product.

mikekchar 11y ago

As far as I can tell it measures the number of hours one has spent coding using each language. Does it measure anything else? I went to the site hoping that it would explain what metrics it is gathering and why those metrics might be useful. It might just be me, but I couldn't find that information.

ekims 11y ago
It also measures the time spent in a git repository. The free version sends you a weekly email with the breakdowns. I've used it for over a year now, really happy with it. You can also compare yourself to other developers, aka a leaderboard.
- techiferous 11y ago
  > You can also compare yourself to other developers, aka a leaderboard. That's a feature with negative value. Top developers, at least in a business context, are those that help business realize their goals for their web product. One way top developers do this is to find solutions that involve writing less code, since code is a liability.
  - tttbbb 11y ago
    I found it useful when I saw myself on the top of the list some months ago and decided to take some days of because I was working way too much.
welder 11y ago
The example JSON response from this api resource is a good overview of the metrics gathered: https://wakatime.com/developers/#stats https://wakatime.com/developers/#stats

thomersch_ 11y ago

Reminds me of http://codeivate.com http://codeivate.com, I really like it although it has some rough edges

felipesabino 11y ago
unfortunately codeivate lost me when I switched to Atom.io... the plugin is on a queue for more than a year :( [1] [1] http://codeivate.userecho.com/topic/417377-atom-plugin/ http://codeivate.userecho.com/topic/417377-atom-plugin/

ricklancee 11y ago

I don't see the point of this other than the "cool i spend 50% more time in [insert language here] than [insert language here]" factor. Also: http://martinfowler.com/bliki/CannotMeasureProductivity.html http://martinfowler.com/bliki/CannotMeasureProductivity.html

mhaehnel 11y ago
For me, it's a tool to track my time i'm spending on which projects.
- ricklancee 11y ago
  How do you track time that you spend on the project that is not done inside the editor; for example research?
  - xasos 11y ago
    Exactly my thoughts. Many projects are more about the research, and less about the time purely spent coding. Many times, my research time > coding time, so it would be cool if WakaTime made a Chrome plugin that could track that time.
    - exclusiv 11y ago
      I use rescuetime to track browser page titles. I use wakatime for tracking too.
  - tttbbb 11y ago
    I use emacs and one org mode file per project so it tracks kind of well as long as my research produces notes. As a proper Emacs user I also do my e-mailing there and my e-mail is in a git repository. Whenever I feel like I haven't got much done in a day I can usually verify that I it was because I spend like half a day writing e-mails instead of coding. One of the more surprising stats I have found out about myself is that I regulary spend about 5% project time writing git commit messages. I actually find the most value of wakatime that I can keep track of that I don't work too much on the "wrong" projects. Wakatime has helped me hold off things I should not focus on that much. Wakatime has at least somewhat reduced my imposter syndrome tendencies because I can use it to disprove the feeling that I'm not getting things done because it tells me that I got things done even if it was not the things I originally had plan to get done.

nileshtrivedi 11y ago

What I'd like to see is a tool that relates commits to bugs and feature which could have a dollar value assigned, therefore making it possible to capture value created in a given day/week/month.

sergiotapia 11y ago

cui bono What are they doing with my data?

heldrida 11y ago

I'm now using this to know in which projects I've worked during the week. I think it's quite expensive for what it is.

barryosull 11y ago

What questions can you answer with this data? Hours spent coding is a vanity metric, it doesn't offer actionable data.

philipmjohnson 11y ago

My research group investigated this approach to software metrics collection and analysis for about 10 years with an open source project called "Hackystat". We wrote around 50 papers and there was a startup based on our approach (that was later aquihired.) You can find a list of papers we wrote here: http://www.citeulike.org/group/3370/tag/hackystat http://www.citeulike.org/group/3370/tag/hackystat The first one, "Searching under the streetlight for useful software metrics" is our attempt to summarize the strengths and weaknesses of this approach. There are significant challenges associated with making this kind of data actionable, and significant political/social issues associated with collecting this data at all.