Subj : Re: do serious programmers have a life?
To   : comp.lang.c++,comp.programming
From : Jon Slaughter
Date : Fri Sep 23 2005 11:47 am


"Phlip" <phlipcpp@yahoo.com> wrote in message 
news:CITYe.1319$Vz7.28@newssvr23.news.prodigy.net...
> amanda992004 wrote:
>
>> Excluding the factors of the brain capability, i.e I am not asking
>> about this factor, if you are a single, aside from enjoying coding or
>> debugging,  how do you make time to eat properly, i.e healthily w/o
>> spending big bucks at special healthy food places and also take care of
>> life's daily chores w/o feeling like a robot.  Any time for social
>> activites with people other than programmers?
>>
>> Is feeling like a robot a typical description of a programmer's life?
>
> How many hours do you work?
>
> The myth that programmers can or should work more than 8 hours a day is 
> tragic, and is responsible for an incredible amount of lost productivity, 
> bugs, etc. (But heck, at least we don't cut off the wrong limb like 
> overworked doctors do...)
>

I don't agree with that... many times I have stayed up late at night and 
when I "get up" in the morning all my code has been written ;) and it works 
usually ;)


> When you work, as you get tired, you cross a point where you are not 
> adding value but removing value from a program. Go home.
>

Yeah, but what point is that?  If you don't work enough you tend not be 
productive enough because you are not involved in the coding enough... like 
if you try to only code 1 hr a day or something on a complicated project 
then on vacation for the rest of the day.



> One pseudoscientific way to refer to this situation, popular these days 
> among technocrats, is that programming is "left-brained" and having a life 
> is "right brained". That's not accurate - all activities use both physical 
> sides of your brain - but it works adequately as a parable. Exercising 
> your right brain allows your left to rest and recharge.
>
> Programmers should go home on time and have a life.

Well, tell that to their bosses ;)

>
> -- 
>  Phlip
>  http://www.greencheese.org/ZeekLand  <-- NOT a blog!!!
>
>

.