[HN Gopher] Ask HN: Why aren't you coding?
___________________________________________________________________
Ask HN: Why aren't you coding?
(Disclaimer: I'm building up material for
https://whyarentyoucoding.com/) I'd love to know, from developers
who are being paid to write code, what it is that's stopping you
from coding (apart from the obvious, that you're busy browsing
HN!).
Author : boffinism
Score : 39 points
Date : 2021-02-12 11:01 UTC (11 hours ago)
| [deleted]
| rhn_mk1 wrote:
| Daunting task ahead, little progress in sight.
| mauvehaus wrote:
| Because I build furniture now and I'm much happier for it.
|
| Why am I not doing _that_ right now? Because I 'm waiting for
| some of my mistakes to get enough heat into the wood stove so I
| can leave it to its own devices and head to the shop.
| bartvk wrote:
| Although that's cool, OP aimed his question at "developers who
| are being paid to write code".
| subprotocol wrote:
| Because I'm in a zoom meeting while reading hacker news.
| koski_pindora wrote:
| I'm not currently coding because running a company, talking with
| customers, learning to build hardware, solving electricity and
| magnetic problems. Coding maybe every second week.
| jlelse wrote:
| Not answering your question, but nice comics you have there. Is
| there an RSS feed?
| pliftkl wrote:
| One of the best software engineers who worked for me was the guy
| who deleted the most code. He absolutely produced negative net
| lines of code, and it was a running joke that we were paying him
| to write code, but he was doing the opposite.
| tenaciousDaniel wrote:
| Because I'm an engineering manager :p
|
| I do try and find time to code on the weekends, but the pandemic
| has all but destroyed my motivation to do anything beyond the
| bare minimum.
| xyzal wrote:
| Lack of sleep, have a young child at home ... can't really focus
| on anything else but documenting own older code or watching
| lectures right now.
| sxp wrote:
| I'm not coding because I'm reading a webcomic about why other
| people aren't coding.
|
| Feature request: when someone goes to
| "https://whyarentyoucoding.com/", can you cleanly redirect them
| to "whyarentyoucoding.com/NAMEOFCURRENTCOMIC"? It makes it easier
| to share the latest comic since sharing whyarentyoucoding.com
| results in a stale link after a few days.
| Jugurtha wrote:
| For the wrong reasons, I wanted to see "Too many redirects" in
| there.
| timwaagh wrote:
| Java websphere stack is such a waiting game. Besides I don't love
| code.
| monster_group wrote:
| If you're running Websphere locally, exclude WS folders from
| anti-virus scanning. It will considerably speed up WS start up.
| monster_group wrote:
| Because I am working on another team's code base and my code
| merges are dependent on their whims and schedule. Submit pull
| request, wait for one week for somebody to review and give
| feedback (all of which is bullshit nitpicks about spacing, one
| style of unit tests over another etc.), implement the feedback,
| wait for another ten days for the same person to review again and
| provide another round of more bullshit feedback. In the meantime,
| my boss says you are not coding enough to get promoted to the
| next level. I have started doing LeetCode because I was concerned
| that I might forget coding and also it will help me find another
| job.
| gherkinnn wrote:
| Going for a walk. Many problems solve themselves during a walk. M
| [deleted]
| janpot wrote:
| Compiling!
|
| (https://xkcd.com/303/)
| sethammons wrote:
| Queue Hal changing a lightbulb:
| https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2gp98t
|
| Yesterday I was not coding because my simple change required a
| bloom filter. I spent a little time finding an appropriate
| package. I went to import it and my IDE couldn't. Now I am trying
| to find why the the manifest is borked, decided to re-pull all
| dependencies from scratch, find out three of them are
| incompatible, so I have to figure out what version to pin them
| to, etc. One lib had a breaking change in a patch version that I
| could address in our code. Cool, now back to using a bloom
| filter...
|
| And our integration tests are more and more brittle as we put
| more and more services into our docker compose files. And they
| take longer and longer.
| eb0la wrote:
| Writing a proposal for a customer in the millions range. Not
| coding; but figuring out if we undestand well the rewquiremente,
| figuring out what has to be done, when, how, and whay kind of
| problems might arise (imagination is important, and beigng
| pessimistic, too).
|
| On monday, I will git pull the repo and add some test the team
| needed to write, but had no time to code.
| danieka wrote:
| Waiting for NPM to install packages
|
| Waiting for units tests to run
|
| Finding the perfect Giphy to slack my colleagues
|
| Fetching coffe
|
| Installing OSX updates
| EliRivers wrote:
| _from developers who are being paid to write code_
|
| Who is paid to write code? I'm paid to ensure my team delivers
| quality software, on time and to spec. Typing out code is the
| least difficult part of that.
| pliftkl wrote:
| I'm always amazed at people who think that programming
| languages and typing and editing are the hard part of what
| software engineers do. I spend much more time trying to
| understand the problem that I'm trying to solve, and to make
| decisions about how to do that in a way that I won't regret.
| yetihehe wrote:
| I'm paid to write (valid, working) code. If I sit all month
| just thinking but no effects, I will be fired. Of course,
| thinking about what code to write is a big part, I've spent
| twoo weeks once not writing code and the result was changing
| one number from 4096 to 8192, which made one shitty iot device
| a little more stable, which was seen as a big success. So, I
| wrote 4 bytes/2weeks, most of it was thinking and finding what
| to change, but essentially it WAS writing code.
| paulpauper wrote:
| Too much time and work involved, but the problem with buying
| software is you get too much bloat and poorly coded stuff despite
| having more features. Even if you are an amateur, coding it
| yourself can produce better results than even off the shelf
| stuff.
| [deleted]
| xena wrote:
| Because I have a life.
| jdmoreira wrote:
| I'm not coding because there are more important things to be
| done. For example: - I have to groom tasks and interfaces across
| team boundaries. - I have to review others code. - I have to help
| someone with their problem so they can proceed and deliver. - I
| have to onboard. - I have to make sure processes are working
| well. - I have to make sure the team works well. - and so on and
| on...
|
| Some programmers are much more valuable to their employer than
| just for the code they write. You don't become a 10x engineer (if
| such thing even exist) by writing 10x more code but you can
| enable others and make sure things work and easily deliver
| multiple times more value.
|
| Good managers understand this very well.
| jbob2000 wrote:
| I've discovered that using my coding skills as leverage against
| the management class is the best way to earn more.
|
| So I'm not coding until I get promoted. I got a raise and a
| promotion last year, did about 2 weeks of work to give the
| management the marketing feature they wanted, and now I rest. I'm
| currently holding out on another marketing feature because the
| management has no choice but to go with me (deadlines, talent
| challenge, budget challenge). So I'm using my skills as leverage
| to earn more.
|
| I told my VP that this feature can't be delivered until I'm made
| a Director.
| austincheney wrote:
| As a JavaScript developer I am paid to use enormous frameworks.
| Solving problems or returning value back to the business are
| often (not wanted) beside the point. Attempting to program real
| solutions in this line of work frequently results in hostility
| from your coworkers.
| marethyu wrote:
| to browse pornhub
| killingtime74 wrote:
| There's always more reading/planning than typing. Maybe that's
| part of coding?
| anonymoushn wrote:
| The last time I was paid to be a developer by a company, the most
| prominent reasons I was not writing code were:
|
| 1. I am in the 5th meeting to discuss the details of a 10-page
| document about a feature that would take 100LOC to write if we
| weren't using Spring.
|
| 2. I am waiting for a dependency manager that is incapable of
| resuming downloads to download my dependencies from the private
| repository of dependencies which is located overseas, and my ISP
| has shitty QOS to that location, and the company's dozens of
| network and infra people don't think it's worthwhile to set up a
| proxy on this continent. Or I am using wget to download the
| dependencies and manually moving them into the dependency
| manager's cache on the filesystem, which is still slow, but more
| certain to eventually succeed, since wget can resume downloads.
|
| 3. I am learning in my 1:1 that if another developer on my team
| has attempted to set up some alerting, and our QA has signed off
| on the alerting, and our SRE has signed off on the alerting, but
| the alerting is not actually working, it is my responsibility to
| ensure that the alerting is actually working before my manager
| learns that it is not working. So I should just do all the work
| that nominally belongs to my teammates all the time, and
| delegating tasks is some fake thing to make others feel good, not
| an actual way to designate a DRI for an objective.
| Thorentis wrote:
| > it is my responsibility to ensure that the alerting is
| actually working
|
| > delegating tasks is some fake thing to make others feel good
|
| Somebody has to ultimately be responsible though right? If
| you're a team lead, isn't it still your responsibility to make
| sure the work your team has done is actually working before you
| tell your manager that it is?
| gremlinsinc wrote:
| - Burned out
|
| - Depressed
|
| - Anxious
|
| - Covid-induced (likely) brain fog (maybe the depression/anxiety
| also is from presumably having covid back in April)
|
| - Can't find a freelance client
|
| - Broke
|
| - Want a passion project
|
| - Want to be part of a co-op not a cog in a machine
|
| - Want to be on a team again
|
| - Can't pick a side project to work on for some cashflow
|
| - Too busy promoting my gofundme to pay rent
|
| - Want to be a game dev this week
|
| - Will want to be a systems dev next week
|
| - Wanted to be a blockchain dev last week
|
| - ADHD (apparent?)
|
| - Mid-life crisis? Or is it just covid brain
|
| - Wow, this has been catharctic just free-writing like this.
|
| - Are you still reading this?
|
| - Really bad schedule
|
| - Brain struggling with organization
|
| - MOTIVATION <--- mostly that..or the lack thereof.
|
| - I'm 41, I guess as senior a dev as you can be in php/vue, feel
| like a junior dev, imposter syndrome.
| burnthrow wrote:
| Start by getting off of HN and Reddit. Turn off non-local news.
| thinkingemote wrote:
| Because I am reading and commenting on Hacker news!
| CM30 wrote:
| Because in a sense I'm being paid not to write code. Company put
| me on furlough due to budget problems, but are paying the
| remaining 20% of my salary, so I'm basically being paid my full
| wage to not work.
| chrisBob wrote:
| This year: most of the time I am not coding is because I am
| making sure my 6-year-old is paying attention to Zoom
| Kindergarten.
| kuroguro wrote:
| Unmotivated, I need a break T____T
| santa_boy wrote:
| What are the tools for making such comics? :)
| gauku wrote:
| Reading papers that would need coding soon.
| nexthash wrote:
| I guess I have coder's block... the thought of a big project
| makes me more reluctant to start.
| xaedes wrote:
| I was in one of these for a few months. Strangely enough,
| changing all my editors color schemes from darkmode to
| whitemode helped me to overcome it. Over time I went back to
| darkmode for the most part.
|
| Maybe it is similar to working from a different place? (e.g.
| coding sitting in park instead of the same old office day-in
| day-out)
| stnmtn wrote:
| I definitely can second this, changing something about my
| tools can jump-start stuff.
|
| Another example is "productivity apps". I was using one for
| ~1 year and it was going great until the last few months. I
| simply changed to a different one and now I'm using it much
| more than I was. I think just changing the stuff you use all
| the time is something that is under-appreciated
| yoav wrote:
| The trick here is to break it into the smallest possible pieces
| and just start doing the first piece as your only task for
| today.
|
| Most likely that will build momentum.
|
| Can also try accomplishing a small not-work task like laundry
| or something to solve it from the other end. (You'll feel like
| you can take on bigger pieces because you just accomplished
| something)
|
| Lastly reading the specs or playing with the app with no other
| windows open and eventually boredom will take over and you'll
| start making bits of progress.
| Piotr2993 wrote:
| Because I'm not paid to code but to produce software
| sys_64738 wrote:
| I spend ~5% of my time writing new code. The rest is spent doing
| other tasks.
| utf_8x wrote:
| Simple, it's Friday :)
| Kaze404 wrote:
| ... Final Fantasy XIV
| jkhdigital wrote:
| Forgot to refill my ADHD medication
| tomxor wrote:
| I am paid to solve problems, programming is one part of that,
| thinking about the problem and the code is a prerequisite to
| programming. Sometimes one needs to step back and let things sink
| in rather than continuous action (programming)... while doing
| that you can even play games, I'll admit some activities are
| better than others for the purpose of de-focusing your
| subconscious - but sometimes you also just need a short mental
| break, that's often when I go to HN.
|
| For the same reason our job's don't stop when we go home (or turn
| off slack) either, we are essentially paid to think and our
| brains do not care about the arbitrary thresholds set by 9-5. I
| fully realise how much someone is actually able to practice this
| has more to do with the organisation they work for appreciating
| the difference between cognitive and manual work.
| yoav wrote:
| While off topic I'd echo this for managing coders as well.
|
| A lot of the problem set is debugging people and teams. For
| example "why is x person performing differently" and the
| debugger are time boxed to 1:1s, sprint cadence meetings, and
| looking at output, so the thinking between those debugging
| events is increased because you can't just brute force it like
| a sticky code problem.
|
| I think the pandemic has worsened this. Pre-pandemic I had a 40
| min walk buffer to and from work where I'd naturally start
| thinking about my own life. Others had dedicated offices at
| home and other social interactions, or a coworking space.
|
| Now most social interactions and validation for many come from
| work slack or zoom, no commute for everyone, and for those in
| smaller spaces their living room or kitchen or bedroom is their
| office so work is always within reach and their is no buffer.
| There's also not much else to do.
|
| So even if you can pull yourself away from your laptop your
| thoughts are more often than not focused on solving these kinds
| of work problems.
| kodah wrote:
| Came here to say this. Coding is one part of the job but mostly
| what I get paid to do is solve problems. I've worked on
| projects that were more process oriented and produced zero code
| whatsoever and still had the sort of outcomes good software
| does.
| rob74 wrote:
| That period of time between 5 and 9 the next morning is
| actually there for the mental break you mentioned before. I'm
| not advocating a very strict separation between work and free
| time, but if the line between the two blurs too much (made
| easier by home office), your work might completely invade your
| free time, which isn't good either...
| tomxor wrote:
| > work might completely invade your free time
|
| Yes, I agree but also feel it's a natural risk for any
| cognitive work. But not every day feels very effective
| forcing work hours for me, it's a hard balance, one I usually
| ensure stays in check with some outdoor activities that are
| currently not allowed :/
| purrpit wrote:
| I got promoted to tech lead for writing good code and now I have
| subordinates who wrote shitty code which I have to review. So I
| don't get to write code myself.
|
| tl;dr: not my KRA anymore.
| techn00 wrote:
| Read-only friday
| MattGaiser wrote:
| Some recent reasons:
|
| 1. I am stuck in a meeting
|
| 2. Everyone is arguing about requirements in Slack and I am
| waiting for that to sort itself out.
|
| 3. I am coding, just a Reddit script instead of my work.
|
| 4. A fellow developer friend is also not coding and wanted to
| chat.
|
| 5. My Surface blue screened.
|
| 6. I have to write a pull request
|
| 7. The API I am working with is down
|
| 8. With work from home, my thoughts drift to napping
|
| 9. I am on Udemy figuring how to code it
| benibela wrote:
| I am not paid to write code.
|
| I am a scientist, paid to write papers, grants, and a summary of
| my PhD.
|
| Now why am I not writing the grant?
|
| Because I would rather write code
| notsgnik wrote:
| "because I'm compiling the kernel for the 8th time, waiting for
| my manager to ask me what I'm busy with so he'll know I do a job
| he can't. Witch kept me hired so far" ( not from me, yet true )
| 1sideofthecoin wrote:
| I'm spending less time coding now, but still writes more code
| than ever before. That's because I'm getting better at my
| craftsmanship. The issue is what I'm doing when I'm not coding..
| meetings, chats etc. Total waste of time if you ask me.
| PopGreene wrote:
| At a previous job, I was asked to write up a list of my
| accomplishments for the previous year in preparation for my
| performance evaluation. During the evaluation my manager and I
| went over this list and I commented that it seemed to me that I
| hadn't accomplished a year's worth of work. He as happy with my
| work but acknowledged that there were a lot of things I did that
| wouldn't go on the list and I can't be expected to be producing
| all of the time. I suppose that's like focus factor in Scrum.
|
| I still think it took too long to complete some tasks. They would
| occasionally bog down while I had to noodle with existing code to
| be able to add new features. So even if I'm coding, I may not be
| creating value but rather I'm paying down the company's technical
| debt.
| grigarav wrote:
| Stack Overflow.
| mekael wrote:
| 1. Napping 2. Obtaining coffee to stop the onset of napping 3.
| Code reviews
| impostervt wrote:
| Because I'm waiting for another developer to finish his part of
| the code that my part of the code is supposed to talk to.
| yetihehe wrote:
| I'm constantly bombarded with "quick" questions from coworkers
| about how some part of my code works (or more often why it
| doesn't). After several such interruptions it's harder and harder
| to even try to focus, maybe some kind of neurosis, fear of being
| interrupted once you are again in flow?
| onion2k wrote:
| I've been in the same situation and I found the solution was to
| do _less_. Unblocking coworkers is valid work, and spending
| more time on code so that they 're not blocked in the first
| place is also very useful. By doing that I found the overall
| team velocity went up even though my personal point count fell.
| carlivar wrote:
| Try the Pomodoro Technique and make sure to close Slack and
| other distractions.
| yoav wrote:
| I've been there before. Would recommend starting a document and
| answering the questions there then linking people to the doc
| after you'd added their question/answer.
|
| The habit of check the docs first and maintaining docs in this
| way is really critical for remote teams and bandwidth.
| grigarav wrote:
| I just get bombarded with the likes of "Excuse me, but how do I
| view the code behind an SQL view?"
| yetihehe wrote:
| Ehh, mine are typically very valid, specific and informed
| questions. I'm blessed with very smart coworkers, but we are
| seriously understaffed and documentation is lacking. When you
| "own" very big lightly documented system, questions happen.
| sethammons wrote:
| If you are on a team, we've addressed this by having a single
| dev responsible for all incoming questions in our team channel.
| Any DMs are directed back to the team channel for the
| designated on call person.
|
| The on call person, for the week, doesn't have sprint
| commitments. If they have time, they can choose to help the
| sprint or work to reduce toil.
| [deleted]
| junon wrote:
| Thinking through a very complex and delicate concept, trying to
| come up with the best way to solve it. It's been a few weeks.
| throwaway923785 wrote:
| Working on a project that is being wound down due to lack of
| sales but the remaining tasks are asinine compliance requirements
| imposed by the new parent company - we have been acquired
| recently - that are "non-negotiable" even when the project is
| going to be sunset soon. Management also is dragging its feet in
| finding a new project for me. Motivation to play along is low.
| Working from home as single is doing its own part. Management
| doesn't seem as isolated because they're in calls all day or have
| family.
| joncrane wrote:
| I know this isn't an advice thread but 1) milk it while you're
| still collecting salary and 2) make sure your LinkedIn profile
| is fleshed out and your resume is clean and up to date 3) hit
| up your former coworkers to ask how their new job is...maybe
| let it slip you're looking to move
|
| Good luck!
| PopGreene wrote:
| I finally checked out the link. You're looking for material to
| use in a comic? And I'm trying to give you a serious answer.
| Maybe these experiences will help:
|
| Had a coworker get promoted way past his level of incompetence.
| He never accomplished much before, but afterward he spent all of
| his time lobbying for his ideas and undermining those of us that
| were trying to get work done. Wasted a lot of time dealing with
| him until mgmt got a rare clue.
|
| Another coworker would ask a 5 minute question and an hour later
| come back and spend a 1/2 hour telling me over and over how my
| answer helped him solve his problem.
|
| Incomprehensible emails from corporate telling us something that
| might or might not be important. We had to try to decipher them
| to be sure. Much unproductive discussion ensues.
|
| Had an company exec that liked to go around glad handing
| everyone. Nice guy, but man could he blow a couple hours of our
| time.
|
| Woman in the next cubicle arguing with her kids over the phone -
| loudly - for two hours.
|
| A loud snuffler in another cubicle. Still can't understand how he
| didn't give himself brain damage.
|
| Yak shaving: get a bug report. Run the debugger: crashes with no
| message. Research debugger failure to no avail. Go to file a
| problem report: reporting tool is down.
|
| I'm sure a lot of people have this problem: naming things. Can't
| code until you figure out what that variable should be called.
| dang wrote:
| Internet comments. Emails. Startup launches.
| amalcon wrote:
| The most common reason I'm blocked from coding is that I'm still
| doing the analysis necessary to figure out what needs to be
| coded. Examples:
|
| - I am currently not coding because I have a profile running, to
| figure out which part of the code I'm working on is slow before
| fixing it.
|
| - Shortly after pandemic lockdowns, I was not coding because my
| employer had a problem, and we could only come up with two
| solutions to it. Both were very high-touch, in the sense that
| either would require hundreds of dev-hours divided across at
| least a dozen individual developers. I was not coding for about
| two weeks there because I was the one tasked with doing an
| inventory of all that work, so we could make an informed decision
| about which solution to pursue.
|
| The other way of putting this: The job of a software engineer is
| not just (or often even mostly) coding.
| irvingprime wrote:
| Because my boss's boss has sent down a directive that there will
| be NO MORE MEETINGS. This then requires every manager to meet
| with everyone they have ever talked to (not just their direct
| reports) to explain that there will be no more meetings.
|
| However, customer meetings are exempt, so the time previously
| taken up by meetings with co-workers is now used by sales and
| project management to "improve communication" about the customer
| needs or to "give them higher visibility" into our (non-existent)
| progress.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2021-02-12 23:00 UTC)