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!).
315 comments
[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 297 ms ] threadMaybe 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)
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
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.
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.
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 :/
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.
The vast majority of my job, outside of writing efficient and secure code, is learning about other systems and domains. Software Engineers can be employed in anything from financial technology to healthcare to kids toys. You're going to have to step outside of your depth a lot and at least having some shallow platform to stand on is imperative.
Often it's showing people another way to use an existing feature
Speak for yourself. Some of us have been there, burnt out and had to rebuild our relationship with work in a healthy manner. I think no matter what you do, if it is thought work and you don't find a wat to turn it off, you are doing yourself a diservice.
I loved what I did for 10 years, then all of a sudden I didn't. It was like my brain had cottoned on to the fact that software was where all my stress came from and I felt ill even thinking about sitting at a computer. I have rebuilt my relationship with software into a more healthy one since then, but it bares mentioning time again. The software industry will burn your wick at both ends and then toss you asside when you're no longer young and stupid enough to work more than a normal work week.
Sorry to be so cynical, just be careful is all.
THIS.
I think they may be referring to the phenomenon of walking away and having the solution "come to you" while doing something else. It took me a while to appreciate this, but simply walking away is often the fastest way for me to solve a hard problem. There I am, lying in bed, or cooking, or whatever, and BOOM the solution is presented to me - just like the divine inspiration described by so many. Of course, now we (hopefully) know that it's probably less a matter of intervention and more a matter of brain chemistry, but true regardless.
“Is this pleasant?” “Is this unpleasant?” “Is this neutral”
For example, I walk into a room thinking about work, sit down still thinking about work, and finally notice I’m thinking about work, so I ask myself the questions. Is the chair alright? How do I feel? Hungry? Cold or tired? No, this chair and room are comfortable. I’m safe, my family are nearby, I just ate a nice sandwich etc... that’s pretty good.
It forces me back into the present. Added bonus, the moment you label anything as neutral it transforms into pleasant, because anything not unpleasant is pleasant!
You could try it continuously or set alarms or just ask yourself often. Whatever suits you.
I used to believe and practice that, but that's what led to a lot of life dissatisfaction and burnout and near-burnout.
Sure, not saying I never think about my work outside work hours, but these days I start work in the morning, stop in the evening, and in general don't worry about it until the next morning. That tends to make the hours I am working much more productive, and avoids huge variance in productivity as I swing toward and away from burnout periodically.
And I say this as someone who loves programming, and did it as a hobby before I did it professionally. For a good 8 years I didn't want to touch a code editor outside of my job; I just had no creativity and desire left for my own projects after being always-on work-wise for so long. Now that I've enforced more separation between my professional and personal lives, I'm able to do it as a hobby again sometimes without being burned out on it after work is done.
tl;dr: not my KRA anymore.
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
-> my afternoon today
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.
The habit of check the docs first and maintaining docs in this way is really critical for remote teams and bandwidth.
People tend to have similar questions, and other team members have answers I don't, so having everyone in a room together is handy
Good luck!
- 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.