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Do Long Work Hours Affect Code Quality?

Posted by Cliff on from the unreasonable-management-expectations dept.

tooTired asks: "At my company the owner is heavily implying that the development staff needs to start working longer hours and weekends to shorten the time-frames on our current projects. The exact quote is 'These 8 hour days have to stop, we need to be working 15 hours a day and weekends, balls to the wall.' We are heavily under-staffed even with my multiple attempts to show the owner that we need more resources. My general feeling is that long hours is generally a symptom of poor project management, and not something to be sought after. I wanted to ask the Slashdot community their opinions on how working long hours during the week and weekends affects the quality of the code they produce, and the overall success of the project." A large reason why many in this industry find themselves working long hours and weekends is that management makes unreasonable expectations and deadlines. Are there ways of communicating to management that long hours to rush a project to completion is not the way to complete a successful project? Update: 08/30 23:11 GMT by C :Grammatical errors in title, corrected. Sorry about that.

6 of 822 comments (clear)

  1. Eh? by doublesix · · Score: 2, Funny

    Long hours seem to affect spelling.

    1. Re:Eh? by Waffle+Iron · · Score: 2, Funny
      What's the difference between grammar and spelling?

      Grammar errors are underlined with green squiggleys.

      Spelling errors are underlined with red squiggleys.

  2. I don't know if they affect code quality... by 3waygeek · · Score: 3, Funny

    but they obviously affect the grammatical skills of the editors.

    1. Re:I don't know if they affect code quality... by 7-Vodka · · Score: 2, Funny
      MY god! I'm loosing IQ points by reading /.
      Ho would have thunk it?

      I think I'll coin a new phrase:

      Illiterate by /.

      --

      Liberty.

  3. Next Policy To Be Implemented by ryanisflyboy · · Score: 4, Funny

    "We've had you guys slaving away 15 hours a day and the amount of time squashing bugs has increased 200%. You're just not working hard enough. As of today we will require all programmers to move into the office so that you can work without wasting valuable time commuting. Cots will not be allowed inside the cubes so you will need to bring your own sleeping bags and pillows. You will be allowed 5 hours of sleep every 15 hours only if your code is 99% bug free. Visiting slashdot is off limits, and any programmer attempting to do so will be forced to write documentation for 36 hours straight. Those of you who are married will need to sign the divorce papers by next Tuesday to retain employment with the company. That is all."

  4. Re:Sheesh, this is 4th grade stuff, Cliff by Mignon · · Score: 3, Funny

    This suggests a whole new meaning to "Slashdot Effect" - Long hours editing Slashdot submissions affects grammar.