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Programming Marathons?
Mattygfunk asks: "Coming to the submission date of a major university project the other day, myself and another group member coded in XHTML/CSS and ASP (yuk!) for 27 hours straight to complete it. What is the longest Slashdot readers have coded in a single session? Apart from being more organized and having plenty of coffee, do you have any tips on getting through ultra-long coding sessions?"
Plan ahead. Don't wait until the last minute. Your code will be better if you're well organized and on the ball.
While I haven't gone quite 27 hours, I have gone 18+ hours in Perl and PHP. These are the only pieces of advice I can offer:
-Windows open: Fresh Air + Sunlight = GOOD!
-Music up: Radio or playlist, either way try to get a variety of songs/music you know.
-Multitask: Well, this might make it not an exclusive coding session, but having AOL IM/ICQ open to talk to people makes it more bareable than it would be otherwise. Also, having an internet window open just at a random site makes it easy to take short 30 second 'breaks'.
-Swivel Chair/Titlty Chair: So you can move around some and 'stretch' out.
-Coffee/Mountain Dew/Jolt/Bawls/Etc: 'nough said
-Food: Good snacks that don't really drain you. For me, these include things like Cashews, Chex Party Mix, and Kettle Chips (if you haven't had these potato chips, SHAME ON YOU!). Avoid anything that is really sugar-rich though, as it'll give you that little boost, then kill ya and make you want to sleep. Wanting to sleep=bad code.
The most I've ever actually coded in a single session would be around 35 hours or so. However, I've had the lucky experience of having 100+ hour work weeks of coding, mainly due to the fact that I was recently employed (and so very eager to do a good job), and my boss was of the type to think that everything had to be done yesterday, and that any price was worth paying to get it done.
;) I sure can't do it, but I really have to hand it to the people who can.
Needless to say, I burned out like a match. The best thing I can suggest for anyone stuck doing this is to use it as an education lesson. No matter how much caffeine you want to put through your body, your mind simply can't take that much. In the end, I was writing code that all ended up being rewritten and reworked several months later when I realized I hadn't seen the big picture.
Even more important than learning the lesson yourself, use it to teach your boss(es) the same lesson. We all know a lot of managers don't understand the process, and think that pushing their programmers to work insane hours is somehow more productive. Make sure you document any setbacks or roadblocks you encounter because of programming under such conditions, and make sure you explain each and every one of them. It might take a bit, but they do get the point, and soon you'll be on your way to a good programming schedule, and doing things the productive way.
Of course, if you're one of those guys who *can* program for 100 hours a week and put in all this extra time without making mistakes, you're probably doomed.
There's one strange phenomenon I experience after a lot of coding: it feels like my hands are connected directly to my shoulders, and my eyes seem to zoom in so the screen fills my vision. I code faster and better, but it's really weird. Does anyone else get this?
Nice try!
It's obvious you are a robot.
"And like that
Team: Matt and Ben /. is US centric and US editors pick the stories)
Start time: 2.30pm Thursday
Finish Time: 5.30pm Friday
University: Deakin University (yes that meams the story has a spelling error but it was deliberate because
Coffees: Matt ~12, Ben ~9
Ciggie breaks (5 mins): Matt ~15, Ben N/A
Final URLs: Private (you don't really need them, and I don't particularly wanna hear troll comments on our code)
Accidental Walk-ins into the wrong computer lab due to lack of sleep: Matt ~4, Ben ~9 (had a shocker)
Accidential deletions of good code due to lack of sleep / backups: Matt 1, Ben 0
Final Grade: Not available yet
Reasons for lack of organisation: Lack of programming ability of the other 3 coders (their code was so useless they weren't even invited to the session, 3rd year computing students using WYSIWYG frontpage code to program HTML!), lack of organisation, under-estimation of the time it would take to complete some code. Of course we had done a very considerable amount of work prior to the start of this final session.
Dinner/Lunch breaks: Matt - 30 mins dinner, Ben 30 mins dinner/ 10 mins lunch
Days needed to recover: Matt 2, Ben ??
I think that covers it.
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Which came first the paper or the wall?