The Hacker Lifecycle

An anonymous reader writes "Hacker Benjamin Smith deconstructs the cycle of education, production, and rest that will be familiar to many software and hardware engineers. He breaks it down into four steps: 1) Focused effort toward a goal, 2) structured self-education, 3) side-projects to sharpen skills, and 4) burnout and rest. He writes, 'As my motivation waxes at the beginning of a cycle, I find myself with a craving to take steps towards that goal. I do so by starting a project which focuses on one thing only: building a new income stream. As a result of this single-mindedness, the content or subject of the project is often less interesting than it otherwise might have been. ... [Later], I almost always decide to teach myself a new technical skill or pick up some new technology. ... This is usually the most satisfying period of my cycle. I am learning a new skill or technology which I know will enhance my employability, allow me to build things I previously could only have daydreamed about, and will ultimately be useful for many years to come. ... [In the burnout phase], I'll spend this period as ferociously devoted to my leisure activities as I was to my productive tasks. But after a few months of this, I start to feel an itch...'"

Comments

Not just for software

[cellocgw]

I think this is a reasonable description of 'most everyone's productivity cycles. Granted I'm just another more-or-less Asperger's engineer/physicist with a strong love of music, but take a look at writers, artists, or almost any field of endeavor. You'll find people's output varies significantly over time. Vacations help too. :-) . The ability to take on side-projects without feeling guilty is probably a very handy thing in one's life.

Re:Not just for software

[AliasMarlowe]

I think this is a reasonable description of 'most everyone's productivity cycles. Granted I'm just another more-or-less Asperger's engineer/physicist with a strong love of music, but take a look at writers, artists, or almost any field of endeavor. You'll find people's output varies significantly over time. Vacations help too. :-) . The ability to take on side-projects without feeling guilty is probably a very handy thing in one's life.

Paid vacations (or similar) and adequate non-work time are a key in maintaining long-term productivity. The occasional side-project on the job is essential in maintaining your intellectual capital. Alas, if you are unfortunate enough to work for a major corporation in a fungible role (i.e. one where you can be easily replaced), then your long-term productivity and intellectual development are mere costs to be eliminated. This results in significant differences:
1) Focused effort toward a goal, This is good, provided the goal came from Marketing, was approved by numerous committees, and was not one you dreamed up yourself
2) structured self-education, Unnecessary, as you should know everything required for your job already
3) side-projects to sharpen skills, Time-wasting, especially because you should know everything required for your job already
4) burnout and rest. Burnout happens, then you're discarded and can rest without remuneration

Stupid n00b.

[Alex Belits]

Those goals still form the focus of my motivation, even 7 years after I first wrote them down.

lol n00b

One of the most important is financial independence – I want my day job to be a lifestyle choice, not a requirement.

Translation: "I can't function in a society, and never will have any joy until I am rich enough to do whatever I want".
Here is the reality: you will never be that rich. No one ever will.

Re:Stupid n00b.

[Anonymous Coward]

You are the noob because you don't know what financial independence means. It isn't about having as much money to do whatever you want, it is about having enough that you will be "secure" regardless of the other circumstances of your life. And if you have a family then security for them as well.

1. First come basic survival needs - shelter, food, clothing
2. Then basic "emotional fulfillment" needs - communication, entertainment (internet, in person socialization, access to common culture).

3. And finally, after the personal needs are met, the opportunity to contribute to a chosen cause or idea that the individual deems as worthwhile. Working so some executive can afford more hookers and blow, or so stockholders get a bigger dividend is not my personal choice for a worthy cause but I understand that others don't feel the same way.

Sadly on this planet only a relatively small percentage of people get past phase 1. In the "developed" world only a handful, mostly who inherit their wealth, make it past stage 2.

"Joy" as you put it is difficult to truly experience when you know you are one accident away from being jobless and then homeless. Doubly so if you are providing for a family.

Re:Not the way to bliss.

[hendrikboom]

You misinterpret.

Hacking is a joy unto itself; the ostensible goal is only an object, something to hack. Hacking isn't random, it's purposeful. But if the enjoyment doesn't come from the hacking, but from the ostensible goal, well, the enjoyment is fleeting.

-- hendrik

Re:Hmm... for me it's a bit different

[Fallingcow]

Ditto.

Fucked me in school.

"Write a paper on X". Cool. Read about X, learn about X, sit down to write paper that will be read once and thrown in the trash and that a billion other people have already written... motivation goes out the window. I can already write well (I've written 1,000 of these goddamn things) and I already know the material that's going in the paper. No one truly cares about what I'm about to write—no one needs it, and no one really even wants it. Suddenly a blank wall is more interesting.

Give me a real need to learn something or just let my curiosity take me where it will, and I'm the world's most dangerous carnivore. I'll run a problem down and eat its damn heart, then take out the rest of the herd for funsies. Otherwise? I'm probably boned.

The elimination of the uselessness of the end product that comes with doing actual work rather than "homework" has helped a lot, but it's still something I have to fight, years later. The multi-year process of adjusting my image of the way thought I ought to be to accommodate the fact that I simply was not compatible with a formal educational setting really sucked. Those were some sad years full of serious self-loathing. My self-loathing is far more lighthearted now :-)

I still hate maintaining systems and chasing bugs that don't require much sleuthing. Any time I'm required to make some "quick hacks" to fix something in an ugly way for lack of time is a bad day, and I'll go home in a bad mood and show up the next day in a bad mood. I'm probably the happiest at work either designing systems or fixing things that have broken in strange ways, when I'm fully engaged in a problem for hours on end. Exercising the clever-muscle in my brain is great and makes the hours fly like nothing else, and playing grown-up legos when designing is fun. Practically everything else about being a programmer sucks, but WTF else am I going to do? At least it's fun some of the time, which beats most jobs.

As with any personal trait or behavior I'd guess I'm far from being alone.