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Happy Software Developers Solve Problems Better
First time accepted submitter HagraBiscuit (2756527) writes Researchers from the Faculty of Computer Science, Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Bolzano, Italy, have quantified and analysed affective mood index against objective measures of problem-solving effectiveness for a group of software developers. From the report abstract: "The results offer support for the claim that happy developers are indeed better problem solvers in terms of their analytical abilities. The following contributions are made by this study: (1) providing a better understanding of the impact of affective states on the creativity and analytical problem-solving capacities of developers, (2) introducing and validating psychological measurements, theories, and concepts of affective states, creativity, and analytical-problem-solving skills in empirical software engineering, and (3) raising the need for studying the human factors of software engineering by employing a multidisciplinary viewpoint.
People who are happy do better at things.
It's not just software development, but any job. If the employees are happy about how they're being treated, they'll do the best job they can, because they want to stay with the company. If they're not, they're going to do the bare minimum to stay employed while they look for another job at a better company.
Happy people at work are more motivated to work than people that are inside a cubicle for 12 hours with the boss breathing on their neck.
This is one more tricky aspect of managing software or any other creative/analytic project. You can start with the smartest, happiest people in the world, only to have your schedule blown because one of them is going through a messy divorce or a loved one gets cancer. The bad vibes can drag a whole team down. I forsee a huge market in happy pepper-upper pills for programmers. Oh, wait. That's what coffee is for.
The beatings will continue until morale improves
Am I the only one who thought of employer-sponsored twice-a-day blowjobs?
Oh, I am. Dammit, this looks bad.
Ah yes. The thousand yard stare.
Have gnu, will travel.
It depends on what you consider happiness. If Happiness means constantly slightly elevated dopamine levels as produced by non impairing drugs, yeah it's not going to do a damn thing. If by happiness you mean fulfilled by the work you do, no marital trouble at home, no crippling financial issues or personal crises outside of work taking attention away or requiring effort that leaves the employee sleep deprived, then yes it will make a huge difference. Happiness doesn't have some special effect in and of itself, but it is an indicator that problems that can creep into work time are manageable or nonexistent and that the person is a least somewhat motivated to do their work, which will produce much better results than the opposite circumstance.
There is no memory shortage. yes I have heard of XFCE. Go away.
Talk about a headline from the No Screaming Shit Department, of course happier programmers are going to do a better job. There's no motivation to do your job well when you're miserable. That's why the team dynamics are more important than individual skill. I've seen one hot-shot programmer with great coding skills and horrendous personal skills totally undermine the team dynamic. No amount of skill makes up for being an arrogant ass.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Happy developers? I didn't even know that was a "thing"
How could they have possibly run this test?!!? Frauds!
For developers to be happy in the first place, there's gotta be less administrative and politics bs to begin with. No wonder programmers are more efficient in such environment
solve problems best of all.
The easy, obvious, and self-serving interpretation: making programmers happy will make them more effective at solving problems. Alternative interpretation: people who are good at solving problems are happier than people who aren't. Corollary: maybe adding a foosball table in the lobby won't help after all.
Stupid problems are often the way to sad developers. We once had a customer require in a custom interface to make "check boxes" mutually exclusive - when we suggested that industry-standard was to use radio buttons for that type of selection we were told they were just "more comfortable" with the squares, but didn't want users to be able to pick more than one.
Stupid. Sad.
public happylittle HelloWorld : hugs Object { :-) { :-) { :-);
public ecstatic ambitious main(String[] compliments
weee (int i =) 0 ; i 10; i++
Compy.outAndProud.prettyplease.print("Hello, World!!!!"
}
}
}
This was from the "beatings-continued-until-morale-improved" dept. It should have been from the "tremendous-grasp-of-the-obvious" dept.
Circle the wagons and fire inward. Entropy increases without bounds.
Happy means you have more time to focus on the task at hand vs focusing on stress things that maybe non-work related (e.g. relationship issues).
Stressful employers makes it even worse to focus on anything in general, cause it leads to worrying about your job, aka income.
Looking away from my code for a moment, I'm reminded of a quote from the movie "Bridge on the River Kwai" "Colonel Saito: Let me remind you of General Yamashita's motto: be happy in your work."
That's what it is.
The end of quarter profit is what matters. Suck it up and take it like a man! Pull your weight like a true team player or you'll be let go to make way for a flexible, empowered, dedicated business-oriented go-getter from the thousands of them queuing up at the door.
If you can't do it right, or don't like it, get out. Don't drag the team down with you, loser.
Stick Men
The staff called his management style "Command & Conquer". He stripped people of their uniform on the floor and fired them on the spot.
Did he do this with the ion cannon, or the tactical nuclear strike?
Buzzwords make me sad.
I bought this house and you know I'm boss
Ain't no h'aint gonna run me off
Note also that, if they show disrespect to you in your work, they're almost certainly not going to be loyal to you. One way not to have bad marks on a performance review is to get another job before the review.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
As someone who spiraled from mild depression to serious depression (where I still am) during the first four years of working at a software company I can confidently say that this was true at least for me. Furthermore the deeper into depression I fell the worse I became at problem solving and that deepened my depression even more because I felt I couldn't do my job as well as before and it also sucked enjoyment out of the job. It's a problem I struggle with every day. I try to keep telling myself that what I do is good enough but it doesn't help. We need more money in actual depression research. Depression is a killer in mentally challenging work like software development where you are faced with completely new problems multiple times a day and you have to come up with solutions based on knowledge you didn't have an hour ago. Also it's not something you can really talk about unless your boss is really understanding cause the guy who is slower than the rest is the first to leave if necessary.
I always thought that beer made me a better coder, and now here is the proof!! Woo Hoo!!
Should'a, Could'a, Would'a... Did'na
I forsee a huge market in happy pepper-upper pills for programmers. Oh, wait. That's what coffee is for.
Exactly! I go to work with a 2-quart thermos full of stovetop-percolated coffee.
I pound coffee until I become happy. Well, happy maybe isn't the word...but enough coffee and I'm like "Wow, this badly-written code is just FASCINATING! I can't WAIT to fix this crap while my so-called co-workers are off creating even MORE piles of crap for me to clean up! WOOOOOOOOO!!!"
I have a Gladware container full of chocolate-covered coffee beans too, for when 2 quarts of coffee isn't enough.
"Once we've identified and embraced our sickness, we'll have strength...and that's when we get dangerous." - John Waters