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'Eat, Sleep, Code, Repeat' Approach Is Such Bullshit (signalvnoise.com)
At its I/O developer conference, Google had the message "Eat. Sleep. Code. Repeat." spread everywhere -- walls, t-shirts you name it. Dan Kim, a programmer at Basecamp, has shared an interesting view on the same. He says while he gets the "coding is awesome and we want to do it all the time!" enthusiasm from the company, but he doubts if that's the approach a programmer should take, adding that the company is wittingly or not promoting an "unhealthy perspective that programming is an all or nothing endeavor -- that to excel at it, you have to go all in." He writes: Whether it's racing cars, loving art, reading, hiking, spending time in nature, playing with their dog, running, gardening, or just hanging out with their family, these top-notch programmers love life outside of code. That's because they know that a truly balanced lifestyle -- one that gives your brain and your soul some space to breath non-programming airâS -- actually makes you a better programmer. Life outside of code helps nurture important qualities: inspiration, creative thinking, patience, flexibility, empathy, and many more. All of these skills make you a better programmer, and you can't fully realize them by just coding.
Sundarajan, a victim of Indian coding sweatshops now "projecting" his traumatic experience onto us
and i take everything i read super cereal
No seriously, why are we reporting on them?
Everybody knows it's eat, sleep, suplex, repeat.
I've worked Seattle hundreds for most of the past twelve years, and other than short-term memory loss, it hasn't affected my productivity at all.
It's not a statement of intent but an observation.
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
If you are reading this Anonymous Coward comment, how healthy is your lifestyle?
There are at least two things there not directly contributing to Google's bottom line.
lies sell
Its a play on the Fatboy Slim song Eat, Sleep, Rave, Repeat. Someone needs to take the stick out of their ass. Maybe someone should buy Dam Kim a shirt with Keep Calm and Carry On plastered on it.
I code to get paid
When I work forty a week
Otherwise blow me
That's because they know that a truly balanced lifestyle -- one that gives your brain and your soul some space to breath non-programming airâS -- actually makes you a better programmer.
Personally, I try to avoid breathing non-programming airâS.
i feel like i am reading an article from the 1980s....
My t-shirt says "Eat. Sleep. Screw. Repeat."
Goodbye programming. Hello slothful hedonism. And fuck you, Google.
Or is he really trying to white knight the tacky use of a slogon from a rave dance song.
Ideally, I only code 2-4 hours a day and then exercise a bunch. The rest in between lets you strategically think about your software's architecture so it is stable across updates. Thinking takes more than a couple minutes if you're doing significant projects, so you might as well go for long walks.
God spoke to me
adding that the company is wittingly or not promoting an "unhealthy perspective that programming is an all or nothing endeavor -- that to excel at it, you have to go all in."
Obviously, only complete loonies would support such a preposterous idea as a serious time investment.
Ezekiel 23:20
Sounds like a straightforward propaganda poster encouraging everyone to be good little drones to me. I mean, they DID sign on at Google already.
You're supposed to think off the clock you fucking piece of garbage.
This is why nobody likes us. Stop being a pedant!
.
That "Eat. Sleep. Code. Repeat." mantra is odious, miasmatic bullshit. Plain and simple.
I'm trying to figure out how could possibly serve as a more ironically unwitting example of precisely the thing he's criticizing.
The point to having a balanced, happy life isn't to be a better programmer. It's to have a balanced, happy life.
Just more BS cop-out from those who can't. It's too bad Google is now full of this NIH thinking.
Going all in like this actually works. There needs to be breaks between projects or milestones for this shit to be sustainable though. The reason the industry constantly grabs new talent and lets them work like crazy is because that is actually a functional way to get code done. Every engineer doing that ends up with more working memory devoted to the things his code touches, and he is exposed to it every day. Saying "oh, doing all these other things makes you a better coder" is an extraordinary claim, and needs evidence. A better argument would be "if we work people tons they'll burn out" or "it isn't right to demand that people work this hard for your bottom line". Flat out lying isn't gonna cut it.
So, finally Google admitted they suport a generation of zombies. Look, I do pot because I unlock the secrets of the universe. It's known as "voodoo programming". It works, trust me. I may not have a job (I know how much I worth), but that's a slogan for "I'm Google's bitch".
It's a just a jokey modification of a song title.
FFS.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBoRkg5-Ieg
Oh, so you think you can fuck over your company by taking long walks instead of working? You should be fired.
Everyone knows that coding is addictive and if there is something not working you are not going to sleep well until you figure out what it is. And you can eat and code at the same time. Relaxation time comes after the orgasm of a running perfect product.
Jesus fucking Christ. It is a joke. Like those "[insert sport here] is life" shirts. No one really thinks Baseball is Life.
CONSUME SLEEP OBEY CONFORM
Eat, Sleep, Code, Repeat
As long as Emily Blunt is my pair-programming partner ...
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
After 20 years in the business, I spend MUCH more time thinking about the problem and the best solutions than I do actually coding. If you're spending most of your time coding, that's probably mostly code I'll delete in a couple of years whwn I do it in a simpler, more elegant way.
HR now runs the company through "education" and threats of legal action, and we are sick of dealing with these Aspergers types. Sure they can code but the fact that they like it just freaks me out, and I'm here to socialize.
This is why Americans are losing jobs, work ethic like yours.
As if they give two shits about any of their employees. It's all about exploitation, baby. Brainwash sheep into thinking that life is nothing but subservience to the almighty master and then reaping the profits. But to their credit, Google has lines out the door waiting their chance to enter the slaughterhouse. Larry and Sergey didn't get where they are by being thoughtful caring humanists. Anyone who thinks otherwise is a goddamn moron. As far as I'm concerned, Google can fuck right off. And yes, I am a troll, but I really believe what I say and truly hate Google and their ilk with a passion. They are the cancer that is destroying humanity.
This is a major motivation for going after young coders and avoiding people with experience. People with experience know about the burnout bullshit, but people earlier in their careers assume that is the way to get things done. Managers know who they can easily manipulate for the death march on an ill-conceived schedule. Someone who has been there before is going to raise meaningful objections and might alert the younger people that it's a pack of lies. Upper management can't make vast amounts of money unless the workforce remains ignorant about the real cost/reward equation.
Why is Snark Required?
Eat, Sleep, Code, Repeat probably explains why there are so many silly bugs and braindead design decisions.
Code is a byproduct of ideas. The actual act of writing the code is the least difficult and least time consuming part of creating software. I can't even remember the last time I sat down to write code and didn't already have all the code in my head. Once the problem is solved in your head, it's just pushing buttons in an editor to bring it to fruition.
I think that's part of the problem with the software industry. People think they need to show up to work and bang out code all day. That's basically the recipe to writing buggy code. Let the code brew in your head for a while and then sit down one day and bang it out and you'll probably find that it's super solid, very coherent code.
If you are writing code and can't see the next 100 lines of code you're about to write, you're doing it wrong.
The best and brightest in their respective fields almost always have a one-track mind. They live, breath, sleep whatever it is that they do well. Not sure why some don't get this, but I assume it is probably something to do with genetics.
Burn out, replace
You just have to actually want to do what you are doing and have an actual reason that impacts you in a positive manner.
The fact is that they will make it harder and harder for you to get what you want based on your search history. People figured that out and that's what happened with anonymous.
Jesus why is all this so hard, because I said Jesus and it gets repeated by protestants and catholics alike at that point. Learn to re-learn people. It's all ones and zeros right...
suplex? duh these are geek programmers here , the neariest they get to physical contact with a sweaty body of any discription is t-bagging in WOW.
You see this when you go in for a job interview and they want to know, on top of your full time job, if you contribute to open source, or go to meetups, or otherwise pour your whole life into programming. Don't get me wrong, I love programming. And when I'm not doing 50 hours a week (the new 40) I like to do some for fun. But this culture of exploitation has to stop. It's what leads to 80 hour work weeks, not taking vacation, and burn out. It's exploitation pure and simple. And it doesn't work. People who are overworked underperform. And until the MBA's running the show understand that, they will have high turnover and poorer code quality than the companies that do understand it.
Write all the codez!
My dear employee
You are paid a salary
Work until it's done
...Google had the message "Eat. Sleep. Code. Repeat."
Yeah, well fuck you, Google.
Some of us have this thing called a "life", and we want to do whacky shit like spending time with our families, hanging out with friends, going on vacations, pursuing a hobby or two...you know, nutty stuff like that.
Take your "Eat. Sleep. Code. Repeat" shit and stuff it up your ass.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
You might have heard of this little program called "the Linux kernel".
https://www.kernel.org/pub/lin...
> wind up tossing the entire shebang
The entire shebang line?! That's like ten characters! :)
> but I've seen dev houses measure quality by doing over 10,000 lines a day, regardless of bugs.
I find that lines-of-code IS a good measure for me. If I can delete 10,000 lines of data transform and transport code and replace it with a direct connection in 12 lines of code, that's a very successful day.
As an example, a project I'll take on soon currently dumps data from a database into csv and transfers it to a server via FTP. Later, another server retrieves the csv via CVS, transforms it into XML, and makes it available via another protocol. It's then retrieved by another system which imports it into another database. I will replace these systems with the following: ... FROM source.table JOIN source.othertable.
INSERT INTO destination.tablename SELECT
Literally I'll replace hundreds or thousands of lines with one or two lines. That's a good day; getting rid of thousands of lines of code.
Can you tell your manager how long something will take? Have you tried doing so in a matter-of-fact, polite but firm way? Can you give an ACCURATE estimate?
I haven't worked for very many companies, but I haven't had this problem, not after showing that I know my job and giving matter-of-fact statements of how much time is needed.
they want lots and they want it now. The idea is to throw a ton of ideas at a wall and see what sticks. That means fast and cheap, not good.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
do {
eat();
sleep();
} while (codeIsFun());
retire();
Trigger warning: this comment contains a quotation drawn from an armed forces recruitment slogan of another era, and therefore may offend just about everybody.
How much time can be spent coding is determined entirely by how much true creativity is involved. Three hours is pretty much the limit for truly creative work (PhD experience). But if it's just work, well, I put in pretty productive 30-hour shifts as a medical resident (medical experience). See a terrific book called Daily Rituals by Mason Currey: almost all of those extraordinary creators were good for three-hour shifts, at most twice a day with a long break in between.
But let's face it, the message is not making a statement about coding in general. It's about the culture Google wants to create among their organization. Like the Marines, Google is "looking for a few good men." At least there's no doubt about what you would be signing up for.
Eat, Sleep, [insert verb here], Repeat.
Is the "in" phrase to use for many things these days thanks to Fat Boy Slim and Riva Starr's Eat, Sleep, Rave, Repeat.
2-4 hours, that's more than what I do. Bad programmers put in effort, constantly backtracking and fixing flaws they created. Good programmers are lazy, they write code that works well the first time. Build a record of projects that the customer is extremely happy with and requires virtually not maintenance or support, and they don't question your methods.
$10mil state contract that no one else in the industry would dare touch, take one programmer who coordinates the different departments, solo writes the code in a month, and after 2 years and 300,000 users, 400 administrators get together and unanimously tell you it was flawless. The project itself has consumed less than a few days or support.
I'll just be taking your job. Yoink.
I'm 100% with google here. You either code as hard as you fucking can or you fall behind and risk losing your job. It's actually a pretty simple choice.
Sounds like a sweatshop to me.
> I have rarely seen a programmer give an accurate estimate. Inexperienced programmers usually wildly underestimate how long a task will take.
I learned a while back that while programmers, including myself, generally give very bad estimates, each is pretty consistent in how far off they are. In other words, if I estimated 1/3rd the actual time on the last two projects, I'll probably do the same on the next two. If you over-estimated bu 50%, you'll probably over-estimate future projects by 50%.
Therefore, IF you write down each estimate beforehand, then write down the actual time, you can discover that Ray's estimates can be corrected by multiplying by three. People who have tested this report good results. I haven't done it consistently myself.
I suspect that some projects which include a significant element of inventing and developing new methods can't be estimated accurately at all. For "routine" projects like building a typical e-commerce site or GUI for a database, I suspect my estimates are wrong in a consistent, predictable way.
Misanthropes like you are why this website sucks. Plus your blazing obsession with a trivial contribution to society (banging out code, no doubt to just stuff things into a database and pull them back out) makes you *delusional* and *boring* to read.
Programmers don't usually stay long hours because they're told to - they stay long hours because they are into what they're doing.
That's assuming they are working on a project that has been scheduled well. Usually a lot of people I've known (including myself) had to work long hours because a project which has been allocated 12 months had 11 months doing nothing due to management indecision and then 1 month to cram in doing actual work. This has happened to me more often than any other scenario.
Assuming someone didn't just accept Googles slogan as a statement of passion... Why does someone think "coding" is just typing? Xtreme Programming isn't just about writing code. It is about the process of creating software. Yeah, I want you coding when you are working. You can go somewhere else if you are your view of coding is "typing" or if you want to spend 6 hours a day exercising like the person above.
My wife had written "Eat. Sleep. Run. Repeat." On our whiteboard while we were training for our last marathon. Obviously it was not to be taken literally and was only for motivation.
That's pretty much my life. Can I get a free t-shirt out of it? You know, for my troubles.
Ok, everyone knows "Eat, Sleep, Code" is a joke. What I find shocking is that somebody thinks it's real. There's probably nobody who does eat sleep code outside of a few bursts lasting at most a few months to a year when working at a startup. I mean, you have to go buy the red bull at some point, right? Anyway, I think it's a good tag line though.
But only for one or two years or so. And only when you're young. And only voluntarily. How do you think concert pianists get to where they are? They 'eat, sleep, play the piano, repeat'. It's how *everyone* gets to a good level of proficiency at *anything*.
Religion is what happens when nature strikes and groupthink goes wrong.
> explain the task so I can understand the business motivation and the real deadlines
Mod up.
> that would mean I already did something vaguely similar and if that would be the case, then I would be perusing [reusing?] that other piece of code so there's no a third time. ... The first case is a boring one that, fortunately doesn't happen too frequently.
It's interesting, I've almost always done some vaguely similar. Example 1: the organization has data in system X and they want it to be in system Y. Each can use (different) text-based formats to export and import data. Example 2: we want to a GUI to manage some information that's in a database. Example 3: we want to watch for cases outside the norm and trigger some action.
For most projects, I have some experience I can draw on. Yes, I'm a senior.
Google seems to me to be rapidly self-destructing.
I find most of the arguments here indicative of a point of view that has never been tainted by working with data structures with > 5 dimensions, for long periods. The reason for the long hours isn't because of love. The reason is that productivity in the zone is a multiple of the productivity outside of the zone.
Hell, I was one of those obsessives in the workplace, and I've universally caught crap about it in here. I don't think one person ever agreed with me about my work habits.
So now, we are supposed to attract young people, especially young ladies into coding with the attitude that it is the only thing you do in life beside eating and sleeping?
That's maybe 1 in a thousand people that have that outlook, and by and large, they are considered freaks.
In a pop culture world, that dog won't hunt.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Yeah for someone who's all about getting out their seems to be some confusion that this is a play on a common meme "Eat, Sleep, Rave, Repeat". Which was never meant to be taken literally either, it's a song. Not an instructional manual.
And that is precisely why I am good at it. I would never write long-winded BS that was mostly copy-pasted, loaded with huge if-else chains that can't be unit tested.
At my current job I delete more code than I produce. I refactor the BS written by junior coders in the past ten years and it is not uncommon to replace 100 lines of code with 2 or 3. Deleting BS code is so satisfying 3
"Work smarter, not harder!"
I find that I produce much cleaner code if I take a bit more time to think about it first. So I imagine this practice scales up to the case in this article.
To excel at anything, you need to go all out. This has always been true and will always remain true.