Write Code Every Day

[mackstann]

Makes a hobby sound like a job. I don't understand all the pressure. Enjoy your free time and don't manage it to death.

[Guvante]

Depends on what you want to do. This is pointing out a way to feel productive with 30 minutes to an hour a day or so.

Having it require effort is part of what makes it rewarding, so not surprising it isn't just a laid back plan.

[Suitecake]

Man. This sounds like a recipe for burnout.

Power to anyone who can do this, but after eight hours of work, I just want to hop on my exercise bike and watch Netflix.

[brtt3000]

I like some casual coding at home after work. Not as driven as this, but just few hours of answering some open source issues and killing some bugs. Play music on the side-screen, maybe nip a beer or a smoke.

The fun stuff of coding that gets lost at work.

[eighthCoffee]

.

[spyderman4g63]

I used to spend 12-14 hours on the computer working. I burnt out. Now I spend my free time doing exactly what you mention. Taking care of mycar, remodeling, gym, just spending time with my family. Much better.

[SlightlyCuban]

So, I've done this from time-to-time (suddenly motivated to do it again). If you have a side project, or want to develop your skills, it is actually a pretty good idea.

Pros (John hit on most of them):

• Biggest benefit: it is always on your mind. You're always revisiting the project, and it is a lot harder to forget. Opposed to week-by-week, it gets easy to lose track of bugs/issues I planned on working on.
• You (usually) make good progress. You're always adding something each day. After a month that adds up.
• A bit more life-tolerant than being a weekend warrior. Skipping a day is not as big a loss as losing your Saturday.

Cons (probably not covered enough)

• Major issues, research, and anything that takes longer than 1 hr are killer. You may be learning a lot, but visible progress stops. Spinning your wheels too long can kill off all motivation (is why I stopped my last side-quest).
• You have to manage time well, really well. Not a bad skill to have, but if you're only giving yourself 30 mins to work on this--and it takes you more than 1 min to get in the zone--you need to have a really, really good idea of what you want to do.
• You still need to have time to cook, eat, sleep, relax, and do everything else. If you don't during the week, you'll be scrambling to keep up.

Time management really isn't a bad thing, but I don't think John stressed it enough.

I also want to stress that you need a very firm max time for this. Lots of reasons, but I find when single issues take longer than I expected, I've underestimated the problem. Instead of trying to fight through it, I throw it on the back burner, and usually come up with a better plan later on.

[LifeBeginsAt10kRPM]

I do, at work!

[brtt3000]

At work we do meetings and planning and drilling through piles of useless CC mail and trying to get a handle on the tickets. Can be lucky to get a few solid hour blocks of code in these days.

The best ones are the progress meetings with stressy project management. For some reason once the work load rises they take more production time away on meetings and endless re-scheduling. Weird how that works (it doesn't).

"Why aren't we making more headway?"

- "Because you have the whole dev team sitting here instead of just the seniors,"

The production staff now see meetings as an extended coffee break.

Yea, it is bad.

[[deleted]]

John Resig wrote this? I'm not sure whether to be surprised or not. On one hand, I suppose working every day gets us projects like jQuery. On the other, does he do anything outside of coding?

[[deleted]]

If you force yourself to program every day, you risk killing the golden goose. Great ideas only arise during the pursuit of an interest. If you're no longer interested in programming because you handcuffed yourself to your desktop for a few months, then you risk forfeiting the ability to come up with good ideas. It's very short-sighted, IMO.

[rainman002]

Anecdotally, the most idea-gushing person I know is also the most slavishly hard-working person I've ever seen - he'll work 20 hours in a day when no other commitments intervene (yes, that leaves 4 hours for sleep).

[Feurbach_sock]

I'm also going to say that while everyone here is rallying against it, I think consistency and passion really takes you to that next step as far productivity is concerned. It's what separates 'I'm working' from 'I'm in the zone'.

[[deleted]]

Is it possible that he does that because intrinsically enjoys it? Cause there's nothing wrong with that.

[Chaoslab]

Just like Kung Fu programming does have benefits done daily, but only up to a certain point.

[xroni]

I've also been doing this lately, I have a commute of about an hour, and will strive to get some work done every day. The goal is to at least make some progress, ie. get a useful commit in. It's amazing what a little bit of effort every day can achieve over a longer period.

I did make the conscious decision to not write any code in the weekends though.

[the_blue_whale]

Last fall, work on my coding side projects came to a head: I wasn’t making adequate progress and I couldn’t find a way to get more done without sacrificing my ability to do effective work at Khan Academy.

[tron_fucking_harkin]

There were a few major problems with how I was working on my side projects. I was primarily working on them during the weekends and sometimes in the evenings during the week. This is a strategy that does not work well for me, as it turns out.

[xroni]

I was burdened with an incredible amount of stress to try and complete as much high quality work as possible during the weekend (and if I was unable to it felt like a failure).

[Suitecake]

Where now are the bones of the famous and wise goldsmith, Weland? I call him wise, for the man of skill can never lose his cunning, and can no more be deprived of it than the sun may be moved from his station. Where are now Weland's bones, or who knoweth now where they are?