I was onboard with this school of thought for a while, right now it isn't my flow.
I work hard as-is teaching WDI at GA. I commit code frequently, but I also really want to focus more on work-life balance at the expense of getting more done. This summer, I'm taking two months off to do Burning Man and travel the country via motorcycle. During that time I expect no code to be committed. Do I feel bad about that at all? Not in the least bit, in fact I'm super excited to do it.
Currently, I try to not do much work on weekends. I like working hard during the week and then stepping away from the computer. I'll go and play music, ride my motorcycle, hang out with friends, travel, etc. The more time spent on my laptop on weekends feels like I'm missing out on things that matter strongly to me right now.
Now I am nowhere near the prolific coder that John is, and nowhere near his skill. I don't think he's wrong for doing it this way, but it isn't right for me and I'm glad that its producing results for him. I also go through periods of wanting to code daily, and other times where I'm ok with not coding for several days at a time.
To each their own. Also, Hi John!!! I haven't seen you since betahouse or you holding a Jelly at your place in Cambridge.
I agree with your sentiment -- I've been through long periods of little-to-no side project hacking. Like multi-year, long. I've been working on my current side projects for over two years now but I finally made the decision last fall to make the hard decision: either this is going to be something that I REALLY want to get out there (and thus, I need to work really hard to make it happen) or I need to be comfortable with letting it slowly progress over a long period of time. I made the decision to go for it, so I'm writing the code to make it happen!
But yeah, for every season there is definitely a different formula. In the next phase of my life hopefully I can find other things to bring this level of excitement and stimulation!
You're absolutely right in that its critical to either kick things into gear, or know that its going to take a long time for things to happen. That's excellent focus. I look forward to shifting back to the other side at some point. Maybe in 2015 ;)
I work hard as-is teaching WDI at GA. I commit code frequently, but I also really want to focus more on work-life balance at the expense of getting more done. This summer, I'm taking two months off to do Burning Man and travel the country via motorcycle. During that time I expect no code to be committed. Do I feel bad about that at all? Not in the least bit, in fact I'm super excited to do it.
Currently, I try to not do much work on weekends. I like working hard during the week and then stepping away from the computer. I'll go and play music, ride my motorcycle, hang out with friends, travel, etc. The more time spent on my laptop on weekends feels like I'm missing out on things that matter strongly to me right now.
Now I am nowhere near the prolific coder that John is, and nowhere near his skill. I don't think he's wrong for doing it this way, but it isn't right for me and I'm glad that its producing results for him. I also go through periods of wanting to code daily, and other times where I'm ok with not coding for several days at a time.
To each their own. Also, Hi John!!! I haven't seen you since betahouse or you holding a Jelly at your place in Cambridge.