
Ask HN: How should programmers work - debamitro
I have been working as a programmer for over a decade, and recently I have noticed that my best ideas and insights come when I am walking down the road, driving, enjoying a nice view in a city or somewhere I like - they almost _never_ happen when I am working, sitting in front of a monitor and keyboard. Yet, my job (and that of all other engineers in my company and in many other companies) requires me to sit for hours in front of a machine in order to work.<p>I feel it is high time we the global community of programmers redefine how we should work, and drive that change in companies. Maybe this is a lofty goal, but it has to start with some ideas about how programmers (and other engineers who need to work with software) should work in any company in today&#x27;s age.<p>Please enlighten me with your opinions.
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mattbgates
My best ideas come to me when I'm not focusing on work, but either walking,
swimming, biking, or doing something else. Sometimes I will be working on
something and get stuck, and I can go to sleep and go back to it later and fix
it. Other times, it might take me a week of being away from it to just think
outside the box and come up with another way to make it happen. Another thing
I like to do is just to scroll through Y Cominbinator's Hacker News and read
articles or see what other people are doing. I also tend to take a look at
major social media networks and look at the "smaller features" that no one
really knows about or that they didn't put a whole lot of time or focus on,
and I re-create those and make them better.

For example, I wanted a place that I could post anything on the Internet
(plain or HTML) without much trouble.. I didn't want to sign up for an
account, I didn't want to put in my email in order to gain access, or connect
one of my social media accounts to it, I just wanted to remain anonymous and
write something or create a web page and share it with my friends or others on
the Internet, simple and straightforward. In my research to see if it existed,
I had only found one called pen.io and while I loved it, I saw the value of
it, it was still restrictive of my needs. I wanted to use HTML and CSS and
even JavaScript if I desired, so I created it.
[https://mypost.io/](https://mypost.io/)

Our best ideas, I think, actually come to us when we're not so tuned in, but
rather, tuned out. Programmers should definitely take up a hobby of doing
something other than focusing on their work. Start a blog, start a website,
read articles, share thoughts and ideas with like-minded people... your money
making ideas are there, you just haven't figured out how to fully understand
them yet. Having a hobby allows for our brain to think another way, and
sometimes, we do have to apply that logic to our programming. Even at work, as
a web developer, I can only sit and stare at the computer screen for so long,
before I just need to walk around the building 2 or 3 times to feel refreshed
again.

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chrisbennet
This analogy won't make sense to (most) younger people but I think that in
order to make new insights you need to take the pressure off. Metaphorically
speaking, to "change gears" you need to push the clutch in.

For me, I "load the machine up" like a dishwasher during the day and when I
wake up, a lot of times, the machine has come up with the answer overnight. It
delivers the answer during my morning shower.

