

Programmer Passion Considered Harmful - jamescostian
https://medium.com/on-coding/programmer-passion-considered-harmful-5c5d4e3a9b28
omg guys front page
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lmm
I agree with much of this. I work a solid eight hours and go home. When people
are impressed at my abilities, I wonder how much of the difference is simply
that I get a full night's sleep and so many people don't.

But I write code at home. Not work-related code, and not to the exclusion of
other hobbies. But coding is something I enjoy, something I sometimes like to
do for its own sake. I won't apologise for that.

~~~
deaconblues
I was wondering the other day: is it possible to enjoy coding, be good and
employable, and still leave your work at work? I code at home too, but yeah,
other passions take priority. You rarely hear about programmers who don't live
and breathe code, but there must be a huge number of them.

~~~
collyw
Yes. Actually most programmers I work with seem to be 9-5ers without any
passion. I am a 9-5er with some passion about the languages and tools I use.

~~~
deaconblues
I guess I'd just like the distinction that not living and breathing code
doesn't equal a lack of passion. I'm passionate about programming. Can't say I
ever was about washing dishes. They were both jobs, though, and when I get off
work, there are other things I want to do.

~~~
collyw
There are other things outside of work that I am more passionate about. But
programming can be interesting, and pays the bills.

------
BasDirks
This article conflates passion for programming with working insane hours for
an employer. This is pretty dumb.

"It’s one thing to suffer when you’re an obscure artist, or a spurned lover,
or a soldier facing his death, or even Jesus H. Christ himself. But don’t
suffer for a paycheck unless you’re the CEO."

There is some room between Jesus and your CEO.

~~~
Draiken
IMO it's how companies perceive "passionate programmers". The article just
highlights how that's harmful.

------
sklogic
I keep repeating (and keep getting downvoted for this obvious truth) that even
8 working hours are too much. One can only keep decent levels of concentration
on a mentally challenging task for no more than 4 hours a day. Good if you
have something less mentally challenging to fill the remaining 4 hours with,
but even better if you do not need to.

~~~
Silhouette
I would prefer not to pick a number at all. There are days when I'm really
into something and can write (good) code for 12 hours straight, but those days
don't happen very often. There are days when I have grunt work to do but other
people keep distracting me, and if I write 1/10 the amount of useful code on
those days I'm doing well.

Usually it's somewhere in between. I probably average around 5-6 hours of
productive coding per day on any given project, not counting break times, but
with very wide variance.

Also, although different projects aren't completely independent, I do find
that after taking a significant break (read: probably multiple hours) I can
work productively on something else for a while. For example, if I've got some
main feature I'm developing but also need to investigate and fix some bugs, I
might spend a few hours on the main work, but I might still be quite
comfortable tracking down and fixing a few bugs later in the day. So quite
often, I will actually split my working time into 2 or even 3 main sessions
during a day, doing other things in between, though I have the advantage here
of not being someone else's employee with standard office hours.

~~~
sklogic
Yes, of course individual numbers may vary. I got this 4 hours average figure
from the studies conducted by various companies regarding their engineers
productivity.

------
smt88
Actually what he's arguing (rightly) is that burnout is harmful. That's not
the same as "programmer passion".

Creating an environment where you expect or force people to burn out is going
to harm your business in the long-run. There are people who can thrive in that
environment, but there aren't many.

But, contrary to the mixed message of the article, passion is a necessary
ingredient for a great employee in _any_ position. Passionate people are
happier to wake up in the morning, come to the office, and do work that others
don't enjoy.

Suggesting that liking your work is bad (as the title does strongly and the
article does very weakly) is absolute fucking nonsense.

~~~
Dewie
> Actually what he's arguing (rightly) is that burnout is harmful. That's not
> the same as "programmer passion".

What I've been wondering about lately, though, is if what looks like passion
can all of a sudden turn on you and manifest itself as burnout? That's why I
feel a bit wary about "if I like to do it, then it's fine". What if I'm just
deluding myself, and the burnout ends up hitting me even harder?

My biggest problem though, which is obvious and doesn't require much self-
reflection, is that I have a pretty unbalanced lifestyle.

~~~
smt88
I'll tell you my story, which may or may not be relatable.

I've always loved all aspects of developing software products: brainstorming,
research, programming, designing, and marketing. Even the boring parts are so
motivating to me that I can work for 20 hours at a time.

And because all of the ideas and opportunities around me are so enjoyable and
exciting, I used to have a lot of trouble saying no. I tried to pile more and
more stuff onto my plate, often justifying it by under-estimating the time it
takes to do each one.

I eventually saw my less of my girlfriend, family, and friends. I almost
entirely stopped drinking even a single drink because of the small decrease in
productivity. I slept 4 hours a day in 2-hour shifts.

I hadn't burned out yet, but I became an example of the popular research
finding that productivity is greater if you work at sub-burnout levels. In my
case, I get as much done working on and off for 10 hours a day as I did
working for 20. I get more sleep, though still little, and I force myself to
take miniature "vacations" (sometimes an evening, sometimes a day or two) to
focus on things other than work, no matter how much is piling up.

I'm still extremely busy, and I'm still not doing everything I want to do. But
I'm more productive than I was, and I'm not missing out on all of the other
things in life.

There will always be people who are willing to sacrifice everything for work.
I think that's a small minority, and even in that minority, very few of them
will end up happy in the long term.

I always like to say that no one lies on their death bed and says, "I wish I
would have worked more and seen my loved ones, traveled, and relaxed less!" In
fact, a recent _NY Times_ article[1] about this exact subject concludes with a
deathbed quote that supports the anti-burnout movement very well.

1\. [http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/14/business/dealbook/when-
emp...](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/14/business/dealbook/when-employee-
engagement-turns-into-employee-burnout.html)

------
DanielBMarkham
It's a spectrum. Don't be a clock-puncher and don't code to exhaustion to
satisfy some sort of Asperger's or OCD issues.

But however you slice it, you cannot get past this one fact: it is an
unnatural thing to sit in front of a glowing box for 4, 6, 8 hours a day
pecking on little things with your fingers. This type of work has never
existed before in the history of our species, and we were not made to do it. I
think that's why we have to be very careful not just about the amount of time
we code, but all the other things that go with it.

The _job_ needs to be important. The code can just be the code. So if you've
spent all week punching the clock and suddenly wake up early Sunday morning
with an idea about how to refactor that solution to work 100x better? Sounds
good to me. If you code 90 hours a week and produce crap? Don't need you so
much.

The problem is that because it's so unnatural, all of us who do and manage
this work confuse activity with progress. So the guy putting in the long hours
pecking away _looks_ like he's doing something of greater magnitude -- both to
himself and others. But it doesn't work that way.

Have passion for the job and for the problem you're solving. Programming is
just one of many tools you need to accomplish that. Other tools are a good
night's sleep, exercise, interacting socially with others, and so on. But if
you don't have passion? I really don't want to work with you. Life's too short
to spend 40 hours a week doing stuff you are apathetic about or with other
people who are just going to drag you down.

~~~
Silhouette
_But if you don 't have passion? I really don't want to work with you. Life's
too short to spend 40 hours a week doing stuff you are apathetic about or with
other people who are just going to drag you down._

I don't understand this mindset. If someone is competent at their job and,
ideally, personable company, what's the problem working with them just because
they aren't Passionate(TM) about whatever you're doing? Do you think the
people who build the roads, or repair the power grid after a storm, or stack
the shelves at your local store are _passionate_ about their work?

I think sometimes people who enjoy programming and also get paid very well to
work as a programmer forget just how lucky they are. Most people don't love
their jobs.

~~~
Shish2k
In my experience, competent but unpassionate programmers will do a good job of
implementing a flawed spec and be happy about it, because it's management's
problem and they get paid the same either way; competent and passionate
programmers won't be happy unless the flaws are fixed and they get to make a
good product.

Both approaches can work, but it's not good to mix the two personality types
within a team as their goals are mutually exclusive.

~~~
Silhouette
But a flawed spec _is_ management's problem, and it _is_ management's job to
make a call on whether you ship despite any known flaws. A competent (in the
professional sense) programmer _will_ follow management's lead even if they
personally don't like the decision or aren't happy with the results.

Being passionate about your work does not give you the right to be in charge,
in programming or any other field. Yes, good programmers want to make a good
product, but as the saying goes, sometimes the best is the enemy of the good.
Shipping a product with fewer bugs six months after the money to pay for it
runs out... usually doesn't happen, because the money ran out.

~~~
collyw
Being competent does though (well I guess its down to the individual
workplace).

I certainly take over from my incompetent team leader, because his solutions
are not well thought through. They will work fine for a week or two then need
constant debugging and tweaking. I have the experience and knowledge to see
better solutions. That extra knowledge doesn't come by itself. I constantly
try to improve my ability. I read articles about programming techniques and
tools.

~~~
Silhouette
Yes, competence is what matters.

The problem as you describe it seems to be that your managers did not hire a
competent senior developer as the team leader, nor have they fixed their error
since.

It is also possible -- I can't tell from just your previous post -- that you
are relatively inexperienced and place a lot of weight on the modern/trendy
programming techniques and tools you read about, while your team leader is
more experienced and sees through the hype.

------
amagumori
i think in most cases it's harmful to give one single iota of a fuck about
whatever it is you do for work, unless you work for yourself. 40 hours of
every week of your life, at a minimum, is being used to further someone else's
goals, and you have no choice in this because you have to survive. don't ever
work hard unless it's on something that matters to you or something that's
altruistic. if you're in tech and aren't specifically working towards helping
people, your job, company, and product don't matter. at all. stack your money,
smile, nod, and GTFO as soon as you can.

~~~
diminoten
Yeah, this is some high-caliber nonsense that completely ignores the idea of
mutually beneficial agreements.

Just because you're helping your employer doesn't mean whatsoever that they're
necessarily taking advantage of you or exploiting you.

That's just some deeply cynical shit. You can do your job, enjoy it, care
about the work your produce, and go home 8 hours later, all while holding a
healthy attitude for your employer and at the same time yourself.

"Stack your money and gtfo" is just sad. I feel bad for you, if that's the
attitude you bring to work.

~~~
jpindar
I feel bad for his coworkers if that's the attitude he brings to work.

~~~
mgraybosch
My coworkers think I'm some kind of guru. They've never worked with a real
guru, so they mistake me for a the real deal because I read _Design Patterns_
once. You _should_ feel sorry for them. :)

------
markbnj
I started learning to program in 1976, and in the 1980's I was one of those
young, single guys who stayed up all night and wrote C for 14 hours a day. But
it was never a _job_ when I did that. It was a hobby. The whole area of
interest was new and not that many people were getting paid to write code. It
was entirely a different era, but somehow this notion that real programmers
code until they drop has hung on through the evolution of the art into an
commercial trade craft. There are times when it may make sense to throw that
much energy into a project, but those times are exceptional, and to consider
it a regular feature of the practice is absurd and serves interests that do
not have the practitioner's welfare at heart.

------
scolfax
Unless you are working for yourself or equity if the work can't be done in 40
hours a week it's a management problem, not a programmer problem.

Programmers who consistently work over 40 hours a week are enabling management
to misrepresent how much work can be done over a time period and are covering
for management's flaws, and paying for it with their uncompensated time.

Management has perpetuated the mindset that if the tasks can't be completed
with the resources _they_ have allocated (including time) then the problem is
a lack of programmer skill, and insecure, young, and inexperienced programmers
pay for it with their time and ego.

Experienced programmers who want to take advantage of this will trade their
time for respect, pride, and influence.

Management should respect programmer's free time, but doesn't have to as long
as there are programmers willing to sell the others out by giving it away.

------
logfromblammo
Sometimes I see job postings from companies looking for _passionate
programmers_. And then the entire remainder of the post gives detailed reasons
why anyone with genuine passion would never, ever, ever want to work there.

Passionate people don't want to work for people who do not share their
passion. And they have _opinions_ , which they feel _strongly about_. If I
were an employer, faced with the choice between the person willing to put in
40 a week doing whatever damned fool thing it is I tell him to do, and the one
who will voluntarily burn 60 or more per week frantically rewriting the entire
code base, trying to make it _beautiful_ , and constantly pushing back on
everything, I know which one I'd pick.

You're not going to get a person willing to work 60 a week just following
orders, unless they are hopelessly naive or downright stupid.

------
tux3
So much vitriol, anger, suffering in this article.

I think that the author does have a point, and I agree that you shouldn't sell
yourself off as a slave just because you're passionate, but that point is
being pushed a tad too far.

There's nothing wrong with _enjoying_ your job.

~~~
jeremy6d
I'm glad to be on a site where we can be complete human beings, and not
sacrifice feeling out frustration and anger on the altar of professionalism.

------
robalfonso
I never viewed being "passionate" about programming as the author has. I want
passionate employees working for me. To me that means you like the work, you
are interested in the field, and it means you continue to build your body of
knowledge either through on the job research or on your own time as a hobby.
Doctors as an example spend a significant amount of time keeping abreast on
the latest procedures and developments.

But he is right when he describes the idea of 16 hour days as obsessive. That
is unhealthy and it leads to mistakes, some business can tolerate it, others
can't ymmv.

------
some_furry
I'm passionate about programming. But not for my employer.

I work as a web developer. In my off-time, I like to play with technology.
Usually, that involves writing code. This code is not meant to be perfect or
useful for anyone else, so I never share it. It's my own work of crappy art,
made for the fun of writing it.

------
flurpitude
When my company hires, we look for programmers who show curiosity, interest
and creativity. This, I suppose, is what some PR person somewhere decided
would be called "passion". But we're not looking for some crazy evangelist and
we don't expect people to devalue other things in life to prove their interest
in programming. Someone mature, intelligent and curious is ideal.

There's definitely a difference between that person and someone who does the
bare minimum required to get the job done because they're not that interested.
Your curiosity will lead you to discover new ways of doing things, to keep an
eye on how others are doing things, and to persist when you can't immediately
solve a problem. You'll write better code because you're interested in
discovering the best ways of doing things. But you needn't be obsessive.

We have seen employees who don't initially have that curiosity, and their code
generally isn't very well designed and doesn't improve. It doesn't matter how
many hours they work. If someone can succeed in sparking that curiosity in
them, then we see their code improve.

What you don't want is the attitude of "how I code right now is fine for me,
and I'm not really interested in learning better ways." That's associated with
"ho hum, it's just a day job" but not everyone working standard hours has an
unhelpful attitude like this. It's quite possible to work 9 to 5 while being
interested, curious and proud of good work.

~~~
jeremy6d
> But we're not looking for some crazy evangelist and we don't expect people
> to devalue other things in life to prove their interest in programming.

Well, of course you can't _say_ that. That's the whole point of the article:
that "passion" is a euphemism for the signaling companies do. We want
passionate developers, and we get to define "passion" for you.

What makes hiring so hard is that it's a gamble. Human beings don't come with
specs you can evaluate to know whether or not they will help or hurt your
mission. But, you know what, companies don't come with specs that will tell an
applicant whether the job will enhance or stifle one's life. I wish we could
stop playing these word games that imply there are rigid patterns to what
makes a successful employment relationship, and instead put that energy into
getting to know human beings as they are.

~~~
stcredzero
_Human beings don 't come with specs you can evaluate to know whether or not
they will help or hurt your mission._

You need to find people who can perceive the workings of the group and company
as a system, then actively avoid pathologies and improve the group as a whole.
Most groups aren't solely composed of such people, but the ones that work well
have enough of them to regulate group interactions smoothly.

 _What makes hiring so hard is that it 's a gamble._

It wouldn't be if there was a way that we could try people for a couple weeks,
then six months before hiring. Almost anyone can pretend to be nice for 6
months for tens of thousands of dollars. Longer than that, you're either
getting a genuine glimpse, or there's a darker talent at play.

------
euske
I have to confess. I consider myself a passionate programmer. I love coding. I
believe that I'm changing the world by coding and I'm communicating with the
users through the UI design.

And yet I can only code for two hours maximum a day. For the rest of a day I'm
mostly goofing (a.k.a. "researching"). Sorry, Boss.

~~~
thirdtruck
Almost certainly a factor of your environment and your work assignments. If
someone came over and poked you every five minutes, would you expect to get
several hours of _focused_ work done every day? The same applies to all the
many smaller distractions with which we suffer.

------
carapat_virulat
Passion is just an easy term to romanticize and build narratives around that
makes you feel warm inside when you read about it. Chances are that most of
the great programmers you ever meet followed a sensible schedule, slept well
at night, didn't disassemble any electronic device in their childhood to see
how it worked and lived a pretty average middle class life without any huge
sacrifice required to achieve success.

Chances are you won't read about that because it would make for pretty boring
stories. Regular, progressive learning doesn't sound as cool as caffeine
fueled 4-day programming sprees.

Then again, people with a truly passionate temperament exist, which is usually
great to have around and brighten the mood, but doesn't tell much about actual
programming skills.

------
reidrac
I don't think being passionate about programming, or your job or anything
else, means it has to be at the expense of something else that is valuable.
It's more about preference and priorities. I don't watch TV, for example.

Being obsessive about something can be unhealthy in some cases, but I'm not
sure if that's what the post is about.

Because the author talks about himself in the post, I found interesting that
he defines himself at the bottom of the page as "SF author, software
developer, occasional blogger. Buy my books and help me quit my day job.". So
his passion is perhaps being a SF author and wants to quit his day job, which
makes me think he's not very passionate about it.

Well, that's all right. Like being passionate about programming.

~~~
s73v3r
The "passion" he talks about isn't real passion, but the "passion" that
employers tend to ask for, which really means, "Is willing to work insane
hours for no extra compensation."

------
azurelogic
The author has a good strong point about leaving work at work when you leave.
Unfortunately, he makes a logical error in thinking that this generalizes to
any sort activity that resembles your work. Would anyone berate a mechanic who
likes to go home to work on the classic Camaro he is restoring for fun? Just
because the guy does similar things for work and fun doesn't make him
absolutely wrong or necessarily worse at his job.

When I leave at 5, I don't worry about work. I go home, have dinner with my
family, play with my kid, etc. Then, while I'm watching TV, I sometimes sneak
in coding on some side project or open source fix, writing a blog post, or
organizing a meetup. This doesn't make me a fool or bad at my job. If
anything, I'm continuing to develop and retool to keep my competitive edge so
I can keep getting paid well for work that I don't hate. That's smart.

I've worked with guys like this, and they drive me crazy. If you hate your
career path, that's a you problem. Don't make it mine.

------
ThrustVectoring
You can't reliably get more stuff done by working longer hours. All that does
is burn your long-term resources for short-term gain - and even that it does
badly, since you can quickly start stacking up mistakes.

If you need to get more done, you have to be efficient about it.

------
ChikkaChiChi
Sometimes I code for work. Sometimes I code for fun. Sometimes I'm even lucky
enough that my coding for work is fun.

I think that "programming" can be as broad of an over-generalization as "you
spend too much time on the computer." Don't mistake the glyphs on one screen
for being the same to me as those you saw a moment before. At any point you
may find the same machine that causes me to work to be used to learn new
things, or to adventure into new worlds.

I understand that not everyone is built like that; but don't set up a false
premise that drawing a parallel to old world thinking somehow applies to all
of us.

------
rmanolis
First of all, I disagree. Being passionate is not bad, It becomes bad when you
dont consider improving other parts of yourself. For example, there was a time
where I was working a lot and then when I looked myself in the mirror, I felt
horrible because I was fat and ashamed of myself. That alone burned me out.
However, studying about diet and fitness. I fixed this problem with
Intermittent Fasting, bodyweight workout (4 days a week) and vegeterianism.
Now I dont feel bad, and I work straight for months without feeling burned
out.

------
gdulli
Do we need articles that (1) pick a straw man/hyperbolic image of an obviously
dysfunctional stereotype (that I've never encountered to this degree) (2)
pretend that these qualities are a typical end result of having passion (3)
talk down to readers with obvious statements about avoiding dysfunction (4)
assume that women are less prone to having passion for their jobs than men,
etc?

Am I special for being engaged with my job and having a good work/life balance
and having a good employer that also allows it? No, I hope not.

------
hasenj
He has a point but I think the title is misleading.

Am I passionate about programming? I don't know. I hope I am.

Do I focus on code for 8 hours straight? No. I can't do that. I would burn
out.

This makes me think that I'm a fraud sometimes. I'm not talking exactly about
the imposter syndrome. I do see my achievements. But I also see that I don't
always put in the "8 hours" I'm supposed to put. Sometimes my brain just stops
functioning, and I have to distract myself with something other than coding.

------
dannypgh
Yeah, I think I program with a lot of passion. However, after I've worked for
not-too-much-more-than 8 hours in a day I force myself to go home. And when
I'm home I make an effort to stop thinking about whatever problem was on my
mind. Sometimes having an open source side-project can help with this
tremendously.

The author is definitely establishing a false dichotomy here. Just because you
would enjoy doing something for 16 hours straight, doesn't mean you have to.

------
moru0011
The author has choosen wrong profession. As work makes up a good part of your
life, you better enjoy it. Actually programming "business stuff" is quite
different from tinkering with e.g. the newest machine learning algorithm, so
talking of "programming" is a over simplification and indicates the author
never got a grasp of what other people actually enjoy when "programming".

~~~
mgraybosch
I chose the wrong day job, too, but it seemed like a good idea when I was 18
and my family's idea of a good job was bartending. I was a failed musician who
took up writing, and I had just enough sense to realize that I'd need a day
job.

If cleaning toilets paid $25/hour I'd still be doing _that_. Somebody has to
do it.

------
jqm
I didn't get into programming for money. I got into it because it's something
I really like doing. If this isn't you... I feel bad for you. Life is too
short to spend your working days doing something you don't care for. The money
(beyond an amount needed to live) simply isn't worth it. If I ever don't like
programming, I simply won't do it anymore.

------
dbbolton
>“passion” is a translation of the Greek word πάσχειν paschein, which means
‘to suffer’

A word's etymology has no bearing over its current usage. It just tells you
where it came from. Assuming that the original Greek meaning is somehow
"correct" and the modern usage is an adulteration is a prescriptive fallacy.

~~~
mturmon
I felt like the link between "passion" and suffering was quite poetic and
worth thinking on. People claim to be passionate about various things, but
this root is a reminder that this passion, if it's genuine, is likely to be
connected to suffering in some way.

You work so hard that you suffer, you are so devoted to a cause that you
suffer. Passion isn't free.

Passion may not be controllable, but insofar as it is, maybe some caution is
advised around it? Especially when "passion" is becoming a job requirement,
and people are being asked to find a passion.

I've seen lots of home pages and twitter summaries claiming "passion" about
the oddest technical sub-areas. "Passionate" about web standards? "Passionate"
about DevOps? Maybe so, but make sure it's a price worth paying.

~~~
dbbolton
I wasn't arguing against this particular instance because it was just
reinforcing an analogy, rather than actually prescribing an obsolete
definition (which is sadly frequent).

------
atlih
I have a female intern that leaves on the clock, she gets more done than me.
Probably because of it. The owners of the company ask me why does she leave so
early, and I ask them back, why do your people in other apartments that stay
late get nothing done?

------
bluedino
If you want to be among the absolute best at something, you are going to do
need to dedicate a good part of your life to it. 8 hours a day just isn't
going to cut it.

Did Michael Jordan go home the second practice was over? Do you think Thomas
Edison only put 8 hours in at his lab? Did Linus only work on Linux for 8
hours a day? Steve Wozniak has a story bout staying up 4 nights in a row
working on the Apple computer.

Should you burn yourself out on 20 hour days because your employer forces you?
Hell no. But if you truly love something to allow it to complete takeover your
life, that could be the way to create something very special.

~~~
BSousa
Except most pro athletes train 3-4 hours a day, not 16.

If I'm not mistaken (been a while since I read the book), Michael admitted he
would get up early to practise, but before school, not before normal practise.
When he turned pro, he would be (according to the coach) the most hardworking
guy there, but he would leave with the rest of the team and do whatever he had
to do.

Can't remember where, but recently read that pro football/soccer players train
on average 26 hours per week, which seem about right from reports I have from
friends that play. Boxers also practise at around 3-4 hours per day as well.

~~~
bluedino
>> Except most pro athletes train 3-4 hours a day, not 16.

We're talking about the best. Even in pro athletes there is a huge margin from
'good' to 'best'. Peyton Manning (NFL quarterback) is known for studying hours
and hours of game footage.

[http://nypost.com/2014/01/30/peyton-mannings-film-study-
obse...](http://nypost.com/2014/01/30/peyton-mannings-film-study-obsession-is-
stuff-of-legend/)

~~~
BSousa
I don't know much about Manning, but from the article, first, he seems to have
some kind of 'photographic memory' for gameplays. Not something you practise
to be honest. But even if he watches 4 hours per day, if you add it to 4 hours
physical practise, he still will only be on the 8 hour a day schedule, and it
is two different things he focus on. He isn't on the field 8 hours + 4 hours a
day at home watching games.

A lot of folks here do 8 hours in the office, then 4 hours at home with
something else (side projects, carpentry, sports) as well, but I would be very
astounded if (for long stretches, not for a week or two in a training camp) he
would be devoting more than 8 hours/day to practise.

From the article: 'Twice a year, Manning would show up with a garbage bag
filled with the VHS tapes he was done with. Harrington said every one had been
watched.'

I know it was probably hyperbole, but even if we assume 50 tapes per bag, with
3 hours per tape (both generous assumptions), that gives around 300 hours per
year, or one hour per weekday. Tyson was also an avid boxing student (early
career). A normal day for him would consist of 3-4 hours practise and 1-2
hours watching tapes depending on how close to a fight he was.

ps: Again, I don't know much about Manning so maybe he really is different,
but growing up I was involved and trained with various professional athletes
in various sports, and what I'm saying is based on my observations of them.

------
sampattuzzi
I would be interested to see if this phenomenon is more prevalent among US
based companies. I worked for a company with offices in Cupertino and
Cambridge UK and the difference in culture was noticeable. The american office
seemed to demand a lot more devotion from their workers, this didn't seem the
case with the brits.

There was a distinction for me between coding for somebody and coding for
myself. The latter always being more enjoyable. This is why I think so many
programmers work on side and open-source projects.

------
peterchon
I agree to a certain degree - I think the biggest problem that the author had
was the unrealistic expectation of the employer.

Way I see it, it's always going to be a struggle between what the company
wants (more for less) and what the employee can produce. It's like when you
hire someone to do something for you - you expect them to do the best job, on-
time, for the best price.

Passion is writing code knowing that it's not perfect but another step towards
becoming better.

What really is crap code anyways?

------
humanarity
"Anything that becomes sufficiently popular eventually becomes diagnosed as an
illness." \-- laws of humanity [in the early 21st century] #512

------
alixander
Passion implies things other than working longer than everyone else. For
example, people passionate about programming often are better at debugging in
those 8 hours than someone who wants to just get out.

Also, I don't understand the use of images here. Your first one is basically
the equivalent of a cliche speech starting with, "The Marriam-Webster
dictionary defines passion as..."

~~~
cstoner
> Passion implies things other than working longer than everyone else.

Not to a lot of managers and bosses, it doesn't.

My team has weekly rewards for the people that work the most hours. Several
people on the team regularly claim to put in 60-80 hours.

Personally, I feel that those same people are making the work environment
worse. One of them in particular has created over 200 Bamboo build plans (and
the corresponding deployment plans to 7+ environments). It's an unmaintainable
mess with little-to-no logic involved. None of it is re-usable -- hence why
there are over 200 build plans.

That guy gets praise several times a day for how hard he works.

The bosses don't care about how much passion (in our sense of the word) their
employees have. They care about how much passion (in the "work 80 hours a
week" sense of the word) their employees have.

------
cdelsolar
But I like going home and coding because it's fun. I also like doing other
things. Why is he telling me to not code at home?

------
golergka
This article makes a great case against itself: the author confuses working
for the sake of "working for the man" and working for the love of code. It
seems that he just throws the 80-hour crunch weeks into the same pile as
hackathons on weekends and hobby projects in the evenings, while these things
couldn't be more different.

------
segmondy
The article is poorly written, he never once talked about passion, instead he
talks about obsession, over working or burning out. Passion is not harmful.
Lack of passion on the other hand? I wish the world had more passionate
programmers.

------
chojeen
There are days when I _love_ what I'm working on and I don't want to go home.
But I still force myself to leave, because that work will still be there
tomorrow, and I'll go in the next morning with renewed passion.

------
HaseebR7
Go To Considered Harmful

[http://www.u.arizona.edu/~rubinson/copyright_violations/Go_T...](http://www.u.arizona.edu/~rubinson/copyright_violations/Go_To_Considered_Harmful.html)

Coincidence?

~~~
Ygg2
Coincidence?

Considered Harmful considered harmful[1].

[1][http://meyerweb.com/eric/comment/chech.html](http://meyerweb.com/eric/comment/chech.html)

~~~
HaseebR7
Ahh, I get it now.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Considered_harmful](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Considered_harmful)

Considered harmful is a phrase used in the titles of at least 65 critical
essays in computer science and related disciplines. It was popularized by
Edsger Dijkstra's letter Go To Statement Considered Harmful.

------
jasode
This article is low-quality ranting. The author has a certain definition of
"passion" and therefore taints it to be negative to fit his list of
complaints. Tellingly, his whole essay is focused on "passion" == "time
expenditure wasted".

There's another type of "passion" where it's equal to "extreme interest in
subject matter" or "pursuit of intellectual puzzles".

Since the author uses "passion" as "time wasted", his view of programming
comes off as a white-collar version of bricklayer. Don't lay any more bricks
and cement than is necessary for the construction foreman. Punch in the clock
at 9am. Punch out promptly at 5pm. It's all about _time_.

See the relevant phrase excerpts:

> put in a solid eight hours

> spending twelve to sixteen hours a day in the office

> forsake everything else to spend more time coding as a badge of honor.

> programmers who spend all their waking hours on the job

> working several weeks of twelve-to-fourteen hour days with only Sundays off

> spend all night on the job

> Put in a solid eight hour day, and then get the hell out. G

>, once you have worked a solid eight hour day, leave the office and silence
your phone

>, and ignore your bosses when they bitch about you only working nine-to-five.

Being driven like a slave for 12 to 16 hour days is a legitimate gripe but
harping on the word "passion" (or the fact that his superiors label it as
"passion") is blaming the wrong thing.

I concede that there are many enterprise companies who need trying to recruit
"passionate" programmers to maintain boring CRUD apps. Sure, a lot of these
programming jobs are soul-crushing bricklaying work. Their use of "passion" is
self-serving and rightfully triggers a jaded reaction.

However, a lot of startups need "passionate" programmers who genuinly _enjoy_
algorithms, solving graphs, etc that are relevant to the companies unique
technical challenges. Yes, even this type of "passionate" programmer will tend
to spend more than 8 hours on the job. It's because they _like_ the work they
do. Jony Ive at Apple spends 12 hours at work because he's _passionate_ and
not because he's being chastised by Tim Cook. (Jony Ive is already a multi-
millionaire and can quit if he feels he's being exploited.) That's the kind of
passion many hiring managers are looking for and the author's one-dimensional
essay ignores it.

~~~
pjmlp
I have been in the industry for a while, almost every time I see "passion"
coming from HR, it is as an euphemism for "we like devs that crunch and don't
complain".

Never saw it otherwise, not even in startups.

~~~
jasode
In the recent "Who's hiring" thread[1], there are several job posts describing
"passion" as related to the _subject matter_ (machine learning, or aviation,
or improving literacy, etc).

Yes, some of the other job posts do use the generic "passion for excellence"
and/or "passionate inspirational working environment". These might be HR
doublespeak for "please give up your life for us to exploit". I understand the
skepticism from listings like that.

My point is that "passion" mislabeled in my 2nd paragraph does not invalidate
the fact that there are people genuinely passionate about topics and that
companies are genuinely trying to find them. This is one reason why the word
"passion" persists in job discussions. If we were a new company trying to
recruit a "passionate industrial designer" like Jony Ive what word would we
use instead? What word besides "passion" should we substitute in this Jony Ive
article[2] ?

[1][https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9127232](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9127232)

[2][http://www.businessinsider.com/how-apple-design-guru-jony-
iv...](http://www.businessinsider.com/how-apple-design-guru-jony-ive-
discovered-his-passion-2015-3)

------
EnFinlay
I really dislike this trend of strongly written blog posts that don't try and
make a logical point, and instead describe the irrational opposite of what the
author dislikes.

------
3minus1
Was he fired because he deleted the production database or because he didn't
tell them what he did and they found out themselves?

~~~
6t6t6
In any case, I don't expect anyone taking rational decisions at 5 in the
morning, after being all night awake trying to solve an incidence because
"boss said so".

------
facepalm
I've been wondering if it is really possible to be passionate about front-end
development if you have a CS degree?

~~~
ac2u
Sure it is.

Dive deep enough into anything and you'll find the Computer Science. Diffing
trees is an integral part of React and other virtual DOM implementations.

Profiling and finding out where time is being spent in your application can
lead to you having to choose data structures and algorithms which have more
favourable Big-O characteristics.

------
cowardlydragon
((?) Considered Harmful) Considered Harmful

------
peteypao
You can never be great at whatever you do if you aren't passionate about it,
and put in the necessary hours. This article is pretty dumb.

~~~
elihu
Unfortunately, most programmer positions do not require you to be great at
what you do, or passionate. In fact, being either of those things may be a
disadvantage. Most programming is just doing stuff that isn't really all that
interesting, but it needs to get done.

There are also a lot of interesting meaningful problems that desperately need
to be solved by creative, capable people, and if your job is to work on one of
those, then great, but for many programmers, those kinds of problems are the
ones we work on on our own time, if we're so inclined. I think it's strange
that the article didn't make a distinction between code-for-work and code-for-
fun.

------
octatoan
Where's the moaning about "considered harmful"?

------
mikepk
This article makes me sad. There is a mode of thought that "work" has to be
the other. Work is not your time, but that thing you have to do. Work is
another "four letter word" according to the author.

This is partially an artifact of history and partially conflating all kinds of
'work' together. We're living in interesting times where there's a shift of
what's valuable from simple mechanical and repetivtive skills (industrial
revolution type jobs) and knowledge workers and digitial creatives. We have a
unique and amazing opportunity, where it is our collective creativity that is
what's valuable and not merely our presence or ability to be turn a mechanical
crank.

If you follow this advice, and engage in purely a value exchange for the 8
hours a day in something you don't care about and have no real interest in,
you're selling 8h/d * 5d/w * 50w/y * 40y = 80k hours. That's a hell of a lot
of your life to give over for merely a paycheck, especially when _you don 't
have to_. It's that last part that makes me sad, we are in am incredibly
unique industry and point in history (which may not last) where you can find a
job that engages your whole self while simultaneously making a good living.

I recommend "Drive" by Daniel Pink, about how to think about human motiviation
and the opportunities that we currently have to reshape work. Where things
like Autonomy (being self directed, choosing your hours and what you work on),
Mastery (becoming great at something), and most importantly missing from the
rant in this article, Purpose are what really lead to greater happiness and
overall better results.

"Purpose" was why I left a high paying job where I was respected to spend 10
years starting companies that (until very recently) meant I made radically
under what I was "worth". Would I trade those years? Hell no. Because even if
I hadn't had the recent success with Smarterer, I knew I was working towards a
bigger and more important purpose, one that could really make a dent in the
universe. Being able to do that, and still eat and satisfy all my basic needs
is a pretty amazing thing, and one that's totally missed by a rant like this.

When I think about passion, and look for passion in people I want to work
with, I look for people who care about what we're doing. Because I don't want
"butts in seats" I want people thinking creatively about how we can change the
world together. That could mean a day of thinking deeply without banging out
any code at all. It could be a crazy "in the shower idea". It could mean long
hours one night to hit some big milestone. It also means that if you've been
pushing hard on something and you need to take days off to recenter, I trust
you because you care about what we're doing together.

------
ad-hominem
Another piece of "journalism" regarding tech ruined because we can't talk
about anything programming-wise without getting into a nuts-and-bolts
breakdown of "gender in STEM".

