And do your friends/family condemn you for "being extreme" ? – still seems a bit taboo for society since many in the workforce leave their work at the office.
Never. In 32 years as a professional developer I have never pulled an all-nighter.
The closest I came was telling a co-worker "I won't leave until I get this done". I was there until 2 AM. At midnight, I was looking down at a printout (yes, I'm old enough to have worked with those), and my glasses slipped off and broke as they hit the edge of the table. I worked the last two hours leaving nose prints on the screen (not literally, but close).
I think people that frequently pull all nighters (i.e. those claiming to do so multiple times per week) are probably missing the point that they'll get more work done with ~6 100% productive hours per day, than 18+ hours at fastly reduced productivity. It's not sustainable.
As a teen, I did lighting design at an outdoor amphitheater. The only time you could see the lights was at night, so I worked through the night a few times each year before new shows.
But as an adult, writing code, never. By this time in life, I’ve used up whatever sleep reserves have. If I were to stay up for a night, I’d not be able to function the next day.
1. A project for a client that needed to be done "yesterday". It was a 3 day 1 night project that we charged double for because of the timeline.
2. A multi-million 1 month project that we spent the final week working 100 hours/week. Project management got me a massage chair to sleep in at the office, bought and delivered whatever food I wanted.
3. When my daughter was less than 1 year old and I was freelancing. Days were distracting so I worked nights.
4. Bootstrapping my startup, regularly doing 100 hour weeks for a year. I was burnt out for a year after selling the startup.
In summary, I only recommend it for urgent projects. It's productive for the first 5 nights but after that, productivity drops drastically. Sleep debt is even worse than technical debt.
I really hope that was said in context of non-contiguous sleep deprivation. 120 hours continually awake is nuts.
I've done 96 hours before and I could only do borderline mindless tasks at 20% efficiency, let alone programming.
It's possible to get a few hours each night, work literally every waking hour and be productive for weeks on end (at great peril of course), but for most developers I'd wager productivity is drastically reduced after 48 hours, and almost completely gone by 72.
Recent science says sleep deprivation actually incurs brain damage, so it's definitely never a good idea except for emergencies.
I actually quit my job for one project I did 5 nights on, so it was sort of a life and death situation (or so I thought).
I did get about 6 hours a sleep, just didn't see my pregnant wife, or do anything besides eat, sleep, code. It led to a lot of burnout, and I later quit tech to run a cafe.
never. Sleep is important physically and mentally and I've never had a legitimate reason to skip on sleep. (There are some cases where it would be unavoidable, they're just rare) There are times where I'd like to stay up all night to work on something I'm enjoying, but I force myself to stop and go to bed.
Only with high priority deadlines. I had an intense project last week that I had spent days on. Last minute I wanted to change how the data was distributed and rewrote it overnight. It paid off though, the team loved it. After mentioning that I pulled an all-nighter, I got the rest of the day off. Would not recommend otherwise!
For work, never. If shit hits the proverbially fan and I had to do it because something was broken then I'm sure I would. But other contingency planning and dev practices has obviated the need for that.
For fun, every now and then. Not a regular thing but it's fun to pretend to be in your early 20s.
When I do it, it's not fun. I'm in my 30s and I'm actually a night-owl, but if I have to get up--nope!
I actually just can't stay awake if I'm overly tired. I will fall asleep anywhere, including driving. I don't commute but I try to avoid it anyway, since I'll (involuntarily) sleep during work-hours to make up for what I lost.
Never. I did it few times several years ago when I was working on a personal side project and before that during university. But since I only have a day job at the moment I leave my work at the office. There's always another day you can continue where you left previously. No need to lose sleep.
I have never pulled nor considered a (professional) all-nighter.
No project I've worked on has been that important, though I can think of some situations that would be.
I have left the office after 8pm (11-12 hour day) a handful of times, mostly when I broke things late in the day, or when we were migrating something large during off-peak hours.
I don't consider working late a valuable tool to have in my toolbox. I'd rather deliver ahead-of-schedule, estimate more appropriately, and turn down work that is overly high-pressure.
FWIW I'm an employed developer and my employer would never ask me or anyone else to do this, in my estimation.
It's been quite busy in the office lately with changes and releases so it's been 2-3 days a week, but the average is closer to 1 outside of busy periods. Generally not so much of an issue with the family, as I'm only really annoying the cat when i get home...
Are most of the people here who say they do this frequently just staying up until dawn and then crashing for the rest of the day? Or are you working through the night plus the next full workday?
For work? I quit working at 6pm. For fun? I've tried doing video game/movie all nighters like I did when I was 13. At 23, I just can't any more for some reason.
It's a lot easier for me to stay up all night if I am outside doing something, but that is rare.
It is "extreme"; it's an extremely bad idea. It's unhealthy and unproductive. For emergencies, some people have to do it, but ideally it shouldn't happen.
The closest I came was telling a co-worker "I won't leave until I get this done". I was there until 2 AM. At midnight, I was looking down at a printout (yes, I'm old enough to have worked with those), and my glasses slipped off and broke as they hit the edge of the table. I worked the last two hours leaving nose prints on the screen (not literally, but close).