Ask HN: How do I program with more discipline and less emotion?
I'm used to being a hacker. I like doing 48 hour programming "binges". These were incredibly effective and I could often build more in those 48 hours than most people would build in a month.
It worked great when panicked, but as I get more senior and used to the heavy pressure, it doesn't work any more. I have a more comfortable life now and failing projects is not as bad as they used to be. So it's hard to dig up the emotion I used to hack long hours. Now I just end up staring at the code for 2 hours at 2 AM.
Besides, exhaustion kicks in and makes me less effective in the long run. And it doesn't scale as well with a team.
I find disciplined techniques like Scrum and XP appealing. I know I should start adopting them. But a part of me worries that my hacker spirit would die out.
So how would I go from being a code berserker to being a more organized, disciplined, professional programmer?
It worked great when panicked, but as I get more senior and used to the heavy pressure, it doesn't work any more. I have a more comfortable life now and failing projects is not as bad as they used to be. So it's hard to dig up the emotion I used to hack long hours. Now I just end up staring at the code for 2 hours at 2 AM.
Besides, exhaustion kicks in and makes me less effective in the long run. And it doesn't scale as well with a team.
I find disciplined techniques like Scrum and XP appealing. I know I should start adopting them. But a part of me worries that my hacker spirit would die out.
So how would I go from being a code berserker to being a more organized, disciplined, professional programmer?