Markku

Especially in this Ludum Dare case, development practices or implementation details do not matter as much as results. And he did get results. That's why it was interesting. I'd like to hear of what you think was wrong and why? This was his show of productivity and results. Other people have other ways and other circumstances can be completely different. And should be different.

I learned some things too. However, even if you have a tiny piece of software, like a game that you can reliably complete manually in 20 minutes, completely playing it through after every change is way too slow for "live coding". You should see your results instantly. Just like your test suite should run in seconds. If you have to wait minutes to compile, deploy and test your productivity will fall. A full integration/acceptance test suite can take longer, but it should be as automatic as possible and you can't use it for rapid feedback like this, but more for regression/acceptance testing.

Notch was able to take advantage of immediate feedback for the most part of his coding. The first hours spent on the rendering was tested by watching the world being rendered live. I've been doing the same developing a game in Clojure. When he got as far as the gameplay, he slowed down considerably, since he had to wander around in the game world to test each new feature. He for example made temporary shortcut passages, so he was able to test the boss monsters, without actually having to pass through the levels.

He is a person who can concentrate on delivering results and hack away at code for long stretches. This is the kind of code he presumably has done again and again for years. Who professional web developer can't hack together a small site as quickly? Where most people fail is attention span and drive! I know my unfinished projects speak of that :)

Most interesting part to me, of watching Notch code, was to see how he used his tools. And it was inspiring and motivating to see the progress. The actual code was very hackish but quality code is not important in a throw-away project anyway :)

> >The main developer is very responsive and helpful.

> Well, here I must concede a point. I have no idea how responsive the developers of Racket are, for I never had cause to contact them.

They are very responsive and helpful and the mailing list is active.

Thanks for the details! Here's what happens to me.

Planning for a month. How detailed really? I would imagine that such a plan doesn't survive life. How do you cope with changes? I don't plan so much ahead now because other people influence my doings too much.

Always the keys, phone and wallet are in the same location. Take the same buses always so I remember the schedule. I store my stuff in the same location always. Shelves are organized, everything boxed and labeled. Plastic bags stacked by size and tied with rubber bands :) That's just being an organized person. Bookshelf has no particular order because it's acoustically better. Only the to-read -books are in one place in order of interest.

No need to decide in what order I eat stuff, I just put stuff in mouth :) Actually, rotating between the parts, trying to put meat and other stuff in each mouthful.

So far I haven't decided to wear the same clothes every day, or wear my stuff in any order. But this takes only a minute each day.

I'm also always in time. That means I usually wait for other people, I use that time to observe other people or read something on the phone. To work I almost never need to be on time but just come at my usual time +- delays in traffic.

Inbox, I answer stuff when I read it. Should mark some items as followup I guess.

Holidays are difficult to plan for me, never know when can take, should take, need to synchronize with other people, work etc. Besides it feels good to waste time on days off. That's when the brains come up with new ideas. Wasting a day typically means spending it on something that I then thought was most interesting, which is the right thing, yes? If I'm bursting to do something, I do it.

I guess for me the same that plan x -> y -> z doesn't work. Such processes are inflexible. It should be possible to do x, y and z in whatever order I feel like and all of them should be possible to finish in one go. Or not do at all. Now how to string a bigger project together ...?

Cooking part is interesting. What do you do with fresh foods or they are just no on the menu? We cook for 2-3 days at a time and it does take more time than to heat stuff up.

Many of your choices require commitment not only from you but from your family and friends. How does that go?

I used numbers that are reality to me. Plug-in your own numbers for comparison.

For a 10 minute commute today, I would have pitch in another 100K for living. My experience at the moment is working 5 years for same client/location on average.

P.S. If I move out I can reclaim some of that 100K, some go to tax, fluctuating prices, I don't calculate inconvenience of moving and stressful location etc. details.

A rough example. Moving closer costs 100K more, working for 200 days a year, less commuting provides 1.5 hours more time per day, same client (place of work) for five years. Cost of hour of free time is (/ 100000 200 1.5 5) = 66.7 units of money per hour.

Worth it? Don't think so.

Working remotely is often impossible because of security policies and also not the same in terms of presence.

Difficult :)

Online banking is easy. But then it's easy to forget how much money you waste on said auto-paid bills every year. Sometimes it's good to have to work for something to realize maybe it's not necessary after all. I cut my magazine subscriptions to half, twice, and still get a bit too many to read ;)

I am thinking along the same lines. If something is not "policed", then it won't happen in the long run as interest shifts. Includes programming practices, testing coverage and the usual stuff. And more effective to automate such things and spend code reviews on interesting issues, not "punctuation".

I wonder if anyone has examples for or against of running such checks against your codebase? I can imagine some horror stories of how those tools would slow down all useful work. But some success stories? I guess I have to try on myself first :)

Can you give more examples of things you have automated and how they worked out? And what didn't?

Yeah I sometimes get off the bus earlier and walk home to combine the two. I'm considering running sometime too but have to get the gear with me. And sometimes I walk home from a shop for the same exercise.

In the winter I mostly slept/meditated in the bus but now I have enough energy to read. I found out that coding is practically impossible in the bus because of the sun.

You seem to stay up quite late. Unsustainable for me. Also making and eating breakfast takes for me at least 30 minutes at the moment.

Three years ago I had exactly the same 10 minute walk to work and then I did have more time available. However have to consider that:

1) Consultant usually works at client's location and client may change often, though I'm a counter-example of that myself. Moving often is not worth it. I consider my current location pretty optimal. A more central location creates more stress and costs way too much. I would believe it's more effective to just decide to work less hours every week for reduced pay but I'm not yet strong enough to commit to it :)

2) I do not spend any time travelling to shop, to exercise location or to do fun stuff. My travel time maximum is 2 hours every day - the shops, bars, movies, etc. are along the same route and do not increase time spent travelling in a day at all.

3) Car would not improve the situation. In fact it would be slower due to traffic. Or I would have to leave at 06 from home, way too early. And the tradeoff of money to time is ridiculous with so few other uses for a car. And there's the maintenance.

Thanks for the example. Maybe somebody else can chime in too.

1) I don't work 10 hours every day, 8 hours twice a week at least. Like this I'm saving a couple hours every week to have some time off later. Year ago I was at -50 hours but now I'm at over +50 already. A small reserve is good. I never work overtime for money.

4 x 10 might be nice to have a longer weekend. Have to think about it since now 5 days are mostly spent working, exercising, eating and sleeping :)

2) Well that was an example day. Instead of the shopping it might be cleaning, cooking or other housework that takes half an hour to an hour. I shop two or three times a week. I also don't cook every day but cook for two or three days at a time.

I don't own a car, bike or skis because the maintenance would take time :)

3) I keep a rest day once a week and on weekends I might do two kinds of exercise in a day. Still 6-7 times a week is fine counting the occasional extra walk back from shop. That totals it to 6-10 hours a week on physical activity.

I don't spend any time going to exercise since all the equipment is either at work (gym, pool), at home (cross-trainer, weights) or I go running.

A simplified example day:

  07:15-08 Wakeup, shower and breakfast
  08-09 Commute+reading
  09-19 At work, includes lunch and snack
  19-20 Exercise
  20-20:30 Grocery shopping
  20:30-21:30 Commute+reading
  21:30-22 Dinner
  22-23:30 Hacking
  23:30 To sleep (slightly late)

This routine gives a small amount of extra working hours to use for time off later. Cutting work to 8 hours gives 2 hours of which 1 usually goes to a longer exercise and 1 is retained as free time. So these days get 2-2.5 hours free.

How does that work out for you?

I've been considering a 4 x 10 hours week.

But really, commuting is impossible to avoid if you work in consulting, where your customer changes from time to time. You can't expect to move as often. My work used to be only 10 minute walk away ...