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I’m sure this works for some people. Personally I loathe social interaction of any kind, and mixing that with engineering gets me to my mental/emotional limits

I’m sure this works for some people. Personally I loathe social interaction of any kind, and mixing that with engineering gets me to my mental/emotional limits much faster. On my own I can work about 2 hours on and 10 mins off, sometimes for 10+ hours total. If I have a 2 hour collab coding call, that’s about all I’ll do that’s productive that day. I’l literally have to spend the rest of that day mentally recovering from the stress of the call.

jfrbfbreudh 1y ago
Same here. I started an in-office job recently as the company’s highest ranking engineer and my productivity has plummeted vs WFH. I found myself having to allocate mental bandwidth to my environment to allow for the possibility of being interrupted by others, so I ended up both less productive and more tired.
- dlivingston 1y ago
  Are you in an open office? I found that to be extremely fatiguing relative to a private office, a shared office, or even a cubicle.
- criddell 1y ago
  What you see as an interruption is somebody else clearing their path. It could be that your personal productivity drop is resulting in a productivity gain for the group.
lurkshark 1y ago
Whenever I read about pair programming as a standard technique (like XP) it sounds so great in theory but in practice I find it extremely draining whenever I’ve dabbled.
- pydry 1y ago
  If you have psychological safety and develop a bond of trust with the person it is far less draining. Those things need to be developed and the working environment needs to make them possible, though. I find that the fact that I rarely get stuck for long and the mistakes I make tend to get caught more quickly makes pairing vastly more productive in practice. The productivity isnt directly in the speed of code output but the compounded effect over time of it being higher quality - meaning vastly less time doing post hoc debugging, bugfixing, reworking code, etc. It is invisible over the space of one or two tickets, visible over weeks and overwhelming over months. At one company my pairing team routinely (and quietly) worked 9-3:30pm or 4pm while the surrounding nonpairing teams worked overtime and still delivered way less. If you can nail it it really is almost unreasonably effective.
  - kayodelycaon 1y ago
    It also depends on the person and the problem and the problem. :) My thinking isn’t logical and it doesn’t use language internally. It’s difficult to explain but, due to mental disability I’m using my visual memory to do all of my information processing. Let’s say it is not easy to describe a picture in words if things get complex.
- jim-jim-jim 1y ago
  Like other bad ideas (TDD) it seemed to rise to prominence during the heydey of Ruby and untyped JS, when it was so much easier to fuck everything up. I think lots of managers haven't written a line of code since then and still hold such a cargo cult mentality about prescribing it. It does a massive disservice to everybody involved, especially juniors who are never given the chance to prove themselves.
- whstl 1y ago
  Probably the most stressful portion of my career was when I was doing mandatory pair programming in a shop where the manager came from Thoughtworks. Funny enough, the two guys who pushed for it never did any pairing. The CEO put the kibosh on it when he noticed the staff was not only unproductive but also massively unhappy.
- darkwater 1y ago
  In general I agree but with a caveat: for me it's draining when there is a big difference in thought speed/way of thinking between me and my peer. If I'm with someone "on the same page" we can achieve awesome results, but if OTOH I have to explain why my brain just jumped to that other part, give context etc this is terribly draining for me as well, and after a 2 hours session I'm out for 2-3 hours when I need to recharge.
  - drowsspa 1y ago
    Yeah, I find it specially frustrating to do it with a slow reader. Like, in 2 seconds I can scan the page and see that what I need isn't there, and the other person is there taking like 1 minute to read everything... Or the opposite, there is the keyword jumping at my eyes and the other person takes so long to even find it. There's also the whole issue of the person not wanting to discuss about anything deeper other than the task immediately at hand. But when I do with someone faster and that actually likes to discuss the implications, philosophy behind what we're doing it's amazing
yaomtc 1y ago
What type of ADHD do you have? Primarily inattentive, hyperactive-impulsive, or combined?
- rpgwaiter 1y ago
  Idk, was diagnosed very young and haven’t seen anyone professionally about it as an adult. Tbh I didn’t know there were different subtypes until your comment. I struggled a lot with impulse control but that’s managed well with meds. I often “zone out” when doing.. well pretty much anything that I’m not very interested in
- unethical_ban 1y ago
  Not the OP, but I have the "yeah you have ADHD according to this survey" from my GP, along with an adderall Rx. I didn't know there were documented subtypes.
ErigmolCt 1y ago
Honestly, your solo workflow sounds super efficient. If you've found a rhythm that lets you focus and stay productive without burning out, that's gold.

jfrbfbreudh 1y ago

Same here. I started an in-office job recently as the company’s highest ranking engineer and my productivity has plummeted vs WFH. I found myself having to allocate mental bandwidth to my environment to allow for the possibility of being interrupted by others, so I ended up both less productive and more tired.

dlivingston 1y ago
Are you in an open office? I found that to be extremely fatiguing relative to a private office, a shared office, or even a cubicle.
criddell 1y ago
What you see as an interruption is somebody else clearing their path. It could be that your personal productivity drop is resulting in a productivity gain for the group.

lurkshark 1y ago

Whenever I read about pair programming as a standard technique (like XP) it sounds so great in theory but in practice I find it extremely draining whenever I’ve dabbled.

pydry 1y ago
If you have psychological safety and develop a bond of trust with the person it is far less draining. Those things need to be developed and the working environment needs to make them possible, though. I find that the fact that I rarely get stuck for long and the mistakes I make tend to get caught more quickly makes pairing vastly more productive in practice. The productivity isnt directly in the speed of code output but the compounded effect over time of it being higher quality - meaning vastly less time doing post hoc debugging, bugfixing, reworking code, etc. It is invisible over the space of one or two tickets, visible over weeks and overwhelming over months. At one company my pairing team routinely (and quietly) worked 9-3:30pm or 4pm while the surrounding nonpairing teams worked overtime and still delivered way less. If you can nail it it really is almost unreasonably effective.
- kayodelycaon 1y ago
  It also depends on the person and the problem and the problem. :) My thinking isn’t logical and it doesn’t use language internally. It’s difficult to explain but, due to mental disability I’m using my visual memory to do all of my information processing. Let’s say it is not easy to describe a picture in words if things get complex.
jim-jim-jim 1y ago
Like other bad ideas (TDD) it seemed to rise to prominence during the heydey of Ruby and untyped JS, when it was so much easier to fuck everything up. I think lots of managers haven't written a line of code since then and still hold such a cargo cult mentality about prescribing it. It does a massive disservice to everybody involved, especially juniors who are never given the chance to prove themselves.
whstl 1y ago
Probably the most stressful portion of my career was when I was doing mandatory pair programming in a shop where the manager came from Thoughtworks. Funny enough, the two guys who pushed for it never did any pairing. The CEO put the kibosh on it when he noticed the staff was not only unproductive but also massively unhappy.
darkwater 1y ago
In general I agree but with a caveat: for me it's draining when there is a big difference in thought speed/way of thinking between me and my peer. If I'm with someone "on the same page" we can achieve awesome results, but if OTOH I have to explain why my brain just jumped to that other part, give context etc this is terribly draining for me as well, and after a 2 hours session I'm out for 2-3 hours when I need to recharge.
- drowsspa 1y ago
  Yeah, I find it specially frustrating to do it with a slow reader. Like, in 2 seconds I can scan the page and see that what I need isn't there, and the other person is there taking like 1 minute to read everything... Or the opposite, there is the keyword jumping at my eyes and the other person takes so long to even find it. There's also the whole issue of the person not wanting to discuss about anything deeper other than the task immediately at hand. But when I do with someone faster and that actually likes to discuss the implications, philosophy behind what we're doing it's amazing

yaomtc 1y ago

What type of ADHD do you have? Primarily inattentive, hyperactive-impulsive, or combined?

rpgwaiter 1y ago
Idk, was diagnosed very young and haven’t seen anyone professionally about it as an adult. Tbh I didn’t know there were different subtypes until your comment. I struggled a lot with impulse control but that’s managed well with meds. I often “zone out” when doing.. well pretty much anything that I’m not very interested in
unethical_ban 1y ago
Not the OP, but I have the "yeah you have ADHD according to this survey" from my GP, along with an adderall Rx. I didn't know there were documented subtypes.

ErigmolCt 1y ago

Honestly, your solo workflow sounds super efficient. If you've found a rhythm that lets you focus and stay productive without burning out, that's gold.