30k Hours (2019)

Re:30k Hours (2019) by saurik on Thursday February 25, 2021 @08:40PM (#26270597)

I am honestly shocked at how low these numbers are... I became obsessed with programming in the second grade, and it has been my lifelong passion ever since. Even if I ignore all the sleepless nights I spent in lower schooling (as it is difficult to estimate the time as I had other things I was required to do... not that I often did them) and start the clock only when I left for college--of course, to study computer science--and then even if I only allocated a banal eight hours a day during only weekdays to programming (which is certainly ridiculous--my usual state is to spend all waking hours doing software; I definitely have other passions, but they can't possibly take anywhere near 2/3rds of my waking hours--but like, it is the kind of conservative estimate that I can't imagine anyone would quibble much with: it merely means that this is my job), I am at 45k hours (as of 39 years old)... and I would be shocked if the "true number" weren't twice that. How could Rob Pike--who is older enough than me to have been programming since at least before I was born (when he wrote the first window manager for Unix in 1981)--only have had 30k hours as of 2013? Like, the moral I guess I am taking from this is "I have no life and this is not normal: maybe stop programming for a bit" :(.

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Re:30k Hours (2019) by jonas21 on Thursday February 25, 2021 @09:21PM (#26270798)

Knuth is a professor - so in addition to coding, he had to teach classes, advise students, apply for grants (and write the Art of Computer Programming too!). Wolfram has to run a 700-person company. Peter Norvig, Lars Bak, and Rob Pike all spent a long time as managers in giant companies - so lots of time wasted in meetings, etc.

Like you, I enjoy programming a lot, and I consider myself lucky that I get to spend most of my time on it without these distractions. It's rare to be in a field where you can do what you love without being forced to take on the other stuff over time.

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Re:30k Hours (2019) by spdionis on Friday February 26, 2021 @05:24AM (#26273305)

Ah but that's the krux of the issue. If we're talking about mastery over "programming", can you really only count time spent coding?

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Re:30k Hours (2019) by varjag on Friday February 26, 2021 @07:33AM (#26274116)

> How could Rob Pike--who is older enough than me to have been programming since at least before I was born (when he wrote the first window manager for Unix in 1981)--only have had 30k hours as of 2013?

Seriously I think it's more about you overestimating the actual time you clocked programming than about Rob Pike.

I'm 43, working mostly as an IC since 1997, really doubt I spent more than 15k hours properly programming rather than fussing with customers, estimating, documenting, testing, screwing around with infra or reading.

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Re:30k Hours (2019) by saurik on Saturday February 27, 2021 @06:36PM (#26289182)

1) I have always strived to work alone, I eschew meetings, and I solve problems using software. I spent a lot of time doing community management, but remember that the conservative estimate only examines a third of my time: if, during the course of any given day, you haven't spent at least a third of those waking hours programming, are you even living your best life? ;P

2) I mean, if you are doing it "right" ;P, testing is also coding, as is "screwing around with infrastructure", and while I admit reading isn't always about programming... but shouldn't it be? I can recommend some blogs and wikis and mailing lists ;P. Like, the practice of playing tennis involves more than just hitting the ball: at minimum, you also--at least sometimes--have to spend some time retrieving the ball once hit.

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Re:30k Hours (2019) by rudedogg on Thursday February 25, 2021 @09:04PM (#26270709)

I wouldn't beat yourself up about it.

I think they took the practicing part literally. In my eyes, any work related to programming is programming. I'm sure Donald Knuth has spent over 30,000 hours working on "The Art of Computer Programming".

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Re:30k Hours (2019) by keithnz on Thursday February 25, 2021 @08:56PM (#26270673)

I'm 49, and started programming as a kid, I was similar, I spent a lot of time programming (and still do, day job and for fun). working on maybe an average of 30hours a week, my upper bound is around 65k-70k.

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