Ask HN: Are most of us developers lying about how much work we do?

Re:Ask HN: Are most of us developers lying about how much wo... by geekbird on Thursday December 16, 2021 @01:43PM (#29582061)

This.

I will backburner a ticket for days, then when what I need to do comes together I will sit down and bang it out in an hour.

It's to the point that I will deliberately review a ticket and code segment every day, even if I'm not actively working it, just to have the pieces come together in my mind and crank out the ticket.

This method is not very scrum friendly, because in truth I'm actually brain-working all of my tickets at the same time, but I haven't shifted any electrons, just neurons.

Sometimes, when I hit a sticking point, I go do something completely different - like read Hacker News - in order to push stuff into what I call "background processing" in my subconscious.

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Re:Ask HN: Are most of us developers lying about how much wo... by jjav on Thursday December 16, 2021 @05:06PM (#29584652)

> This method is not very scrum friendly, because in truth I'm actually brain-working all of my tickets at the same time, but I haven't shifted any electrons, just neurons.

This really highlights why I hate agile so much. Intellectual work doesn't lead itself to reporting status on completed tickets every single day.

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Re:Ask HN: Are most of us developers lying about how much wo... by wonderwonder on Thursday December 16, 2021 @08:24PM (#29586540)

I absolutely hate having to do a daily stand up. I'll have my tickets done by the end of sprint, just not before that though.

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Re:Ask HN: Are most of us developers lying about how much wo... by viceroyalbean on Friday December 17, 2021 @12:23AM (#29588170)

I agree that there is that implicit pressure, but really it should (as in the ideal case) be fine to just say "I've been thinking about A, B, and C" and leave it at that. That still gives you the room to say that issue C has blocker X etc if it needs to be resolved in the team.

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Re:Ask HN: Are most of us developers lying about how much wo... by zoomablemind on Friday December 17, 2021 @01:40AM (#29588718)

> ...Intellectual work doesn't lead itself to reporting status on completed tickets every single day.

Status is WIP until completion. As for the intellectual work, that's just outright Analysis stage.

Most of dev's work is actually analysis. Sure, there's implementation, testing and such, but Analysis is almost non-stop.

Anonter way to put this is Evaluation of Alternatives, Optimization of Approaches.

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Re:Ask HN: Are most of us developers lying about how much wo... by hotz on Thursday December 16, 2021 @05:24PM (#29584826)

I operate in exactly the same way. I wish more people would understand that process.

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Re:Ask HN: Are most of us developers lying about how much wo... by flatiron on Thursday December 16, 2021 @05:39PM (#29584959)

Here I am thinking I’m the only one. Tossing and turning in the middle of the night for hours just to bang it out for 15 minutes the next day for everyone to go “oh that was easy” no it wasn’t!

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