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Programming is hard.
Dec. 13th, 2012 11:00 amhttp://www.zemanta.com/blog/why-founders-shouldnt-be-the-developers/
Programming is hard.
There’s no getting around that, no matter how good a programmer you are, no matter how experienced, it’s just hard. Programming doesn’t require a lot of attention, it requires all of attention.
After all, you’re dealing with vague ideas. Ideas that are hard to remember. Ideas that interact in delicate ways. Ideas you have to keep in your mind all at once.
The entire system must fit in your mind at least on some level of abstraction – you can’t code if you forget what a function does, or forget what your data looks like, or which file something is in…
Programming takes a lot of concentration. Period.
Have you ever tried concentrating when your mind was full of Important Stuff(tm)?
It doesn’t quite work, does it? You want to focus, you want to get real work done. Just that there’s this giant pink elephant in the room. It’s staring you right in the eye. No matter how hard you look the other way it won’t leave you alone.
In the end, after hours, you are left with no real work done and a giant pink elephant. Except now he’s taken a dump as well. Sure, you could take care of the elephant first, but then you aren’t producing any code. Sometimes for months.
There’s a reason why a lot of products stop dead in their tracks while the founders raise the first round.
Time
Another thing programming requires is time. Plenty of it. Long, uninterrupted chunks of time.
Four hours is a good chunk to start with. Plenty of time to load everything into your brain, get in flow for an hour or two, then wind down before your next thing. There’s even enough time for a break or two to make sure you don’t go mad.
Two hours… yeah, that’s okay. If you’re using the pomodoro technique and have found a way to get in flow five minutes after the clock starts ticking – then two hours is perfect. Marvelous even! Otherwise it can be a bit short.
An hour… well maybe you can fix a quick bug or two. But you won’t get anything hard done.
Half an hour… laughable.
Programming is hard.
There’s no getting around that, no matter how good a programmer you are, no matter how experienced, it’s just hard. Programming doesn’t require a lot of attention, it requires all of attention.
After all, you’re dealing with vague ideas. Ideas that are hard to remember. Ideas that interact in delicate ways. Ideas you have to keep in your mind all at once.
The entire system must fit in your mind at least on some level of abstraction – you can’t code if you forget what a function does, or forget what your data looks like, or which file something is in…
Programming takes a lot of concentration. Period.
Have you ever tried concentrating when your mind was full of Important Stuff(tm)?
It doesn’t quite work, does it? You want to focus, you want to get real work done. Just that there’s this giant pink elephant in the room. It’s staring you right in the eye. No matter how hard you look the other way it won’t leave you alone.
In the end, after hours, you are left with no real work done and a giant pink elephant. Except now he’s taken a dump as well. Sure, you could take care of the elephant first, but then you aren’t producing any code. Sometimes for months.
There’s a reason why a lot of products stop dead in their tracks while the founders raise the first round.
Time
Another thing programming requires is time. Plenty of it. Long, uninterrupted chunks of time.
Four hours is a good chunk to start with. Plenty of time to load everything into your brain, get in flow for an hour or two, then wind down before your next thing. There’s even enough time for a break or two to make sure you don’t go mad.
Two hours… yeah, that’s okay. If you’re using the pomodoro technique and have found a way to get in flow five minutes after the clock starts ticking – then two hours is perfect. Marvelous even! Otherwise it can be a bit short.
An hour… well maybe you can fix a quick bug or two. But you won’t get anything hard done.
Half an hour… laughable.
