I think this is true for the most part, although poor development practices can eventually catch up to you (I once worked in a place with 5000 programmers working on the same thing and whose productivity averaged 1 line of code per day -- it can happen.. :-P ).<p>However, while many people will rightly complain about stress in the workplace and long hours coding, I'd like to also point out that stress and lack of sleep can come in a variety of packages. I've seen good programmers destroy their careers because they thought there was no problem staying up drinking all night on workdays. I've experienced (unfortunately) being in a bad relationship and arguing with my SO all night until it was time to go to work.<p>Stress and sleepless nights will cost you in your career. It might cost you a <i>lot</i>. It's not sexy to be the person that avoids drama in their life and manages their sleep schedule well, but it can have pretty significant rewards. If you think that in SV the difference between a top and middling performer can easily be in the $100K per year area, it puts a pretty hefty price tag on "Oh, I'm pretty sure I can catch up on my sleep on the weekend".<p>From the "hard to talk about, but I wish I knew this 20-30 years ago" department :-(
The big picture is trivially true -- if you don't sleep, you die. Where's your favorite language, now? Similarly if you don't eat -- yet few people would make a rant about "food quality matters more than languages".<p>There's still a lot of nuance. What studies there are don't negate the existence of variability either. Well, then what's the point of bringing up the subject? Taken broadly sleep is important as life itself, but then it has no place in an earnest discussion around improving productivity. Taken narrowly, it's very context sensitive, so it's again rather useless in discussing improving your own or even your team's productivity unless you're already in the weeds of knowing individuals' detailed backgrounds.<p>There's a fun fact johnc's comment in that thread points out. We can all agree if we want that if people aren't getting their 8 hours (or some number close by), that has to happen first, and we can ignore whatever nuance/variability/context objections one might have. But with 8 hours, there are still over 100 other hours in the week. 80 if we're just talking M-F. What are you going to do to fill those more productively? If switching languages lets you do something in half the time as otherwise, why wouldn't you switch, and rather than just taking half the day off, <i>continue working</i> and do twice as much as you would in the other language for the day?<p>Is the point that you shouldn't unnecessarily waste your waking life for some company? Fine, but you shouldn't do that even if you're getting 10 hours every night and are only asked to work 30 hours a week if those 30 hours are truly a waste. On the other hand, you might be in a situation where 80+ hours this week (hopefully not forced to be compressed to M-F or intrude on your sleep requirements) spent on work is the most non-wasteful thing you can think to be doing with your life at this time. Circumstances are different.
Definitely strikes a chard in me - I've completely stopped coding when I'm tired as it has often led to disasters. I've just learned to live this limitation but its not been too hard.
I’ve been wondering about this WRT the 969 policy at companies in China.<p>Why did they not immediately see a drop in productivity when implemented?<p>Is China’s software industry making itself less competitive by not letting its workers sleep enough?
This is why I recommend every developer read Deep Work by Cal Newport and Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker.<p>Deep Work in particular made a bigger impact on my programming than any thing else in ~25 years, including languages frameworks and tools.<p>What I’m saying is, good sleep and the principles from Deep Work made more of an impact on my productivity than switching from Java Spring, to Ruby on Rails, or to functional JS and Serverless. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.
My favorite talk on Sleep by William Dement <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hAw1z8GdE8" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hAw1z8GdE8</a> September 23, 2008 Google Tech Talk<p>Very entertaining.
Of course. This is the least controversial opinion out there and it borders on fact. Anyone who claims otherwise is an idiot or an exploiter. There's simply no substitute for sleep in any discipline or in life in general. It simply doesn't exist as far as we know. People who short themselves on sleep are self harming, often out of stupidity. I've been there as have many because it's part of our stupid work culture, but once one wises up, there's no going back. Sleep quality and stress levels matter more than anything. Period.
Additionally, a low stress non-crunch environment is better at retaining talent, which is significant on the short term but even more so on the long term (in a whole host of ways). Keeping people around longer means more retention of experience, less disruption to the corporate culture over time, more predictability in execution on projects, a more stable work environment (and less stress) for everyone else, etc, etc.
I had chronic insomnia for several years. But then I’ve stopped coding right before sleeping at least 1-3 hours in advance and now I can finally sleep. Who would’ve thought.
I've felt this for a while, been actively monitoring my sleep for over a year and try to hit at average 7.5hr of sleep nightly. (This is what I found works best for me).<p>I've found it helps with my mood, and my stress and also productivity. I've also found that it is possible to have the same effect of not enough sleep, by getting too much sleep.
Yeah, man, but I'm doing well. I'm awake at 0730 San Francisco time after sleeping more than 8 hrs before, I eat a balanced breakfast, time my lunch and dinner appropriately, deadlift a respectable-though-not-special 350 lbs, run a 6 min mile, make about half a mil a year, have friends I love dearly and who love me, and everyone I know closely has a good life.<p>Some dumbass downing Red Bull to type `console.log("got here")` for the fiftieth time in the last 36 hrs without sleep isn't on my level.<p>All these things aren't things for Mr. Red Bull. They're for me trying to close the gap in productivity to Carmack.<p>Or rather that's all true for my friends. I can only deadlift 345.