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Code Without Rules
Personal blog · codewithoutrules.com · on HN as itamarstprogrammingcareerproductivity
Code Without Rules is a personal blog at codewithoutrules.com about programming, career and productivity. Since 2016, 64 different Hacker News readers have linked it 572 times, most often “How I stopped the RSI pain that almost destroyed my programming career”. The last post was in 2020, but the archive is still widely read.
Helping you become a productive programmer and get work/life balance
Most-linked posts?
- How I stopped the RSI pain that almost destroyed my programming career6 people · 8 mentions · first linked 2016-11-18
- How to become a part-time programmer5 people · 18 mentions · first linked 2018-01-08
- What can a software developer do about climate change?5 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2019-09-10
- The tragic tale of the deadlocking Python queue4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2017-08-16
- Never use the word “User” in your code4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2018-09-21
- Software Clown: 20 years of software mistakes, and how you can avoid them3 people · 7 mentions · first linked 2017-07-26
- Stabbing yourself with a fork() in a Python multiprocessing.Pool full of sharks3 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2018-09-04
- There’s always more work to do–but you still don’t need to work long hours3 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2018-08-10
- Debugging Software, Sherlock Holmes-Style3 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2016-11-16
- Avoiding burnout: lessons learned from a 19th century philosopher3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2018-09-27
What Hacker News says?
More propaganda for working long hours coming from a VC. Surprise! """ You have to both pick the right problem and do the work. There aren’t many shortcuts. If you’re going to do something really important, you are very likely going to work both smart and hard. The biggest prizes are heavily competed for. This isn’t true in every field (there are great mathematicians who never spend that many hours a week working) b…
Comment linking /2017/09/18/when-startups-pay-less/
on “Productivity”Submitted Cutting your salary by 40% as a story · 844 points
HN discussionWearing long sleeves while typing, regardless of the weather outside, completely solved my wrist pain problems. I first tried it after reading this post: https://codewithoutrules.com/2016/11/18/rsi-solution/
Comment linking /2016/11/18/rsi-solution/
on “What Does a Coder Do If They Can't Type?”Submitted Less stress, more productivity: working fewer hours is good for you and your boss as a story · 605 points
HN discussionItamar Turner-Trauring latest Software Clown newsletter¹ (#105) was about this. The author wrote about a similar story where a company he worked at changed as it grew and layoffs were made. He concluded with some really good points: | I came away from the experience unable to commit myself to a company. In part this was an ethical stance: who controls the company can change, and change quickly. So loyalty to a compa…
Comment linking /softwareclown/
on “How to Keep Your Job as Your Company Grows”Submitted How I stopped the RSI pain that almost destroyed my programming career as a story · 413 points
HN discussionWhat you're describing are symptoms of not-so-great management, basically. Similar problems will occur if you're the only remote employee. And to be fair not-so-great management is fairly common. I actually think if you work less you can and often will learn to become more productive ( https://codewithoutrules.com/2018/02/11/working-long-hours/ ). But—a priori one would expect you to accomplish 80% of what others do…
Comment linking /2018/05/20/staying-focused/
on “Show HN: 30 Hour Jobs – a job board for shorter work weeks”Submitted Stopping the RSI pain that almost destroyed my programming career (2016) as a story · 251 points
HN discussionTypically this ends up involving a salary cut, yes. However: the point is to negotiate. And if you're negotiating you can also negotiate other things at the same time. Including your pay. For my book on negotiating a shorter workweek ( https://codewithoutrules.com/3dayweekend ) I interviewed multiple people, and I've also heard from readers who successfully negotiated shorter workweeks, and a common theme was that t…
Comment linking /3dayweekend
on “Show HN: 30 Hour Jobs – a job board for shorter work weeks”Submitted Work/Life Balance Will Make You a Better Software Engineer as a story · 231 points
HN discussionHis main point is to have people start their own businesses. Whereas what I'm talking about (and in fact also wrote a book about: https://codewithoutrules.com/3dayweekend/ ) is working shorter hours while still being an employee.
Comment linking /3dayweekend/
on “Show HN: 30 Hour Jobs – a job board for shorter work weeks”Submitted How to become a part-time programmer as a story · 228 points
HN discussion"Minimizing hours worked" is a great positive sign. You hire a programmer to solve problems (or better yet, identify and solve problems), not to sit on their butt for the maximum number of hours. There's always a limited amount of resources (time, money, etc), regardless of how many hours are worked. So someone whose goal is minimizing hours worked will tend to come up with much better solutions than someone whose o…
Comment linking /2018/02/11/working-long-hours/
on “Show HN: 30 Hour Jobs – a job board for shorter work weeks”Submitted The Programmer’s Guide to a Sane Workweek as a story · 154 points
HN discussionWhat you're doing (only mentioning you want part-time after you get offer) is a good first step. More suggestions: 1. You're underselling yourself in this page, so you might be doing that in your interviews too. E.g. "SALE! For a limited time only - 40% off!" Yes, it's a joke, but you don't want to make jokes about how you're cheap when you're looking for a job. 2. Let's say you talk to company A, they give you offe…
Comment linking /3dayweekend/
on “Show HN: 30 Hour Jobs – a job board for shorter work weeks”Submitted Why lack of confidence can make you a better programmer as a story · 142 points
HN discussionIf you want a shorter workweek you should definitely sign up for the 30 Hour Jobs list ( https://30hourjobs.com/ ), but—keep in mind there just aren't that many companies that have advertised positions that qualify. Which doesn't mean you should give up. What you can do as a programmer is _negotiate_ a shorter workweek. I've done it at multiple jobs, personally. Here's one programmer I talked who has been working 4…
Comment linking /2019/05/09/part-time-software-developer/
on “Show HN: 30 Hour Jobs – a job board for shorter work weeks”Submitted How to prepare for losing your programming job as a story · 115 points
HN discussionI love working on user-facing stuff! It gives me the chance to learning about interests, human behaviour, interaction, etc. But I think your main issue might be about keeping learning. Personally, specially since I never studied CS (Industrial Engineer bachellor here), I loved reinventing the wheel about programming while at university for fun. I made a bootstrap and jQuery clone that ended up quite popular. Since I…
Comment linking /2018/01/08/part-time-programmer/
on “Ask HN: Are you working on interesting technical problems?”Submitted Why Pylint Is Both Useful and Unusable, and How You Can Actually Use It as a story · 107 points
HN discussionAssume there's always a better, faster solution to the problem than the one you've come up with. Finding it will require deeply understanding the problem, and sometimes redefining the problem. Put another way, working long hours is a bad habit because you end up solving problems the brute force way instead of figuring out how to come up with better solutions. I think of this aiming towards becoming a 0.1× programmer…
Comment linking /2016/08/25/the-01x-programmer/
on “Ask HN: What habits make a programmer great?”Submitted Experts, True Believers and Test-Driven Development: how advice becomes a religion as a story · 84 points
HN discussionMight be management problem, as someone else said; some managers are just bad. Might be learning how to negotiate will help. But might also be a mindset and skills problem: often you can do same amount of work with less time if you approach it correctly. For example, you can figure out which features are really necessary, and work on those first. Then when you inevitably run out of time you can say "I did A B and C,…
Comment linking /2016/08/25/the-01x-programmer/
on “The compelling case for working less”Submitted When and why to clean up your code: now, later, never as a story · 78 points
HN discussionI have successfully worked relatively senior positions (principal software engineer at a couple of startups) working less than full time. So I don't think that's necessarily the case, especially if you can build the skills to be very productive. It's definitely harder, since less companies will hire you. But on the flip side, since you've already negotiated shorter workweek it's easier to get that at other companies…
Comment linking /saneworkweek/
on “The compelling case for working less”Submitted Doing More with Less Code as a story · 67 points
HN discussionYou can (sometimes) use GitHub to figure out if the company has bad work/life balance, e.g. if you see lots of employees committing code on the weekend on the same dates: https://codewithoutrules.com/2019/01/31/does-company-have-wo...
Comment linking /2019/01/31/does-company-have-worklife-balance/
on “Ask HN: Tools or sites you use to scope out a workplace before taking a job?”Submitted Dear recruiter, “open floor space” is not a job benefit as a story · 64 points
HN discussionYou're approaching productivity from the wrong angle. It's not about producing more, and especially not producing more while tired... it's about doing less unnecessary work. This requires thought, and is easier with a full night's sleep. https://codewithoutrules.com/2017/10/04/technical-skills-pro...
Comment linking /2017/10/04/technical-skills-productive/
on “Productive on six hours of sleep? You’re deluding yourself, expert says”Submitted Unit testing, Lean Startup, and everything in-between as a story · 52 points
HN discussion
