Ask HN: Woman (34) trying to become a front-end developer – is this possible? - <AUTHOR> Hi all, I'm thinking of a rather radical change as far as my professional career's concerned. Until now I've been a language teacher and translator but for some time I've been trying to switch to programming. So far I've grasped some firm (I think) skills in HTML5 and CSS3 and basic in Bootstrap and Sass.  Everything I know is self-taught. I've cut some layouts (just to practice) and I'm currently voluntarily working on a design actually to be put on the web. I totally realize that in order to be treated seriously on the market I need to learn JS, at least jQuery, but I feel I'd need somebody to help me with it in order to develop. To be blunt - where I am is the furthest I could go on my own. I'm a 34-years old woman and I'm afraid I'll be treated like some sort of a dinosaur in the programmers environment. E.g., last year I had an interview for a front-end developer internship led by people who were all about 10 years younger than me - a pretty devastating experience. And questions like: "How would you feel working in a male-only team?"... Basically everyone seems surprised that a person (and a woman) my age with no actual experience is trying to find a place to start from. I've got the impression that currently I'd have to be really good at programming to get a chance (obviously not the case) or just drop it and think of doing something else. So here are my questions:
What do you think are the next steps I should take?
Would you consider employing a person like me?
How to find somebody who could help me with developing my skills?
What else could I do to increase the chances of being hired? <comment><USER2> Sarah Drasner among other people were giving some free mentorship:

[https://twitter.com/sarah_edo/status/878950382759813120](https://twitter.com/sarah_edo/status/878950382759813120)

Also you can go through [https://www.freecodecamp.org/](https://www.freecodecamp.org/) to have a basic knowledge about how to code.

IMO you'll have more chances of being hired by learning from others, making visible your work and meeting a lot of people in the field.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you very much for the comment, especially the freecodecamp link. I've completed some Code School and Codecademy courses, but neither of the "schools" offers a community I could join and work with. I'll also have a look at what Sarah Drasner said on the subject - and hopefully find there something helpful and inspirational.

<comment><USER2> Many of the communities nowadays use Slack or any other team collaboration tool to keep in touch and communicate quickly with each other, so it's not difficult to join them. Emberjs for example, has a very friendly community, if you are interested on it.

Go step by step to avoid feeling overwhelmed by all the things you have to learn. Be also aware of the "imposter syndrome"[1] which many people feel despite of being great professionals. Try not to compare yourself with others too much and congratulate yourself when you achieve something important for you, even if it looks like something small.

A big part of the job will be to keep a good state of mind and leave aside any negative thought like "this is too difficult", "I can't do this", "I'm too old for this", etc.

Good luck!

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impostor_syndrome](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impostor_syndrome)

</comment></comment></comment><comment> happy-go-lucky To begin with, I would learn and come to grips with the syntax of a beginner- friendly language. Then, put to use what you've learned by trying to solve some beginner exercises. For example, you may want to take a look at [https://github.com/karan/Projects](https://github.com/karan/Projects) and a recent discussion about the same at [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14481941](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14481941).

Get yourself familiar with some algorithms and data structures. Personally I benefited a lot from Problem Solving with Algorithms and Data Structures using Python: [http://interactivepython.org/runestone/static/pythonds/index...](http://interactivepython.org/runestone/static/pythonds/index.html).

Learn HTML, CSS, JavaScript, some popular code libraries, a web framework, and a database language.

After the above, I would choose to work on a problem of my own. Think of something interesting and start building it. Start with something small. When you're stuck on something, seek help.

Last but not least, find another serious learner and learn things together. You could also look for a mentor that's willing to help.

Hope that helps.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you very much for your advice. I'm a bit overwhelmed with the links' content but it's good to know where to look for valuable exercises once I know more. You're absolutely right about finding another learner to study with (not such an easy thing as it would seem though).

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I am not a woman but I did start learning development at around your age (front end first with a little backend, then more backend, now a good deal of both). Prior to that I delivered mail.

I now consider myself to be competent. I'm currently doing fullstack development with a combination of python/django on the backend, javascript/react on the frontend, and AWS for the infrastructure side of things.

90% of what I know was self taught. The other 10% was part of a formal course I did with the Harvard Extension School - a professional certificate in web technologies. I would say it was a good course that helped give me a solid grounding. It suited me at the time as I wasn't prepared to give up three or four years to study CS full time. I was also mostly interested in the practical side of things. The only downside was the cost.

Like yourself, I was also a bit concerned about being seen as 'old'. Turns out it hasn't mattered at all. That might be partly because of the path I ended up taking. Once people knew what I was up to I started getting a lot of requests for help from friends and family. Pretty quickly this lead to a lot of work with designers that needed someone that could actually build stuff. That was great as I didn't have to deal with clients and had a lot of say in terms of what technologies I would use.

If you'd asked me three or four years ago if I thought I'd be able to do what I'm doing now I'd have told you "hell no!". Obviously, I would've been wrong. You'll surprise yourself. You just have to be persistent.

To answer your questions:

What do you think are the next steps I should take?

Try to find a graphic designer to team up with. Gradually introduce JS into your work (you can go a long way with very little).

Would you consider employing a person like me?

I don't see why not (not that I am an employer).

How to find somebody who could help me with developing my skills?

Meetups might be a good place to start. I've always found the people there to be very welcoming and they usually range from beginners to experts (who in my experience have always been very generous with their knowledge).

What else could I do to increase the chances of being hired?

A portfolio of projects is a must (it shouldn't matter much if they are paid or personal).

As for the odd questions from people that are surprised to find you are a woman; ignore them, but don't ignore red flags.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank's a lot for your extensive comment. It's good to know there are people out there who had similar doubts/problems and managed to overcome the difficulties. You seem like a living success story :) Persistency is the key word here, since it's a quality I keep on missing. Maybe I get discouraged too easily. Thank you for answering my questions and words of support.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I started my self-taught career at 29, now 33, I've a full time job as front- end developer.

I switched from sales in the construction area in a different country. I came here with no English, no friends, no contacts.

So I think you can become a front-end developer.

It went like this:

* 29 to 30 freelancing

* 30 to 31 full time at a mid-size design agency

* 31 to Today full time at a big company

Ping me if you need help or advice (if I can provide any) at twitter @_jolvera or email jolvera at posteo.de

Edit: formatting

</comment><comment><USER5> You might consider registering a profile with Freelancer sites (e.g. PeoplePerHour, Upwork, etc.) and bidding for one-off jobs. This is a good way to gain experience, develop skills and build a portfolio of work.

</comment><comment><USER6> What is your motivation for the career switch? Just looking for greener pasture or you found your calling here?</comment>


StarRaiders: Reverse-engineered, fully documented assembly language source code - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/lwiest/StarRaiders <comment><USER2> Ooh! I grew up with this game; someone brought a working Atari 800 to the Maker Faire a couple of years ago, and I was able to play a game from start to finish without referencing the manual. The Internet Archive has:

* the game in an emulator, so you can play it in your browser: [https://archive.org/details/a8b_cart_Star_Raiders_1979_Atari...](https://archive.org/details/a8b_cart_Star_Raiders_1979_Atari_US)

* the manual: [https://archive.org/details/agm_star_raiders](https://archive.org/details/agm_star_raiders)

* the unreleased sequel: [https://archive.org/details/StarRaidersII_Wilmunder](https://archive.org/details/StarRaidersII_Wilmunder)

<comment><USER3> Even better, I believe there are 2 different sequels that were developed simultaneously at atari and have finally been released.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Wow, the original source code resurfaced a month later. I wonder if that happened because of his project.

</comment><comment><USER5> Nice!

If you're interested in this kind of thing - this site: [http://www.computerarcheology.com](http://www.computerarcheology.com) has a detailed disassembly of arcade Space Invaders([http://www.computerarcheology.com/Arcade/SpaceInvaders/](http://www.computerarcheology.com/Arcade/SpaceInvaders/)). The site also contains partial disassembly of many other games e.g. Asteroids, Defender, Frogger, Galaga & Robotron.

"Pacman Dossier" had a great disassembly of Pac Man arcade, however rumour has it that Namco took it down.

Additionally, a little bit of Google-fu will also find you the commented disassembly of Donkey Kong arcade.

I can't help to be fascinated by the innovation shown in some of these early games.

<comment><USER6> Same with commented disassemblies of Super Mario Bros ([https://gist.github.com/1wErt3r/4048722](https://gist.github.com/1wErt3r/4048722)), Super Mario Bros 3 ([http://sonicepoch.com/sm3mix/](http://sonicepoch.com/sm3mix/)), and Legend of Zelda for the NES (which I can't find right now, but think I probably have a copy of around here somewhere...).

There are some Sonic the Hedgehog ones too: [http://info.sonicretro.org/Disassemblies](http://info.sonicretro.org/Disassemblies)

I love the idea of reverse engineering games as a sort of "software archaeology", as well as a method of preserving them in the future.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Seems like there have been a lot of cool projects like this lately. Have new tools sparked a renaissance in reverse engineering old apps so they can be built on any modern architecture? For example we have had the port of SGI ElectroPaint screensaver[1] and starcraft ported to ARM[2].

[1] [https://github.com/drvink/electroportis](https://github.com/drvink/electroportis)

[2] [https://pyra-handheld.com/boards/threads/starcraft.73844/](https://pyra- handheld.com/boards/threads/starcraft.73844/)

<comment><USER6> Those were both done with IDA, some manual work, and customer decompilers and other tools, based on the descriptions in each project. The ElectroPaint guy made a vague reference to some tool that was unreleased in IDA as of IDA 6.5, but which was supposed to be in the next version. The Starcraft one mentioned someone else that had ported at least 4 DOS games to run on the OpenPandora using a similar method (but in 2011, apparently).

I've got a similar project that I've been dancing around doing for a few years. In my case, it's a game that I grew up with, and I feel like I finally know enough to take a crack at understanding and documenting the whole thing, probably to eventually write a reimplementation of the engine. I'd guess that people here and there are coming to the same conclusion and, apparently, finding some cool new features in newer versions of IDA. So maybe it's a mixture of new tools and good timing in people's lives?

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Wow. Excellent work.

</comment><comment><USER9> That is.. impressive.</comment>


Bicycles - <AUTHOR> http://www.mongoose.com/
<comment><USER2> If I had a "report" button, I'd use it on this submission.</comment>


I was an Ambassador and Taken Hostage by Militants - <AUTHOR> http://www.whattofix.com/blog/archives/2009/09/i-was-an-ambass.php

<comment><USER2> Wow. You packed a whole lot of yourself into a very short post. Thanks for this.

I love the paragraph that describes your reasons for running away, especially this: "Serious trouble was good: it meant that people would start taking options away from me and things would work out".

Beautiful. This is the proverbial cry for help, right? But the way you describe it makes it seem like a perfectly logical, albeit destructive, strategy for dealing with powerlessness. A lot of people do this "running away" thing all the time-- many of us do it daily-- often without realizing it. For the really unlucky ones, running away is built in to our reflexive psyche, so it corrupts every attempt at resolving conflict.

But then, like you say, sometimes it's possible that you have no better option. That's a hard one.

<comment><USER3> One of the lessons learned was that there was another option, he simply didn't see it (ie. tell his commanding officer about his problems -- ask for help).

Running away was the best option he could _conceive_ of, not the right one.

Thanks for sharing your story Daniel.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Interesting story.

One thing I've always wondered about these war games (I realize it's somewhat tangential to the actual point of the story, but...) -- how do you know when you're "dead"? Some guy plays dead, then leaps up with a machine gun and starts firing -- what exactly was he firing? And isn't "playing dead" an especially unfair tactic when the "actual dead" are also playing dead?

<comment><USER5> As he says below, MILES gear with a blank firing adapter. Basically laser tag 2.0.

Neat trick with MILES gear: If you run out of ammo you can slap the butt of your rifle against something and still "shoot" people...the mid 90's version at least worked on the recoil of the weapon.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Thank you for sharing that; I thoroughly enjoyed reading it.

</comment><comment><USER5> As a veteran myself - Infantry, Canada, I thank you for sharing this perspective. I can appreciate how you felt (and still do no doubt) having served myself.

All I can say is that you seem to have lived a fine life so far, but it was you who was able to learn from your experiences, not your experiences educating you.

How does it go? Semper Fi, bud.

</comment><comment><USER7> I'm a little embarrassed to admit this, but I've been quietly following you on the net for quite some time. You seem like one of the nicest people I've never met. Can I buy you lunch sometime? :)

</comment><comment><USER8> Thanks for posting this, Daniel. I am going through something somewhat similar, although my problem, as it were, is entirely in my head I think:

I absolutely despise my job, although I don't know why entirely... the best I can come up with that would change the situation for me is if my company paid engineers overtime. I am feeling somewhat guilty of "lacking a sense of urgency", as I was told; I think my problem is not being able to care, or fake caring, in situations where I am told to do something I consider stupid and/or futile.

Like you, I started "running away" by declaring I will work only forty hours a week, which has started the inexorable path towards my being fired.

However, I do not see what I can do to tell my superior about my problems or fill out forms: any suggestions there?

</comment><comment><USER9> Sorry to be the bad guy here again, but though the story is interesting as a story, I don't get what was 'learned'. I did see a lot of the "a lot of bad shit happened to me when I was younger" text in there. Whenever I see that type of stuff, my whiner radar switches on.

It's unimportant what you overcame in the past. If this is important for you, then you still have not learned. A muscleman will not win a competition because he lifted a huge weight during training, he will win because he put his effort into lifting the weight in front of him right now, and did not think about all the weights he lifted in the past.

<comment><AUTHOR> Upvoted.

Thanks for sharing what I feel -- and I wrote it. It's got a lot of "poor me" in it.

The story would be very different if I told it from today's point of view. The purpose was to tell it the way I was feeling it at the time.

There were a lot of things learned, but like any real story in life, it's muddled. One of the things I learned, not mentioned, was that if you have a problem that you can't solve -- it's your responsibility to communicate it. And to keep communicating it until something is done about it.

But at the time it was very muddy, as I think you can tell. Can't help that -- that's the way it happened. Maybe there are other people in similar circumstances that this would speak to that wouldn't get the point if told differently. Also the story is more powerful by being told the way it is, in my opinion, of course.

Great point about living in the past. I think maybe you misunderstood the tone, however. I still feel very badly about the whole thing. It's not like I think of this as some kind of great feat that I performed. It was a total disaster. I was lucky to have skated through as well as I did.

I'm out of this conversation, as I'm way too biased to do a good job commenting. Thanks for the thoughts.

<comment><USER10> I don't know of another organization that, on balance, comes across as having a deeper well of general competence and organizational smarts than the marines (/not a marine).

How much of marine philosophy and organizational style makes it into your consulting work?

I had a similar experience at one point, though in different circumstances and a different organization. Hardscrabble, self-bootstrapped types tend to try and solve everything on their own b/c that's just how they've done.

It's good to have that backbone but can be sabotaging if it's your only strategy; the frame of mind it puts you in is intrinsically adversarial and limiting -- how do I do X for Y despite Z? -- instead of collaborative -- Y wants me to do X but there's Z...can Y and I figure something out?

People from more privileged backgrounds generally are more comfortable taking the latter approach; the behavior can be learned, but once you do you realize how much ground you needless lost, which is sobering.

Bravo for the excellent anecdote.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I have an idea of how hard it is to share something like this, because I've been through something similar.

Thank you.

</comment><comment><USER12> I rarely read anything longer than 5 sentences these days, but I couldn't stop reading until I had finished. Thank you.

</comment><comment><USER13> Good article, but the title was misleading and sensational.

</comment><comment><USER14> A very interesting read!</comment>


Psychopaths among us - b-man http://www.hare.org/links/saturday.html

<comment><AUTHOR> It is expected that there would be different strategies employed by a population.

Game theory can derive this result. John Maynard Smith introduced the idea of a evolutionarily stable strategy. The idea is to use the classic game theory payoff matrix successively to determine a stable mix of strategies used by the population. Some payoff matrix aren't stable since one of the strategies can dominate the others and causing the dominated strategy to be extinct in the population.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionarily_stable_strategy>

The types of strategy typically discussed are:

      * Doves (always peaceful)
      * Hawks (always attack)
      * Bully (feign attack)
      * Retaliator (peaceful until attacked)

</comment><comment><USER2> _After they'd heard Hare speak they realized they were dealing with a psychopath, someone who could feel neither guilt nor sorrow. They changed their interrogation tactic to, "So you murdered a couple of prostitutes. That's minor-league compared to Bundy or Gacy." The appeal to the psychopath's grandiosity worked. He didn't just confess to his other crimes, he bragged about them._

Nice, reverse psychopathy.

</comment><comment><USER3> There is an excellent book by psychologist Martha Stout called "The Sociopath Next Door" which examines this subject. The author claims as many as 1 in 25 Americans is a sociopath.

[http://www.amazon.com/Sociopath-Next-Door-Martha- Stout/dp/07...](http://www.amazon.com/Sociopath-Next-Door-Martha- Stout/dp/076791581X)

Indeed, this book changed my perception of human nature -- some people are un- reformable. Most of them aren't serial killers, they're just dicks who get their rocks off by controlling other people. Think your asshole boss, or a jerk you knew who was always using people.

<comment><USER4> It's rather soothing to be able to label your 'asshole boss' with an epithet like 'sociopath', but that doesn't make it correct. It's just makes it easier to be less critical and believe someone that is arguing that.

It's ridiculous to suggest that 1 in 25 people could be a sociopath. Sociopathy is a disorder, a mental illness, a way in which someone can differ from the norm. If it would affect 4% of the population, it would be an essential part of the norm. Instead of labeling these people as 'sociopaths', why not accept that not everyone has the empathic abilities we'd hope for? Why not accept that, in spite the lack of empathic ability, such people can still lead meaningful lives and can care for others? Calling them 'sociopaths' is just another way of dehumanizing those we don't like, so we don't have to face to darker sides of our own humanity.

<comment><USER5> > Sociopathy is a disorder, a mental illness, a way in which someone can > differ from the norm

You don't know that sociopathy is a mental illness or disorder. That was also explained in the article. For all you know someone who achieves universal enlightenment might become a sociopath because he/she realizes that we all eventually die and nothing that happens in this world matters, or something like that.

In fact I'd say it's simply an effect of a different world view, and the ones getting caught are the dumber/impulsive ones while the smarter ones are the ones we label as "assholes."

<comment><USER4>
      You don't know that sociopathy is a mental illness or disorder.

It is _defined_ as such. We need a word to describe such cases and this is the word that is used. It is not sensible to redefine the term to describe something else, simply because we _want_ to apply it to the something else, because of its connotations. It's a much better idea to resist the tempation to label an asshole boss a sociopath and instead apply the terms we already have for people who behave like assholes out of a deeper conviction. He could be a fascist, a nihilist, a hedonist or what have you in terms and combinations of terms to describe world views. Sociopathy is not a world view: it's a fundamental lack of ability to embrace certain worldviews, that your asshole boss could readily embrace, if events drove him that way. We all know the stories of a lifechanging event that turns someone from a greedy asshole into a generous soul. A sociopath could never experience that: he has to work to overcome his shortcomings, if he is capable of that at all. That is the difference between a mental illness and a debilitating philosophical state of mind.

<comment><USER6> I do forensic psychiatric risk assessments, and use the Hare Psychopathy Checklist regularly.

Neither sociopathy nor psychopathy is listed as a diagnosis in the DSM IV or IDC 10 (the current canonical lists of diagnoses for mental health). Both are listed as descriptors to "Dissocial Personality Disorder" in the ICD 10.

<comment><USER4> I didn't mean a _psychiatric_ definition, but a _common usage_ , 'dictionary', definition. The point is that you need different words to be able to distinguish between people incapable of displaying social behavior and people that _choose_ to display antisocial behavior part of the time. An asshole boss usually still behaves in a civil way towards his peers and would even show altruism towards them. You can be a complete jerk that proposes that homeless people are lazy bums that should be incinerated and that still doesn't make you a sociopath or a psychopath, if you take out the trash for your disabled neighbour at the same time. To use those words for such people muddles the issue: it suggests a lack of ability where we are dealing with a conviction that can be changed given the right circumstances.

You can't have 1 in 25 people being a sociopath. You can have 1 in 25 people being an antisocial asshole.

<comment><USER5> Hare says his classification is being misused, and labeling these people with a mental disorder is one such way he says it's being misused.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This article reminds me of the submission, "Are You Capable of Being Ruthless to Get Ahead?" <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1184953> It seems that the "ruthless" character may have been a psychopath.

</comment><comment><USER8> _They have traits similar to ideal leaders. You would expect an ideal leader to be narcissistic, self-centred, dominant, very assertive, maybe to the point of being aggressive._

Is it just me, or would anyone else not follow a person who matched this description?

<comment> a-priori They're missing the most important characteristic from that list: charisma. These natural leaders (who may be psychopaths/sociopaths) have a way of drawing people to themselves and making people like them and follow them in a way that makes them ignore all the things in that list.

<comment><USER8> That makes more sense. I don't think I've ever met anyone who would match this description though (the only person who comes to mind when I think about it is Steve Jobs).

<comment><USER9> Jobs is definitely a psychopath:

 _He returned to his previous job at Atari and was given the task of creating a circuit board for the game Breakout. According to Atari founder Nolan Bushnell, Atari had offered US$100 for each chip that was reduced in the machine. Jobs had little interest or knowledge in circuit board design and made a deal with Wozniak to split the bonus evenly between them if Wozniak could minimize the number of chips. Much to the amazement of Atari, Wozniak reduced the number of chips by 50, a design so tight that it was impossible to reproduce on an assembly line.

At the time, Jobs told Wozniak that Atari had only given them $600 (instead of the actual $5000) and that Wozniak's share was thus $300._

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jobs#Early_years>

<comment><USER10> How does this make him a psychopath? This is just common sense business/ money making.

<comment><USER11> Lying to and screwing over friends for money? Common sense? Okay....

<comment><USER10> No one knows he lied. May be Atari paid him just 600. I was assuming that when I posted what I posted.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I recently read a book called "Evil Genes" by Barbara Oakley. One of the interesting stories she tells is about how some of the research into Machiavellian behavior got started.

The original research group decided to focus on "everyday" manipulative, lying, power-hungry behavior. Looking for test subjects, they found plenty of instances, but ended up picking a category of people to study - their own PhD advisors.

The point is, mild versions of psycho/socio-pathic behavior are unfortunately commonplace. Changed my perception of people's behaviors in very fundamental ways.

</comment><comment><USER13> "The Psychopathy Checklist consists of a set of forms and a manual that describes in detail how to score a subject in twenty categories that define psychopathy. Is he (or, more rarely, she) glib and superficially charming, callous and without empathy?"

What question springs to my mind is, given that these people have something like their 'appreciate other people's emotions' bits of their brains not working properly, why don't we see many female psychopaths?

Off the top of my brain, I can come up with a few likely answers: 1: Female 'psychopaths' don't exhibit the same sorts of criminal behavior that male psychopaths do. 2: Females are less susceptible to being a 'psychopath'

<comment><USER14> They are the same (if you read hare's books), but it seems that women are more likely to be diagnosed as Histrionic. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Histrionic_personality_disorder>

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> So... anyone here reckon they're a psychopath? ;)

<comment><USER16> Is the Hare Psychopathy Checklist / PCL-R available online?

I only found the okcupid one (and I'm definitely not taking it from there :) )

No, I don't think I'm a psychopath (an introvert sure, aspergers or autism- related stuff maybe - I did score very high there - but probably not psychopath).

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> The thing that fascinates me about psychopathy, along with ASPD, autistic- spectrum, etc, is that many of these "disorders" or "syndromes" are just different ways that minds can work. Humans come in so many flavors! In some ways, it's the closest thing we have to interacting with alien intelligences: people who can communicate, process information, make plans, but who don't line up with our deeply ingrained expectations of eye contact, trust, low-risk behavior, or empathy.

While I suspect that normal human behavior has significant adaptive advantages in promoting the success of the species, I frequently wonder about a society of people who are all autistic-spectrum, or who all exhibit schizoaffective disorder, or are all manic-depressive. Would their psychologists form diagnostic handbooks for the clearly maladaptive trait of aggressive interpersonal contact, or trusting another person to watch their children?

Bonus question: if you're religiously inclined, do the deities of your choice love and respect these societies? Is there something morally superior about normal human behavior? What spiritual beliefs might they form for themselves?

</comment><comment><USER18> A great, enlightening comment on Reddit's Sociapath IamA that discusses 13 rules for dealing with sociopaths: [http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/a5xvv/iama_diagnosed_s...](http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/a5xvv/iama_diagnosed_sociopath_ama/c0g0qyk)

</comment><comment><USER19> What a loaded sensationalist witch hunt. Someone either is an axe murderer or they aren't.

There is no physical thing known as Psychopathy, it is an arbitrary descriptive label known as a category used to group similar behavior together. It is not a scientific discovery but a classification.

This psychology professor is just asserting the classification he's devoted his life's work to is now bigger and applies to more people. He is simply coming up with an excuse to inflate his self-worth and sell more books, even though he is not making any discoveries and doing research.

He's not even making the genetics argument, and if he was I would post articles citing nutritional deficiencies as causes of aggression or how gene expression changes due to epigenetics.

I just want to insist that anyone interested in reading up on psychology stick to the scientific research, specifically cognitive- psychology\neuroscience\computing\science

<comment><USER20> Behaviors are caused by physical things, namely brain states, so it's perfectly reasonable to attribute a category of behavior to a physical characteristic of the brain. If people who behave fundamentally differently than others aren't physically different then what accounts for their behavior?

<comment><USER19> Your making what's known in social psychology as the Fundamental Attribution Error: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_attribution_error>

<comment><USER13> Can you enlighten us as to how he is making this error?

<comment><USER19> We are always biased to overestimate the component of behavior attributable to some intrinsic quality of the person.

The classic example is Nazi Germany\The Holocaust. Everyone started asking how could the Germans commit so many horrible atrocities, it must be something intrinsic and Freudian about their personality maybe they have a strong need for discipline, etc.

Then along comes Milgram and his famous electroshock study <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment> , showing that Americans will perform actions even if they directly violate their internal beliefs, returning the primacy of behavior to the situation. It has been reproduced cross-culturally\many different times and variations. Another influential study is the Stanford Prison Experiments.

Personally I still agree with the poster (samd) that everything is physical including brain states, and dualism is bonkers. But if we take that step, there is no longer a metaphysical ego holding personality. There is no distinction between individual and environment and the causality between the two is bidirectional, rendering the question moot.

<comment><USER20> _There is no distinction between individual and environment and the causality between the two is bidirectional, rendering the question moot._

You are definitely on to something.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Am I the only one that finds it ironic that both this article and an article titled (though I haven't read it), "Why theatre was the most important class I ever took", are on the front page at the same time?

I figured the theatre paper was on a subject related to a different article the other day (the title of which I've forgotten, but it was about a particular subculture fitting in to regular society by faking the role), but this was something I found rather interesting and ... ironic?

[as an immediate side-note upon starting to read the theatre article: it doesn't seem to be on what I expected it to be, at all; furthermore, I'm finding the other subject quite interesting]

</comment><comment><USER22> I wonder what makes some psychopaths violent and others not.

<comment><USER23> Probably circumstance.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> This is a blog by a parent raising a he has identified as a psychopath. The description of his son's behaviors is both interesting and chilling. <http://raising-a-psychopath.blogspot.com/>

<comment><USER25> Citation from the blog:

We offered Lucas $20 for taking out the garbage each week. Twenty dollars for five minutes of work, an extreme amount, just to see of our instinct was accurate. He seemed excited by the prospect of all that money and the first week eagerly took the garbage out. We immediately paid him the $20 he had earned.

The following week I ended up taking the garbage out. Even though the $20 offer was still in effect, Lucas had no interest. It simply wasn't worth it him to do something he didn't want to do. We could have raised the offer to $100, or $1000 and it wouldn't have mattered.

Question:

Does any one know how to alleviate motivational problem described above? Not in psychopath but in otherwise almost normal person.

<comment><USER26> I'd love an answer or discussion about this, even if only for myself! Promise of money has never successfully motivated me to do anything. In fact, try as I might, I don't know _what_ motivates me - and by all accounts, I'm a pretty introspective person! At least I know money by itself isn't enough - I guess that's a start, but I've been stuck there for years now. :/

<comment><USER27> Certainly you end up making many decisions and doing many things each day, even if they are small things like brushing your teeth, right? So at least for some activities you've got motivation. What are the kinds of activities that you get stuck on?

<comment><USER26> Ironically, the teeth brushing thing is a good example - it's the simple routines that I latch on to; going to the same places each day at the same times, etc. Not obsessively, but just automatically. I don't even know how some habits began.

Sometimes the things I do aren't even that enjoyable by themselves. (Why do I bite my fingernails? I certainly don't enjoy _that_ but I can't seem to stop doing it and I've tried several techniques.) I feel like I program because I need to and I need to because I feel like it. Or something. There's a logical loop here that I can't seem to break out of - but it makes it hard to get me to do things I don't want to do and it's even worse when _I_ know there's something I need to do that I don't want to do because I'll put it off as long as possible (and sometimes slightly longer).

What's weird (to me) is that the trait will even infect the things I enjoy - like programming. If there's a certain "big" thing I need to do (maybe it's a bunch of boring boilerplate or adapting old code to some new use-case) in order to progress on the part that I consider to be the real problem that I'm working on, I'll put it off and comment on Hacker News instead - sometimes for days. I feel terrible about it and it nags at me the whole time, but I still do it. Why?! :P

<comment><USER25> If you ever successfully hack your motivation please let me know how you did it.

I have same problem as you but I fail to develop even simplest routines myself. I do things periodically only when there is outside pressure to do them periodically. Like going to school or to work. Otherwise I do things only if they bother me directly or I have spark of enthusiasm to try something out or straighten something out.

I could just sign last paragraph of your comment with my name.

<comment><USER27> For developing a simple routine, I've found the Seinfeld calendar to be a nice tool: [http://lifehacker.com/281626/jerry-seinfelds-productivity- se...](http://lifehacker.com/281626/jerry-seinfelds-productivity-secret)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Hmm. Unreformable? It doesn't appear so. As the case with the police using reverse psychotic techniques encouraged the perp to brag, we could also find out other techniques that show these types of people how to care. Now, they may not have empathy. Not everyone does in the same degree, but that's ok, as that is what makes us unique.

The interesting research would be to see if there are techniques that would help a psychopath to integrate into society while limiting destructive tendencies. Perhaps others are doing this research, but Ive heard none of it.

<comment><USER29> > As the case with the police using reverse psychotic techniques encouraged > the perp to brag, we could also find out other techniques that show these > types of people how to care.

The conclusion doesn't seem to follow from the premise. Can you fill in some more of the intermediate steps?

<comment><USER28> Sorry, I was just presuming another path of treatment would be possible.

As evidenced in the article, normal people show remorse after committing violent crimes. Police take that as a way to focus their attention during an interrogation to get the suspect to admit fault. In a psychopaths case, appeals to emotioon does not work. Instead the example that worked was to compare to the "greats" of what they committed. That lead the suspect to start bragging and admit fault.

Perhaps, in this similar vein, that psychopaths are trainable. They have different emotional processes and thoughts. Perhaps we can make a training course that focuses on using their uniqueness to reform them.

And as I said, these steps would require a great deal of research with all types of psychopaths, and not just the ones in prison.

<comment><USER30> The article actually mentions a rehabilitation plan based on the subject's self-interest.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I don't know. That long, rambling, breathlessly-written article makes me wonder about its author's mental stability.

</comment><comment><USER32> I believe <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxytocin> pill cures psychopaths.

<comment><USER33> [citation needed]

<comment><USER32> <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4599299.stm>

<comment><USER33> The words "psychopath," "sociopath," and "antisocial [personality disorder]" do not appear on that page.

The closest thing to your original claim is _"'Our results might lead to fertile research on the role of oxytocin in several mental health disorders with major public health significance.'"_

<comment><USER32> [http://www.google.com/search?name=f&hl=en&q=oxytocin...](http://www.google.com/search?name=f&hl=en&q=oxytocin+sociopath)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Another article about sociopathy: [http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/11/the_sociopathic_epide...](http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/11/the_sociopathic_epidemic.html)

<comment><USER35> Sorry, but this article is nothing but political propaganda.

<comment><USER36> It appears more like a subtle joke than propaganda: a right-wing conspiracy story told in the style of left-wing sociobabble.</comment></comment></comment>


Organizing Your Backbone.js Application With Modules - <AUTHOR> http://weblog.bocoup.com/organizing-your-backbone-js-application-with-modules

<comment><USER2> My only issue with doing the full-on module pattern is that, coming from a Python/Ruby background, I've stopped caring about the notion of private vs protected vs public, especially when considering testing. In other languages (like Java) I can add a dash of reflection magic in my unit-tests to get to hidden components, but that seems to be impossible using Javascript's module pattern. Take this snippet for example:

        var Module = (function() {
            var baz;

            function foo(x) {
                baz = x;
            }

            return {
                bar: function() {
                    foo(42);
                }
            };
        })();

There are several variations of the pattern, but that's the basic gist of it. Once it becomes non-trivial, how do I test foo? How do I verify baz's state? Furthermore, if I wanted to extend this with one of Javascript's sub-class implementations, how would my new slightly-different "bar" be able to use "foo"?

Besides my general opinion of private variables and methods being unnecessary, unless someone has a good fix for those two problems, I'll never consider using the module pattern in any code that I write.

<comment><USER3> This pattern uses an immediately invoked function expression (IIFE) to scope dependencies and shorten variable names.

Be smart about your code, you can expose anything you want and attach anything to the module object for testing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> One handy thing to remember for this is that Backbone.js is a library, not a framework ... you call it, it doesn't call you. If you already have a good method of organizing, namespacing and loading your JavaScript, you should be able to get your Models and Views to play along nicely.

In general: <http://backbonejs.org/#FAQ-tim-toady>

</comment><comment><USER5> I've had a great experience using <http://brunch.io> to organise Backbone applications. Separates everything out as this article suggests and adds a nice entry point to get started from. It's not as lightweight as organising things on your own, as it introduces CoffeeScript and Stylus into the mix. If you're happy with these technologies though it works quite well.

</comment><comment><USER6> CommonJS / AMD anyone ?

There are plenty of libraries doing this already.

<comment><USER3> I am working on a follow up post, where you will see how complicated these systems get. Its not trivial nor foundational for anyone looking on how to structure a project.

Edit: There is a pull request that would make using at least jQuery/Backbone/Underscore easier to use together, but it has n't been pulled yet. Writing posts on stuff that just works, is better than trying to convince developers to hand write wrappers for every lib they want to include.</comment></comment>


What should release v1.0 actually mean? - <AUTHOR> http://blog.kfish.org/2008/02/release-xsel-110.html <comment><USER2> For the purpose of commentary, let's assume that you're actually creating a product for the public. 1.0 means that this is the first point at which you're confident that the product reflects your vision for a first release. It is feature complete (for all the features you haven't pared down or pushed back), and all of your known bugs from the beta period have been addressed.

Notice that I said "known bugs from the beta period." If you haven't had a beta period, you're having one now -- you're not at 1.0. I align with the traditional camp that considers beta software to be on a feature freeze. They may not work right yet, but they're implemented.</comment>


Alleged Child Porn Lord Faces US Extradition - <AUTHOR> https://krebsonsecurity.com/2019/03/alleged-child-porn-lord-faces-us-extradition/ <comment><USER2> It is hard to believe that he got nailed by a bloody Firefox bug. That dropped a bloody Windows executable. I mean, this is the guy who was running Freedom Hosting.

You'd think he'd have been smart enough to work in Linux, and run Tor in a gateway device with iptables rules to block leaks. I vaguely remember a security guide from Freedom Hosting which recommended that approach for servers. So why wouldn't he have done the same locally? And seriously, Whonix existed in 2013!

As much as I despise child porn, there was lots of good stuff on Freedom Hosting. Sad.

<comment><USER3> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_Hosting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_Hosting)

Looks like it was an exploit in the older version of Firefox that Tor Web Browser is based on. And the exploit was using JS, so, like Wikipedia mentions, using NoScript would have prevented the attack.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I never understand why extradition is a thing. How can someone be expected to follow the laws of another country? This guy is a shitbag and should rot in a prison in Ireland.

<comment><USER5> Is explained in the article. It has a double nationality US-Irish.

<comment><USER4> I was speaking more in general about extradition. It happens to people who aren't us citizens.</comment></comment></comment>


Buku v3.2 – A highly delicious bookmark manager. Your mini web - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/jarun/Buku/releases/tag/v3.2 <comment><AUTHOR> ## What's in?

\- Option `--suggest` to list and choose similar tags when adding a bookmark

\- Ask for a unique tag when importing bookmarks

\- Ignore non-generic URLs when importing browser exported bookmarks

Homepage: [https://github.com/jarun/Buku](https://github.com/jarun/Buku)

Features: [https://github.com/jarun/Buku#features](https://github.com/jarun/Buku#features)</comment>


Let's talk about the tech that powered the Clinton campaign - <AUTHOR> https://storify.com/hodgesmr/clinton-campaign-tech <comment><USER2> Odd that he didn't mention the Life-Model Decoy they had running. Other than a hiccup on September 11th, it seemed to have functioned quite well.</comment>


Ask HN: Do you document your development process? - <AUTHOR>

We recently decided to start documenting our development process more thoroughly inside markdown files in a GitHub repository.
The document is intended to answer common questions like: "How do I deploy a hotfix?", "What if I have questions about a task?", or "How do I get my code reviewed?"
This got me thinking about the community here does. Do you document your process right now? And if so, what do you use for it? <comment><USER2> I almost always document how to set up a good development setup (live code reloading, tests running, decent error reporting, you know the drill), and how to create a production build (these both should be a single line on the command prompt). Aside from these I tend not to document anything else about the development process -- not for any specific reason, though. I don't expect anything else to be a big time saver until I end up on a team with more than 3 people working on the same codebase.

</comment><comment><USER3> When developing, I try to think what it'll be like to return to the project in several months and how hard it would be for someone new to start contributing to the project. I try to document everything I think that will help and, even better, automate those steps with scripts. For example, deploying to staging or production should ideally be a single command so if the documentation for this grows too lengthy I'll take steps to automate it.

</comment><comment><USER4> We have an onboarding tutorial for new hires at work where we cover stuff like deployments, code review procedures, and coding style.

We intentionally keep this separate from the code and leave it in Confluence docs because it was important to both engineers and semi-technical (QA and Product) staff. The latter group is very concerned about how hotfixes are deployed but is unlikely to look at anything on github.

</comment><comment><USER5> I personally have to write down things and try to convince everone else to do that but I have to deal with people who more or less actively seems to be avoiding leaving anything written behind.</comment>


Radiance Light Trends: nighttime radiance over any period in the past 25 years - <AUTHOR> https://lighttrends.lightpollutionmap.info/ <comment><AUTHOR> Q & A with the physicists behind the website at [1]

[1] [https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/03/qa-new-light- polluti...](https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/03/qa-new-light-pollution- tracking-tool-physicist-s-bright-idea)</comment>


Time and Space Tradoffs in Version Control Storage - <AUTHOR> http://www.ericsink.com/entries/time_space_tradeoffs.html

<comment><USER2> This is why SpiderOak (and I suspect Tarsnap, and probably others) use a completely different approach to storing historical versions that don't explicitly involve deltas.

Instead, they chunk files and store individual data blocks, and use an adaptation of the rsync algorithm to be able to tell exactly which bytes have changed from one version to the next. Any segments of changed bytes are stored as new data blocks. This has two big advantages: 1) any version can be restored by retrieving exactly the set of data blocks that compose it and 2) any version in the chain can be purged, and use a sort of garbage collection to determine which blocks can then be removed.

The adaptation of the rsync algorithm has to be able to work with an arbitrary number of data block sizes (normal rsync has a max of 2 sizes -- one uniform size for all blocks except the last block, and size of the tailing block.) This can make it very slow if not handled smartly.

Another option the author might consider when making the delta chain is to compress the versions first with zlib using the --rsyncable option, and then make the deltas between the compressed versions. Normally compression means that two very similar uncompressed files will have very different compressed output, because even small changes cascade through the rest of the stream. --rsyncable fixes that, and adds about 1% to the compressed size.

<comment><USER3> zlib with the --rsyncable option sounds very interesting. Do you have any pointers to more info? I'd really like to use it but I can't find any references on <http://www.zlib.net/>

<comment><USER2> Oops, it's actually a patch to gzip, not zlib.

It's included in newer Debian/Ubuntu distros and explained in "man gzip" I think this is the original patch: <http://www.samba.org/netfilter/diary/gzip.rsync.patch>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I don't see why a reverse diff chain would necessarily require re-encoding all previous versions on every commit. A commit would be something like this:

\- Diff the new and current versions

\- Place the new version and the diff in the repository, remove the current version

\- Verify the integrity of the current version

which executes in time independent of the number of versions.

He might be referring to the zlib encoding, where if you always put the current version at the "beginning" of a single large, everything will need to be re-encoded. This is a limitation of zlib, not of encoding in general. Besides, you should be able to work around it (even using vanilla zlib) by keeping separate, uncompressed indices for the beginning of each diff, and then keeping the current version at the end of the file instead.</comment>


Ants' defense strategy could lead to better email spam filters, biologist finds - <AUTHOR> http://phys.org/news/2015-04-ants-intruder-defense-strategy-email.html <comment><USER2> This is interesting, but not particularly profound. Pretty much it says that passing spam through multiple filters is more effective than passing spam through a single, complex filter. This is a well known and well used technique.

<comment><USER3> I think the benefit could come from simplifying the AI modeling which underlays most spam filters. Instead of having to incorporate lots of statistics into one complex model, it could use a lot of simple models and have a "tipping point". It would be easier to properly train multiple simple models to identify spam/ham as opposed to one complex model.</comment></comment>


How to become a part-time programmer - <AUTHOR> https://codewithoutrules.com/2018/01/08/part-time-programmer/ <comment><USER3> I've done this for a number of years. This would be my current advice:

\- Don't try it on-site (unless they specifically were seeking a consultant beforehand). It'll just create resent.

\- Therefore go for remote jobs. Which don't need to be advertised as such - strong applicants can negotiate a remote arrangement.

\- Don't bill by the hour, but daily. Leaving your earnings aside, this approach puts the focus in work days, not hours (duh), therefore you aren't framed as a 'part-time' contributor.

\- When asked how many hours your work day takes, reply "as much as needed". This would be in fact a honest response. Some days (especially as you join a team) you'll need 6-8h/d to perform acceptably. Gradually you'll be able to deliver the same in 3-5h/d.

\- The key part is, employer/client is only aware (in principle) of days and results (tickets closed, commits pushed, meetings attended, etc). Again this is not hiding the truth - it is focusing on the results.

\- Do keep track internally of your time spent per day, and have some way to graph your productivity vs. the time spent. That graph can eventually save your ass!

\- Be aware that (at least IME), even if spending as little as 3 effective hours per day, a large chunk of your day can revolve around work, especially if you interact with a typical team. This includes being available in Slack, for meetings etc.

<comment><USER4> Especially in terms of resentment, it seems risky to conflate "remote" and "part time", especially without very clear boundaries. This is exactly the fear many managers have about remote work: that it gradually slides into part time work. It's not at all generally accepted that if you can do "a days work" in three hours, you get to take the rest of the day off.

If you want to decouple hours spent from your earnings without risking resentment, you need to find a way to bill firm fixed price for well-defined deliverables. This is very difficult and risky, to say the least (but very valuable if you can pull it off).

I don't agree with the assertion that a negotiated part time agreement with clearly defined boundaries ("John works Tuesdays, Thursday and Friday and isn't expected to be available on email or Slack, except under the same kinds of emergencies when we'd call people on weekends") necessarily created resentment outside of how other workplace status dynamics might create resentment -- meaning, something your boss should manage, and if they can't, that person shouldn't be your boss.

<comment><USER3> > it gradually slides into part time work.

I would reword it as "the remote worker is getting more productive". As long as the measured outcome (which I recommend keeping track of) remains constant, invested hours don't matter that much.

Of course, if you repeatedly ask to the employer "is it OK to work less hours", he will hesitate. Just don't ask, while at the same time ensure you deliver constant meaningful work and document that activity.

Personally I'm serious about crafting meaningful git commits and logging my daily activity.

Also important to be willing to work a longer day when you've wasted time in improductive situations (e.g. discarded code, silly bug hunts). Employer shouldn't necessarily pay for our blunders (which is why sometimes daily rate is more 'honest' than hourly).

Also note that I specifically point that you cannot just sit 3 consecutive hours and disappear the rest of the day. I doubt many can do focused high- quality work without periods of rest. Also important to interact with the team.

<comment><USER5> > _As long as the measured outcome (which I recommend keeping track of) > remains constant, invested hours don 't matter that much._

I don't think most employers would agree with that. If I'm a "normal" full- time, salaried employee, I'm expected to work 5 days a week, usually for at least 8 hours a day. If I'm able to become more efficient or automate parts of my job away, my employer would expect me to take on more work or responsibility, not work fewer hours a day. (You're free to argue that this isn't fair, but I'm just talking about reality here.)

If I were to work a reduced schedule of 3 or 4 days a week, the same thing would apply.

Of course, if the negotiation resulted in more of a contracting role, as in being paid for milestones and project delivery, then time-spent-in-chair shouldn't matter.

The grandparent post seemed to be talking of a sort of a hybrid of FTE/salaried and consulting, so perhaps your advice _might_ apply to that sort of thing, but I don't think what you're saying would apply to a traditional salaried position, even after negotiating a reduced work-week.

<comment><USER3> I think it's pretty normal for remote employees (not contractors) to not be expected to work 8 solid hours per day at home.

Have specifically asked so in quite a few job interviews worldwide. Most common reply is literally "we don't care as you do what you have to do"

Most folks who have participated in remote workflows for long enough know that a lot of 'waste' is elliminated by working interruption- and meeting-free, so 8h/d becomes an exhausting workload.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm an SRE at Google. I switched to 3 days/week (Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday) on January 1, 2018, and it's been insanely great. Every weekend is now a 4-day weekend. I now have the time and energy to make meaningful progress on personal projects on which I was previously stuck for a long time.

As expected, my annual vacation time (along with my salary, bonus, stock grants, and stock vesting) is 60% of what it was when I was full-time. However, holidays that fall on Monday or Friday (of which there are about 8 per year for U.S. Googlers) now generate comp time for me to take whenever I want. Furthermore, about once per quarter I have a week-long oncall shift which requires me to be in the office for 8 hours on Monday and Friday; each of these oncall shifts generates 2 comp days for me to use later (a total of 8 comp days per year).

Working only Tue/Wed/Thu means I can go away for 11 consecutive days by taking only 3 days off. So far this year I have:

\- taken a 10-day trip to Japan,

\- taken a 10-day trip to Iceland and the UK, and

\- done a 10-day silent meditation retreat.

Google has HR policies that support flexible work schedules. I wouldn't be surprised if this were the case at most of the larger tech companies.

<comment><USER7> Is it possible to get hired directly into a flexible work schedule? This sounds really nice!

<comment><USER6> I don't know, but I guess the answer is "yes". Can't hurt to ask during the application process.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Last fall, after having been laid off from a high-pressure, 90-hours-a-week job, I joined a company that has a liberal remote work culture. At first I went to the office every day. Then I skipped the commute each time I saw that the NYC subway was having a sh_t day. After two months I was down to two days a week, and after three months I stopped coming in altogether unless I felt like it, which happens to be once every couple of weeks.

The amount of time I spend working is anywhere between 4 and 6 hours per day, sometimes less. There are days when I arrive at the 3-hour mark and feel that I won't make progress that day due to needing time to meditate on a problem. Other days I'll code straight through dinner without so much as a toilet break. Ultimately, I determine my own schedule on a tactical basis, and am more productive as a result.

I joke that I do 8 hours of work in a 4-hour workday, but this isn't really a joke: it's an understatement. I get more done than ever before in my career.

<comment><USER9> I hope this can be extended to other places. This is one of the major issues in my life. I can't stand the absurd pressure to "produce" solutions. I need time to make things right, when I reach that point I will go 300%.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Antirez just posted this relevant thread:

"I don't want to claim I've accomplished a lot in my life, but somewhat I was able to work in Security for N years, create two startups, write some OSS, and later focus on Redis. I've _never_ worked more than 40 hours, and I struggle to reach 40:"

[https://twitter.com/antirez/status/999199204680577025](https://twitter.com/antirez/status/999199204680577025)

<comment> FLUX-YOU I only spend huge amounts of time working with other people's code (with greater-than-linear growth depending on how bad it is)

But I almost never work 40 hours when I'm only working on my code.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> One important argument I always use is (I also work 30h/w):

"You get my most productive 30 hours per week. You know those hours where you somehow don't feel productive and you end up doing stuff that wasn't really worth it ? I don't work those hours."

</comment><comment><USER12> I don't find 40 hours / week to be any trouble at all for me, but I always take a 3 day weekend. Flexible work hours is the key.

I found working 4 10s was not good at all, but working 2 12s and 2 8s works out great. I'm a morning person, so I get to work early, before rush. The 12 hour days, I leave after rush. The 8 hour days I leave before rush. So, I pretty much skip rush hour, which is life changing.

I started doing this after working a year or two of 60 hour weeks. I found I could do 12 hour days pretty well, but had no desire to work 12 hours every day. I've got relatives who are farmers and a 12 hour day seems normal to them. Only working 8 hours in a day seems incomprehensible to them.

</comment><comment><USER13> I'm happy working full time, 40 or so hours a week.

What I would really like is more leave, even the option to take more unpaid leave. I get 20 days leave a year, plus 10 days of public holidays. I wish I could just have 30 days of leave, plus the option to take more unpaid days off if I wanted to. I'm amazed that the standard for the USA is closer to 10 days, with no legal minimum. I'd go stark raving mad with only 10 days of annual leave.

Flexi time would be nice, the ability to work longer weeks in exchange for that extra time being converted into annual leave. Work an extra 5 hours a week for 6 months and that's an extra 16 days of annual leave.

<comment><USER14> Have you considered Europe? Legal minimum in the EU is 28 including public holidays, but only my first job and my university industrial experience year were that low, and even then they added an extra day to your annual allowance for every year you worked there. Most are 24-26, and I've seen one place in Cambridge that offered 25 +/\- 5 as standard flexibility, buying unused holiday or selling more holiday as you needed it.

<comment><USER13> I have considered it, yes. I'm thinking of moving next year, having an EU passport certainly makes it easy.

What I really want, which is not what most companies want, is to be able to pick up a 6-8 month contract, then spend 3-6 months traveling and doing my own thing, and then picking up another contract. Unfortunately, I'm short a few years of experiences to do that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Hi, author of the post here. If you enjoyed this interview, want to become a part-time programmer (or even just work 40 hours a week), but still don't think you can do it, I wrote a book—The Programmer's Guide to a Sane Workweek—that will how help you:

1\. Become more valuable as an employee.

2\. Improve your negotiating skills.

3\. Negotiate the specifics of what you want from your job.

You can read more about it here: [https://codewithoutrules.com/saneworkweek/](https://codewithoutrules.com/saneworkweek/)

</comment><comment><USER16> I work from home, and 40 hours is a LOT - I don't remember when I've worked (for others) 40 hours per week last time.

Now, when I get to visit a client office, work there full-time for a week or two - it seems quite easy - a LOT of time is spent on quick talks, drinking coffee, eating snacks, etc... the actual work I do there is around 3-4 hours per day (but I get paid for 8) - and this is a small company, where everyone knows everyone and also it is transparent to what's everybody is doing or working during the day. And at 18:00 the office is closed no matter what you're doing - I remember I wanted to finish one "if" statement but I had to left at "if (...) { " \- continued the rest of the block next day. And I've actually found that to be quite nice - people really do have a life outside the work.

</comment><comment><USER17> I find it really interesting that he said only one interviewer turned him down flatly. In my experience there's been almost no willingness to negotiate - <USER2> messes with HR systems a lot is a frequent answer I get. Truthfully, I feel like if you're not at a consulting or contract gig you need to be very specialized to pull this off.

Most larger organizations (>50 technical staff) seem to avoid anyone that doesn't fit the mold.

<comment><USER18> I have the expectation that this works if you do it remotely. I imagine your other colleagues would find it weird or unfair if you were the first to leave office every day. Especially since they won't know you're getting paid less, unless you make a public announcement.

<comment><USER19> You are also likely still getting paid more. 80% of an offer for someone who can negotiate 20% of the year off is still likely to be more enticing pay than anyone working a tonne of free overtime.

<comment><USER18> Oh, definitely. I find the time off more valuable than the extra money.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Of course there's the other way (it's easier to get forgiveness than permission): do more work than expected in less than 40 hours in the office, and see if anyone notices. One of the most productive stretches of my career was spent in this mode.

<comment><USER21> Definitely this one, and this is what a lot of people do at bigger companies BTW. I know a couple of those people myself.

They "Work from home" on Mondays and/or Fridays and do very easy work, or commit//send stuff that they managed to do beforehand to generate some easy activities.

If you are performing and producing what you should, this shouldn't matter, but here we are anyways...

<comment><USER22> If you have a manager checking how much units of work you do, you should look for something else.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> It's such a shame that often the only/primary axis companies are used to negotiating over is pay. As a young person without children, I've been at a point where pay has been more than double the amount I spend (without even cutting down on spending, though I'm not a big spender), so free time is so much more valuable to me than pay is.

<comment><USER24> Turn your money into time like this guy did. [http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/01/13/the-shockingly- sim...](http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/01/13/the-shockingly-simple-math- behind-early-retirement/)

<comment><USER23> (After only scanning that article:) Unfortunately, my time _now_ is also more valuable to me than my time _later_. I'd much prefer working half weeks for 40 years over working full weeks for 20.

<comment><USER24> Once you understand and are persuaded of how everything hinges on your savings rate, this gives greater confidence to take sabbaticals, or explore other options including self-employment. Temporarily dropping your spend rate is both a useful exercise and a way to extend things even farther.

According to that article, if your savings rate is 50% of your take-home pay, you're done in 16 years. If your savings rate is 64%, you're done in 11 years. Both of these assume you're starting from zero.

I'm still working, but I've found the mindset change from that article (and many others on his site) to be extremely useful when choosing how to spend my time and money now. Think of it as just another tool in your toolkit for making the most of life, both now and in the future.

<comment><USER23> Right, I think that's absolutely the right approach: try to think carefully about what amount of money you really care about spending, and exchange the rest for free time (or at least: time spent the way you'd prefer to spend it) - now if you can, later if not.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> The best part-time gig I had was working 4 hours a workday remotely. I'd start at 5 and finish by 9, which left the rest of the day to do anything I wanted. I got as much done as the other (mobile) developer who worked full-time.

I find 40 hours a week to be tolerable if I'm working remotely. Unfortunately I have a 2.5 hour commute for my current gig, and it's sucking up all my personal time.

</comment><comment><USER26> This is what I'm doing right now; I work four days a week. It is amazing and I don't think I will go back to full-time unless there is an extraordinarily compelling opportunity (and that doesn't mean FANG).

One benefit is I'm able to shift my off-days to Fridays and the next Monday to get a 4 day weekend, every once in a while. For example, I have a friend overseas visiting me this weekend; and that's what I'm doing.

There are a couple others here who are on non-FT contracts, so it hasn't been that odd.

I'm curious how 75% time works. Would you work 4 days a week, with one of the days being a quarter shorter?

<comment><USER15> The person I interviewed in that link who has been doing this for 15 years has seen many different arrangements depending on the company's needs, HR rules, and the like:

1\. X hours per week, spread out however.

2\. Specific day off per week (so I guess you could do 1.5 days off?)

3\. Lots of extra guaranteed unpaid leave/vacation that he could use as he wanted.

I've done 35 hours a week, and I just have longer and shorter days, based on personal needs, when I have meetings, the weather, etc. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I worked part-time during almost all of my programming career, maybe 17 years. One job was 3 days a week, another 9 months out of 15, currently it's two weeks out of three.

If you want to do something like that, my only advice is to stubbornly refuse to work more. I always make that clear before the first interview.

</comment><comment><USER28> I like this idea, but for me the challenge with being a part-time employee is that from my experience you become a part-time 'person' in management's eyes and that can be difficult in terms of promotion.

With a previous manager when I worked as a Part-Time Engineer, I wrestled (internally and externally) with the fact that my contributions were viewed as less because of the total hours spent but the quality and complexity of the tasks I completed were no different to that of many of my peers that were promoted before I managed to receive the same recognition.

Going the other way (excess hours), in many teams that I have worked, I have observed that those with more outside commitments or interests seem to do less well in a team than those that choose to spend their time on work tasks outside of normal office hours no matter how effective/brilliant/capable they are.

I've not made up my mind if this is a small or massive problem. I guess if you REALLY want a promotion you will be prepared to put the hours in, but what about if you can't do this due to your given situation? (eg: a single parent?) What about burn out? What about people who are succeeding with dumb work practices?

Part-timing on a contract type position rather than salary would be a pretty good fit in my mind and I have seen this work well based on the huge grand total of two examples I have seen in 10 years of work.

</comment><comment><USER22> Going self-employed is always an option if you can't find an employer that is able to offer you a not-40-hour-a-week job, although often enough companies expect their consultants to also work an X amount of hours a week.

</comment><comment><USER29> I'm half-time (18.75 hours per week) but got my job by originally being full- time and putting in a flexible working request - which you have a legal right to do in the UK if you have children under a certain age and have worked there a certain period of time. No right to have flexible working granted but if they refuse the reason has to fall into one of a certain set of categories. Obviously not a good way to get a part-time from scratch though!

<comment><USER15> This is the most common way for people to get part-time work. Don't even need legal right to do so, though it helps, e.g. I know people who have done this in US where your rights as an employee are... not as good.

Here's why: you've been at company for a while. You know the code, you know the dependencies, you know the business logic, you know who to talk to, you know the mindset, you know the priorities. Replacing you is _expensive_. Even if they can hire someone with same skills on paper, there's a long and costly organization-specific ramp-up for most companies.

Thus, a good rational manager (not all of them are, obviously) will prefer to have you part-time than to have you leave. Which gives you negotiating leverage.

The longer you've been at a job, the more valuable you are, the better this goes. Even better if it's a tight hiring market, like now.

(I write about this at length in my book, Programmer's Guide to a Sane Workweek: [https://codewithoutrules.com/saneworkweek/.](https://codewithoutrules.com/saneworkweek/.))

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Hi guys

I think that this is actually my first posting in here. I have though been reading a lot of posts in here and love the forum. However, I do not know, if there are any "rules" about spam, please do tell me as I do not consider this as spam.

The reason why I choose to post now on this thread is, that this thread really leans up at what we are trying to do at Worklified, a startup trying to solve work-life balance for developers.

I have written a Medium post, goo.gl/89moUC, where I go into dept what Worklified is at this point.

If you are interested in the idea about a better work-life balance please do sign up here [https://www.worklified.com/](https://www.worklified.com/), so we can get a feeling about the interest for this subject.

Thanks

/Joachim

</comment><comment> a-saleh I have just signed a contract to do this. 32 hours a week. I will still need to hash with HR out how this will work with i.e. bank holidays and such, but I am looking forward to that :-)

</comment><comment><USER31> I really want to switch to part time work and this article is really motivating to take the leap. My skill set is in desktop support and I want to free up time for studying programming. Right now the job I have is fairly intense with a weekly ticket count regualarly reaching over 100 at times.

I'm nervous about asking my boss for less time at work, but at this point I'm prepared to quit just to get some of my sanity back.

</comment><comment><USER32> I've had luck seperating the hours of work needed to be completed and the amount of work needing to be completed. If you start to automate aspects of your job you can be more productive than most folks in the office while working a fraction of the time.

</comment><comment><USER33> So, one of our talented employees was telling me that he asked to be switched from fulltime to parttime, the previous company let him switch but kept the compensation fulltime. He was moved remote to not cause resentment among existing employees. Guess who wants to see others leaving early that too with full compensation? New VP came and axed his position after 6 months.</comment>


Blockchain explained - <AUTHOR> https://graphics.reuters.com/TECHNOLOGY-BLOCKCHAIN/010070P11GN/index.html <comment><AUTHOR> This is a pretty solid non-technical conceptual primer for lay audiences. It provides enough detail to be useful, and I've found it helpful when going beyond describing a blockchain as "triple entry accounting" or "a slow database for people who don't trust each other".</comment>