Top developers can have a life outside coding - <AUTHOR> http://www.belenalbeza.com/top-developers-can-have-a-life-outside-coding/ <comment><USER2> A lot of comments are bringing up top athletes as a counterexample, which leads me to believe they don't understand what a high-level training regimen is actually like. I have a relatively unique persepective on this[1], so I thought I'd clarify a few things.

Any sport is both mentally and physically exhausting, and it only gets more strenuous as you reach the higher levels. Nobody can keep this up all day, every day, for their entire working life; people who try flame out early and don't make it much of anywhere.

Instead, the goal of the top players is to train as much as possible today without sacrificing their ability to continue training tomorrow. Usually, this is less time than an office job requires (but more strenuous). The rest of their time is spent in "recovery," which basically means whatever they want to do as long as it's not too taxing.

The defining feature isn't spending their entire life on the sport, it's giving it _priority_ : the rest of their life is scheduled around their training needs instead of scheduling training around their life.

[1] I've been on sabbatical for two months at a tennis academy; some of the kids here will undoubtedly make it all the way to the pro circuit.

<comment><USER3> I like the idea of applying less time, but more strenuous effort, towards programming, but how does someone do this?

<comment><USER4> I started five things a few years back and have had great results:

\- I set up an email filter where if I'm _not_ on the TO line, it skips my inbox for another folder. I only read that folder twice a day. If it's important, they'll write to me directly.

\- I (almost) never accept a meeting with less than 2 hours notice. The exceptions are rare and far between.. and usually come down to a few legitimate emergencies. Poor planning is not an emergency.

\- I never accept a meeting without an agenda. It doesn't need to be detailed but "I'd like to chat about X, Y, and Z" gives me the opportunity to prioritize, reject, or get you to someone more appropriate.

\- I only answer my phone when I'm expecting a call. If you and I have a call planned, I will be there and respect your time by closing email, etc. If you're just calling me to catch up, I'll get back to you on my schedule.

\- My phone & computer never enter the bedroom. You are welcome to email, slack, DM, etc me at 2am but you should assume I won't see it until the next morning.

Limit your distractions, take control of your time, and your work will become more effective _and_ you'll feel better about what you accomplish.

<comment><USER5> I never normally take advice about email habits, but that simple filter is a good one. I already have ~100 filters that move things and mark-as-read useless things - and that works for me - but that one addition might well keep the inbox (which is basically my task list) cleaner.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I think this article is detached from reality.

Most people who contribute to OS are on low income, unemployed or students. Top developers in banks and startups dont have time for that, or are forbidden by their company.

Being "top developer" is one of the most family friendly jobs that ever existed. You can work remotely at your own time. I quit cubicle and started working on opensource because I had family.

> _you might develop a mental illness, like depression,_

Many people in IT are a bit weird. Again its one of the most friendly jobs that exists. Developer does not even have to speak to people, all can be done via email.

> _20-year-old white guys with no responsibilities and /or with enough income > to "buy" more free time_

Good old racism and man hate is doing just fine.

<comment><USER7> Despite rumours to the contrary... remote working is still a _very_ small minority of coding work.

The overwhelming majority of coding work (at whatever level, top or bottom) is carried out 9-5 in offices.

Also "top developer" != "open source developer".

<comment><USER8> Yep! It angries me that I always have to fight for remote work, but it is not a problem for the teams down the corridor that just outsourced the work somewhere in this universe.

<comment><USER9> IME, outsourcing works because you get (most) management onus placed on the outsourcer. Remote workers with in-office management doesn't feature that.

<comment><USER8> Having been part of outsourced projects since 2008,I would say that is a nice theory.

You require the same amount of in-office management.

Every time that management decided as you say, they got something else as delivery.

<comment><USER10> So true. In fact, it can be even worse managing an outsourcer style vendor, since the natural industry pressures lead to outsourcers being very incentivized to find the very minimum possible effort they can spend on a client project without losing the contract.

As a result, getting more effort out of an outsourcer may feel as annoying as getting your insurance company to approve your claim -- their entire company culture/process has evolved and/or been designed to prevent this.

By contrast, individual employees (remote or otherwise) might get lazy or burnt out or have personal problems or something, but few of them are actually Wally from Dilbert, using all their available effort to avoid having to make any effort

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The tragedy is that the blog post, and the resulting commentary here, are about identity, when the heart of the topic the author is _really_ talking about (if you actually RTFA) is class/capital. This tragic misdirection is the defining problem of our time.

The people who are working, be it white collar "tech" employee or manufacturing/service worker are those either who are forced to do so because they will starve if they don't, or, in our industry (and perhaps social/medial work), the monastic types who write Free Software (or similar) because it is the morally correct thing to do. To say that it's because they are white or young or male (or even that this kind or service is a privilege and not a moral imperative) is the kind of misguided, thinly-veiled class erasure that the predominant strain of big-C Capitalism is currently benefiting from.

Don't let people stereotype you. If you want improve your standing in the labour market, ORGANIZE, don't stereotype. Neoliberal capitalists are taking advantage of young people and poor people. Don't let them! If we play our cards right, they won't for much longer anyway! But please keep in mind that this kind of "ingroup/outgroup" mentality is a divisive thought pattern that deliberately works to their advantage! It has become common and tedious for a deliberate reason!

Your heart is in the right place. All workplaces mistreat you. Blame your bosses, not your co-workers!

<comment><USER12> The irony of your communist commentary is not lost on me, you say we shouldn't in/out group while you're in/out grouping people in bosses vs workers.

I'm a worker and on my last position I was at an outsourcing firm that while pretending to care about its employees underpayed us while overcharging their clients, whenever we wanted to get a raise the goalposts of what was necessary were moved so it wasn't achievable and the overwork was masked behind a "we care about quality" attitude. Given all of this understandably we had a very high burn rate for devs.

I decided to grow up and begin to figure out how to do my own selling so I can charge what I want, work on the projects that I want and the hours that I want. I don't blame "Neoliberal capitalists" for my own failures, it's self- defeating and childish to not take control over your own destiny.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> > Who can afford to keep coding after an 8-hour work day of coding? Who > doesn't get harassed in the open-source community? 20-year-old white guys > with no responsibilities

Yeah, stopped reading at this point. Your "intersectional social justice theory" is just casual sexism and racism to me.

<comment><USER14> Uhuh. Because the author didn't list half a dozen examples you cast them as sexist and racist. Bravo. We need more people like you in society!

<comment><USER15> The point is that the author should have elaborated on the circumstances that are required to be able to do that, rather than generalizing based on gender or race.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I am a recruiter and always ask this question - "Is programming just a job for you to get the bills paid, or do you have a broader interest?"

The thing to understand, and what the author of this post has wrong, is that I am not looking to hear about how much TIME a developer spends on programming. I am wanting to hear the STORY of their personal interest. Because the truth is that if software development is a personal interest to you, then you will find a way to pursue that interest, within the time that you have. You'll find a nook or a cranny in which to dig about learning things and finding out new stuff - maybe for 30 minutes before you go to sleep, or on the train, or somewhere.

The point is that employers want people who are INTERESTED - they are not necessarily looking for people who spend all available personal time pursuing an interest in software development.

And I can tell you with certainty that if you claim to have a person interest in software development but you cannot find any time outside work to pursue that interest, then you are lying. Perhaps to both yourself and the recruiter, but certainly you are lying. If you have a personal interest then you are DRIVEN to pursue that interest. If you claim a personal interest but also say "I'm just too busy these days to do anything.", then you have failed to admit that in fact you do not have a personl interest, you just go to work to do your job and go home.

So no, recruiters - at least this recruiter - are not looking for people who spend all non work time pursuing an interest in software, but are looking for people who can effectively articulate their passion and can explain how they DO fit it into their life.

Talk to me, engage me in a conversation, explain in some depth the things that you do find interesting. This has nothing to do with spending hour up endless hour writing code, it has to do with connecting directly to your personal interest, to the thinking that you have done.

<comment><USER17> So, is recruiting a passion for you? Did you find yourself driven to do it whatever the cost? What personal recruiting projects have you done recently that you're proud of? Do you connect your recruiting with a personal interest? What kind of recruiting do you do outside of work hours?

I would implore you to re-read what you wrote but instead of making it about software engineering make it about recruiting. Then tell me that it's not a double standard.

<comment><USER18> He's reading and commenting on a Hacker News post about jobs on the weekend. Seems like that answers at least part of your question.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I propose the Daenerys Targaryen test.

If you know who Daenerys Targaryen is, you do not have "no time." You have priorities which included "I wish to know who Daenerys Targaryen is." No judgement! I do, too! But if you know who Daenerys Targaryen is _and_ you're dissatisfied with your career growth, you should attempt to consciously be aware of the fact that you can choose different things in the future.

It takes minutes to set up a web presence as a software developer. It takes 1~3 hours to stick a flag in the Internet about one topic. Having one flag stuck in the Internet beats zero flags, _by a lot_. You can keep doing this as you have time available. (Think less "submit bug fixes to OSS projects" and more "write an essay which shall endure regarding a topic which is professionally relevant to you." To pick one of the _hundreds_ of things in this genre produced by an HN member, see [https://www.chrisstucchio.com/blog/2012/hft_apology.html](https://www.chrisstucchio.com/blog/2012/hft_apology.html) where HN's own yummyfajitas explains, in a useful and citable fashion, how order books work. You almost certainly know one topic well enough to post something which clears that bar of utility on any given day.)

You could also, I don't know, invent Rails, but _you do not have to invent Rails to get career benefits out of working publicly_.

After you have a flag stuck in the Internet, there are a variety of ways to get value out of it.

The simplest one is using it as a conversation piece when you're cold-opening conversations with folks who are relevant to your career. For example, if you've decided to stick a flag into (picking a random example) ActiveRecord optimization, and you're attempting to talk your way into a job interview with a Rails shop, "I see you're a Rails shop. I would like to talk to you about potential opportunities at your company." is _substantially_ improved by "Hiya, I see you're a Rails shop. I wrote a detailed guide to ActiveRecord optimization (see here). I would like to talk to you about potential opportunities at your company."

Another one -- also not hard! -- is to put a call-to-action at the bottom of the essay saying "If you're reading this, it is probably because you are interested in ActiveRecord optimization. So am I! If you've got hard problems with ActiveRecord optimization I would love to help you solve them. We should chat; here's my email. "

<comment><USER20> > I propose the Daenerys Targaryen test. If you know who Daenerys Targaryen > is, you do not have "no time." You have priorities which included "I wish to > know who Daenerys Targaryen is." No judgement! I do, too! But if you know > who Daenerys Targaryen is and you're dissatisfied with your career growth, > you should attempt to consciously be aware of the fact that you can choose > different things in the future.

I don't agree. I watch Game of Thrones in the late evening hours where I'm reduced to a vegetable by a whole day of working/coding. I doubt I could squeeze more effective work hours into my schedule (maybe for a couple weeks, but not over a long term).

<comment><USER21> It seems that professional programmers have little understanding about the limits of human endurance in skilled labor. Junior doctors work 100 hour weeks and 36 hour shifts so busy they often don't have time to visit the bathroom. It may slightly harm your productivity by working more (almost certainly will) but to say you can't do anything on your own time except for watching Game of Thrones is overly pessimistic.

<comment><USER20> The doctor's job is not exactly equivalent. After a day of programming, I feel I could still put in a couple hours of light manual labor or say drive for Uber, but I'm unable to focus intensely any longer. Doctors probably use a much greater variety of skills (and not just intense focus on 100% abstract problems for 8 hours), hence I think their resources deplete slower.

I know that when I've worked at jobs which weren't all about focusing on abstract problems (such as an analyst or a consultant or a project manager), I could definitely put in more hours.

EDIT: Also, air traffic controllers (a job that I feel is more similar to programming than being a doctor) are restricted by law to work no more than 6 hours. From what they say, after their shift is done, their brain is often completely fried.

<comment><USER22> Do you really focus intensely for several hours at a time during a typical workday? What industry/domain are you working in? In my experience, most software jobs mix bits of intense abstract reasoning, distributed throughout the day, with an at-least-equal amount of tedious gruntwork or meetings.

<comment><USER20> For jobs, I do rather typical Java/Scala/BigData development. I agree that the there's a bit of mindless tediousness in the jobs, although a lot of it can eventually be automated.

However, IMO, when working on a large code base which you didn't author (so, pretty much the most typical case), if you want to do a good job - i.e. think through potential consequences of your changes, weight the pros and cons of alternative approaches etc. - you still need a ton of cognitive resources.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Why are we making a special case for software developers, on points we would agree on in other professions?

Let's say you're making a movie, and you're hiring your music composer. Both candidates have nearly identical CVs/experience/recommandations. \- Candidate 'A' says "I'm only doing this for money, I can't show you any of my work because of NDAs". \- Candidate 'B' says "I spend a lot of time composing in my freetime, here's a link to my soundcloud page". Which one are you going to hire?

<comment><USER24> Do you ask your doctor if he does charity work?

I'd also think musician NDAs are in place while the project is not out, while developer one are usually longer

<comment><USER25> No, but on the other hand, do you think Jordan became what he became just by merely showing up for team training every day?

<comment> yoz-y There is a world of difference between "showing up for training" and "not having life outside basketball"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I'd make a stronger assertion: top developers _do_ have a life outside coding.

My experience is that people who stay until 9 writing code because they're "passionate" write a lot of code and implement a lot of features for a while, but the quality of the code is low because they're always tired when writing it. And after a year or so, a combination of burnout and the unmaintainability of their code forces them to quit, leaving the next group of programmers with something truly horrible.

If that's your definition of "top developer" you can have all of them.

IMHO, a top developer is someone who can produce a quality product from inception to completion, which _requires_ being well-rested, taking care of their own needs, and having enough social life to be able to make their code decisions in their social context (because every program runs in a social context).

<comment><USER27> Further, I'd say most of the evidence indicates this. A sampling of it follows. We know regular sleep improves quality of life and thinking. We also know many people who don't have it think that's not true but prove otherwise in tests. ;) Quiet office vs cubicle research long ago showed being able to focus with minimal interruptions improved productivity. A person with friends and family trying to code nonstop will be closer to cubicle vs someone who does it less but allocates time to not be bothered. Finally, there's also data from experiments like Fagan's Inspection Process, Mill's Cleanroom, and Altran/Praxis' Correct-by-Construction that teams of smart people on regular schedule using the right methods and tools produce the highest quality software you can get.

So, evidence is vastly in favor of a more moderate approach to developing software in one's free time. Even for a person who practically lives on a computer. The brain needs novel experiences and breaks from things. Just works better that way as connecting new dots is the basis for creativity. Gotta feed it more dots. :)

<comment><USER28> I work from home whereas before I worked in an open plan office. As a developer. I do less hours now at home, but I only work the productive hours. If I'm not 'feeling it' I do something else, I don't have to sit there looking like I'm working, theres no-one watching me and judging me. I don't sit there until I get bored in that state to the extent I'll churn out code with a fuzzy head and so create inefficient inelegant code.

If coding is all you do, I guarantee you're writing bad code.

An hour when I'm in the zone is worth 2 days when Im not. If it takes me a day of taking a break to get into the zone its a net gain.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> There's a certain sense of irony that we're all here disagreeing on a Saturday.

<comment><USER30> Hahahaha. Should we be coding, reading about code, or doing fun non work stuff? Voting for the latter. Thanks for the wake up!

<comment><USER31> Coding (or problem solving) IS the fun part for me. Stealing the idea from a Ray Lewis quote: I get paid to deal with everything else at work. The coding I do for free.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I'm from China, where hard-working with a lot of overtime work is advocated in almost every internet-related company. Developer here do 996 the whole year in and out (for those of you who don't know the concept of 996, it means working from 9 in the morning to 9 in the late for 6 days a week in the office. But sadly, usually, a lot of the developers can only leave the office after 10 or 11 at night). Everyone knows this is bad for improvement and health, but company owners keep pushing everyone with salary and punishment, along with moral pressure, that only fighting this way, the company can survive in the big race in almost every industry area. For sure a lot of great things are happening in China, but I see most of them are based on bloodless and cruel company operation decisions and habits.

Under this circumstances, I think hobby, family and every other thing that's not related to work is humanly possible. I curse the ones who started this for a long time in hell.

<comment><USER33> > Everyone knows this is bad for improvement and health, but company owners > keep pushing everyone with salary and punishment, along with moral pressure, > that only fighting this way, the company can survive in the big race in > almost every industry area.

Do they do any research to prove 996 is really effective? I have a hard time imagining how one could stay productive for long in such working mode.

Sometimes I have some hard deadlines (like a lot of other developers I guess) that requires to work 10-12 hours/day to get things done in time, but that usually lasts for a week, maybe two. And it's _already_ very exhausting. I'm wondering how exhausting it could be to work in such mode all the time...

<comment><USER32> Because most of the Chinese company work in this pattern, I don't think a very pervasive research can be done and there is none I know that exists.

I think it works when you are copying things with lots of entry level developers at low cost, like most companies do. You know, they will find something that's working great in America and Europe and copy the whole thing very fast and launch new ones. This is how you guys have Google, we have Baidu; you have Uber, we have Didi; you have Periscope, we have over 100 mobile video live apps, etc.. But if you are inventing things, this won't work at all. I think this is one of the major reason why we lack of innovative products all these years.

This is a very common practice throughout the industry since about 2-3 years ago, and it's a very sad story every time I tell it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> It's not that all good developers code as a hobby. A lot of them do, but most importantly almost no _terrible_ developers code as a hobby.

Recruiting developers isn't about finding ninjas so much as it is about avoiding the terrible developers. A nice github stat doesn't guarantee you are a good developer but it (almost) guarantees you don't suck.

I completely understand asking potential hires for something they did out of pure curiosity. For me personally I'd likely have to point at something I made long ago before the kids ate my spare time but I _can_ talk passionately about a hobby project, and I use that as an indicator when recruiting.

<comment><USER35> This does not match my experience. I've interview many candidates with github profiles that looked active who couldn't code their way out of a wet paper bag.

What's worse is by reading their code on github, I will already form an opinion (sometimes very negative) before I even meet the person!

I've especially noticed that these developer bootcamps that are rising in popularity produce a lot of github cruft.

<comment><USER34> You mean they have a "fake" history of github activity? Or just a lot of "activity" but nothing really substantial?

Just having an "active" profile can be achieved by cloning a few repos and writing a few feature requests.

You'd have to read the contents of their history of course, code and communication.

Seeing how they reason about code in issue discussions or pull requests is valuable, even more so than reading the actual code.

You make a good point about negative preconceptions from seeing someone's code. I suppose it's better (or at least no worse) than the negative opinion we may form from seeing someone's grades or previous employer.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I think this write-up might be more successful if it wasn't so sexist and racist. After reading lines like this...

"Who can afford to keep coding after an 8-hour work day of coding? Who doesn't get harassed in the open-source community? 20-year-old white guys with no responsibilities and/or with enough income to "buy" more free time (i.e: nannies, cleaners, good healthcare, a car to commute, etc.)."

I'd be led to believe that anyone contributing code, esp significant amount, to open-source projects after their day job is: white, male, upper-middle class, has no family, has no love for any family they have, and/or has no life after code. Whereas, I've read enough write-ups from OSS contributors to know they come in all kinds of personal circumstances. Plenty are quite committed to their families with OSS project of choice a hobby or passion. Women and non-whites stay a minority in tech and science in general but still significant contributions from them.

I disregarded the harassment claim entirely, despite plausibility, after reading a line that slanders and misrepresents all kinds of contributors to push author's political beliefs that basically hate races and genders dominant in American and European software. I mean, if the writer regularly posts this stuff, then it's perfectly reasonable for others on projects to throw vitriole back to get the person to stop doing it or just leave.

re the actual advice. The stuff below that are all good recommendations. Especially limiting oneself to certain number of hours on a specific project. I'd further say limit yourself to one project at a time. Also, it can help to limit time spent on things like Hacker News, Youtube, gaming. Things that are addictive and can take up more time than you expect. Put a hard limit on how long you'll spend on anything like that. Think about the limit itself, too.

</comment><comment><USER36> I feel that there is a huge gap between this writing and my daily experience as a developer. I've been thanked for my work and I'm understood to be a valuable asset for my employer in my role as a software engineer - and never I've been required to have extracurricular development to facilitate my career progress.

Maybe the fact that my work has fairly deep domain knowledge requirements and I know my stuff pretty well puts me in this category - but I don't know.

I _like_ coding in my free time as a way to explore subjects though, so I do this anyway (but nothing that could be considered good _software engineering_ , good engineering is grueling work while fast prototyping is fun.)

<comment><USER37> Not everyone has the same experience, basically. You're lucky to have such a job. Similarly, I'm lucky to have a job where I get to work on open source directly. I'll probably still do random fun coding stuff in part of my free time. Not everyone is that lucky; and I've heard plenty of stories from folks in that category.

But yeah, what she's talking about is not _everyone_ 's experience, fortunately :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Something many businesses seem to forget is that if you want a developer to be the technical face of your business then they need to be able to write great code, but they also need to be able to chat to people at networking events, make small talk with clients, explain things in non-technical ways to investors, and so on. Employing people who have interests outside of coding _really_ helps with that.

Likewise, if you're a developer who has ambitions of being a CEO, or an evangelist, or a team lead, then you need to be able to talk to people who aren't developers about things that aren't development, and that means having interests outside of code.

<comment><USER39> You are referring to a spokesman or entrepeneur. A good developer is not necessarily those.

<comment> UK-AL But if your a cto, you often are spokeperson and a developer at the same time.

That's what he's saying

<comment><USER39> "Top developer" doesn't necessarily mean top in terms of hierarchy in a company, it can mean top in terms of productivity.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> The main reason I see for "working after work" is actually for "learning after work". While companies might try their best to invest in your professional development - in the end your career is your own responsibility.

While you might have to work hard to convince your employers to let you move from part of the stack to another, no one can dictate what your side projects are except yourself.

Working after work is what "saves" a programmer's resume from listing "20 years in <obsolete language> using <obsolete API> until the company I worked at for 20 years shut down".

<comment><USER41> A good job should have you using <modern language> with <modern frameworks> for <efficient code> that makes you <feel like a wizard> But you have to look for jobs like that. Jobs that stifle and make you want to code things after work because the work coding environment is so poor, are jobs that I watch out for now. I've been in the situation you describe before. Never again will I do grunt work.

<comment><USER40> True, but: A. A good job today might not be A good job in another 3 years. Companies aren't quick to dump their existing code just so they can see "we now use <modern language> and <modern framework">.

B. very often <good job> expects you to already be experienced with <modern language> and <modern frameworks>. By learning at home at your own spare time, you reduce the risk and ramp up time for them, making yourself a more desirable candidate.

Try working on make files for a while. You'll miss grunt :D

<comment><USER41> Hah, I didn't mean the "grunt" buildtool for node. I meant dumb trivial repetitive work. I am understanding of legacy code. But at the same time, a good job will understand the pain of inefficiency and dull codebases have on a programmer. And so, someone shouldn't have to _just_ work on that shit all the time, they should be able to mix the burden with other developers in some kind of time ratio.

For B) yes, of course. But once you get your first job, if you keep going and have good workplaces, you shouldn't need to really do much at home.

I'm not trying to knock you, just wanted to put the warning out there for everyone else, because I've shot myself in the foot by joining gigs where a load of shit was dumped on me, and that was the main event. Fuck jobs where the main event is working on something totally unpleasant. No, I'm not a diva and understand that getting paid is to offset that - but still, some workplaces just don't have the understanding that you can't have someone work on sludge 24/7 and not expect them to become bitter.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Here's the thing that this blog post is missing: It's a marketplace with competition. Yes, ideally, you shouldn't work outside work and spend all your free time doing other things, and there should be no world hunger. But it doesn't work that way.

If I don't keep up to date and keep learning new things, someone else will (and the idea that this person is 20, white, male, and single seems a little racist and sexist to me). That other person will go on to do more stuff than I do if I don't keep up. That person will get compensated by the market for doing so by promotions, raises, not getting down-sized, or perhaps though success when starting their own company.

Yes, it's f __* up that a company will expect this out of every single developer and that shouldn 't be the case. But, when I need to fire someone because I didn't get as much in my B round as I thought I would, you'd be crazy to fire the guy who is as good of an employee AND invests in his skill set.

Personally, I love programming and do a lot of it outside of work because I really like doing it. Yes, there are a lot of biases in our industry, but often times it's pretty clear who the best programmers are and often times it's the one who have put in the hours. Nothing else. So yeah, don't code outside of work. You should definitely do that, but don't be surprised when your skill and your career suffer for it.

<comment><USER43> Exactly. And time _invested_ in developing your skills, like any other education is a real investment. It accumulates over time and has real value down the road. A developer who spends a couple hours a day coding for fun is at an advantage over the others, but by the time he's been doing that for 10 years he/she will be on a completely different level to someone who hasn't.

As another example, drinking, smoking marijuana, vegging out in front of the TV, insert whatever "vice" you want here that wastes time/energy, might not hurt you much every now and then - but to excess it's going to accumulate into a serious competitive disadvantage overtime.

There are hard tradeoffs to be made between work-life balance and career success - and the results of those tradeoffs don't really become very obvious for a long time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> It's great that the author is able to finish his pet projects in 20 hours if he sets a deadline. I'm not able to finish in that time frame for anything that I'm interested in doing as a pet project.

<comment><USER37> (the author is a she, I think)

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> I've known quite a few "24/7" programmers, but the smartest I've ever met worked a 4 day week so he could spend more time with his family. He was naturally exceptional though, stood out even in a company filled with people with Cambridge 1st-class degrees.

Again this is making me think I should write my piece on programming while suffering chronic fatigue.

<comment><USER46> I would definitely love to read that. I have a friend that has lime disease/chronic fatigue and I often wonder how they get stuff done. It's hard enough for me to work hard with a normal regiment. I think your story would be inspiring.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> "expecting employees to keep up with new technologies, frameworks and languages entirely on their own"

You're looking at this entirely the wrong way. You shouldn't expect your employer to spend thousands paying to train you. If you need those skills, or if they'd be useful to you, then it's in your best interests to learn them. Perhaps things are different if you're digging holes for a living but IT is currently about constant change and if you don't keep up then you're not as much use as people who do.

Your employer doesn't care how you earn your living, and they don't care who does their work for them. They just want it done. If someone else can do it better than you, you're out.

Frankly, though, you should want to keep up. If I were interviewing I'd be more interested in someone who was interested in development, not someone who's going to want to just sit there and wait for a personal, pre-paid invite to an overpriced training course.

</comment><comment><USER48> You can be hired into a position in an arbitrary hierarchy by having a life outside of coding. You can be popular while having a life outside of coding, or have something you wrote become popular. If that's what you mean by "top developer", then yes, I completely agree.

If you mean "the skill of actually programming", then no, that's absurd.

Would you tell someone they can be a "top sports player", if they have a life outside of playing that sport? A world class chef who doesn't give themselves over to cooking? Anything that actually involves skill? A musician? A painter?

Because if that's the case, then no. I'm sorry, you're battling against reality. There's a little thing called opportunity cost, and whether we like it or not, how far you can walk down a particular skill-set is DIRECTLY RELATED to how much time and work you put into it.

What's perhaps a better message is both: a) employers, you aren't actually hiring superstar coders, and if you want to, you'll either pay for it, or better make your workplace the kind that attracts them. And b) developers, you're probably not going to be the best in the world at what you're doing...and you know what...at least from a personal psychology perspective...that's ok.

Now from an economic perspective, if you're worried that you're not going to be able to hold down a well paying job because they demand too much...well, there you've either got a problem with reality (skills take a long time and hard work an practice to build), or the economic system, cause maybe there's a lot of desperate people out there who can code for peanuts and will take shitty conditions...and capital is being amassed into fewer and fewer hands and increasingly has no interest in paying to upskill you or whether you can have a reasonable life outside of work. :P

<comment><USER49> I think people are reading too much into the word "top," which appears nowhere outside the headline. Variants on the phrase "good developer" appear several times, and should perhaps be the focus; "top" may have been a poor choice of words, but I think the intent is clear on a charitable reading.

<comment><USER48> And since, re-reading my comments doesn't make it as clear as I'd prefer, I'd like to reiterate that this doesn't mean that I think that there's something RIGHT about the expectation that you give your life over to your job or to one particular skill/facet of life. Skills and knowledge aren't even neatly devolved into subject matter areas as though reality and life is just filled with fantastical university faculties that you have to choose between.

I view there being two issues here as separate phenomenon.

You probably won't be a top coder if you're not willing to put more effort in than is available at work or during an 8 hour day: if not just because the modern workplace isn't as a whole very conducive to properly upskilling its workforce, and because there's a whole lot of people out there who are willing to put in more time, money, and effort than just those provided by full time jobs to study/implement their skills.

To be honest, I don't even think most companies even have a place for, or even necessarily WANT top coders.

On the other hand, there's this issue of should companies have an expectation that you're putting in extra work/hours to get a job/get ahead. And that's a big complex issue there that I think has to do more with society/culture/economics than whether you're a top/good coder at all.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> This blog post is obviously born out of frustration. I'd be interested in learning the circumstances.

At a certain stage in life it's indeed frustrating that employers try to get more working hours out of you than they are paying for, and younger professionals seem to be more willing and able to. I'd like to offer OP the view that these places aren't generally good places to work anyway.

Don't agree with some other commentors who lightly throw big words like racism around.

</comment><comment><USER25> I disagree. If you want to be the best and be highly successful, then you have to work hard. If you don't, someone else will.

There are plenty of companies and positions where you can have a great work/life balance, but if you want to be the best, just as in everything else in life, you have to work harder than everybody else.

<comment><USER51> I take great pride in the quality of my work. That's exactly why I stop working when I go home. That's why I demand an excellent work-life balance from my employers.

If what being "the best" gets you is no life outside of work, then I'd rather be bad at my craft and retain the ability to pursue multiple interests.

<comment><USER25> Just to clarify that I didn't imply that being good at your job and having a life are mutually exclusive.

What I meant is that if you want to be the best in your field or you want your startup to succeed, then you do have to sacrifice some other things.

(The article mentioned "Top", not just good)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> > _We, as an industry, are going to a dangerous place when we don 't just > expect, but require people to keep working after work._

For what values of 'industry'? I mean, I totally agree that if this is your local view then you are in a bad place but IME this is far from universal.

<comment><USER8> Sadly the IT fashion industry tends to follow SV, like other industries follow Paris, Berlin and Mailand.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> I used to code 24/7, and have "startup" side projects back in college, but 8 years later, and I like having a life outside of work. It also makes me fresher and more motivated when I come to work.

<comment><USER41> Seems to be a trend that those who have been programming for years actually program more sparingly. I was similar. Programming now is more of a tool than a burning passion. "I am programmer, destroyer of worlds", not "I am programmer, I make random shit all the time, at the cost of being a well rounded person"

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> Yeah it's absurd. When I talk about this with my friends in other professions they hardly believe it. None of the lawyers or editors consider writing open source contracts or publishing free magazines in their free time. And even if they do something like this - there was never a company that EXPECTED that at an interview. The last interviews I had there were more questions about mini pet projects than about my 10 years professional experience or my PhD thesis.

Of course, when I was 15 I loved to program all my free time after school. Now I have wife, daughter, dog and being in front of a screen all day makes me very uncomfortable, no matter how much I like the subject.

I am now much more comfortable with "researchy" positions - in all those interviews, no one ever asked me about my github profile or if I like to "learn" the flavour of the day web framework in my free time (no, I don't...).

</comment><comment><USER39> "Top developer" is really subjective and depends how to score them. AI? bioinformatics? embedded programming? web applications (frontend, backend)? compiler design? graphics rendering? simulations? games? Then, top at which level... in your company? in your city? in your country? in the world?...

</comment><comment><USER55> Weird article. Every top company I've heard of is more into balanced normal people than extreme people. Perhaps made more sense 20 years ago when I started getting into computer science and you saw recruitment adds eith topic like "Do you hate talking to people?"

</comment><comment><USER56> The author seems to be very prejudiced against people who make different choices or are different demographic than them:

>>One could think that having kids or building a family is a choice. Even assuming this is true (it really isn't)

I am not one to take offense easily so I will just say this is plain stupid. I have chosen to not have kids nor build a family. It was something I was thinking about for many years and decided I will be happier that way. Most of my friends have chosen otherwise and I suspect most of them will be happier with their choices. How it's not a choice I don't know, it's one of the most ignorant things I've read recently.

>>Neglecting your partner and kids in order to build a pet project? Seriously? Is a pet project more valuable than seeing your kids grow or sharing your life with people you love?

It isn't. It doesn't change the fact though that people who don't value those things and spend more time coding/learning/experimenting are going to be better at programming with all other factors staying equal.

>>Destroying your social life, abandoning all your hobbies, quitting working out just to contribute to open-source? Will this make you happy in the long term?

No, it will make you not as good as people who do that though. (assuming they are equally disciplined and organized)

>>So what can we do?

Understand that you will not be elite and anything you do in life unless you dedicate your whole life to it. That's how it is. You don't need to be at the top to be very good, make tons of money, have fulfilling career and contribute a lot to projects you work on. There will always be people better and more productive than you because they have chosen to sacrifice other things you are mentioning like children, families, social life etc.

There are two different goals:

1)lead a happy balanced life

2)be one of the best at something

You can't have both, have some respect for people who has chosen differently than you. There is no need to throw insults like:

>>Who can afford to keep coding after an 8-hour work day of coding? Who doesn't get harassed in the open-source community? 20-year-old white guys with no responsibilities and/or with enough income to "buy" more free time (i.e: nannies, cleaners, good healthcare, a car to commute, etc.).

Or you know, people who prioritize contributing to open source over for example having kids. Have some respect, the world is a better place because of them.

I guess next time there will be complaining how you can't be an elite basketball player without dedicating your life to basketball or elite musician without practicing for hours to no end.

<comment><USER57> > I am not one to take offense easily so I will just say this is plain stupid. > I have chosen to not have kids nor build a family. It was something I was > thinking about for many years and decided I will happier that way. Most of > my friends have chosen otherwise and I suspect most of them will be happier > with their choices. How it's not a choice I don't know, it's one of the most > ignorant things I've read recently.

Yep, it is weird to me why people tell me they have no choice to have kids; just 'do it'. You can reason about it and decide not to but 15 years after deciding we still get strange looks or whenever I am nice to a kid people still say: ahhh you see!? So I see that people who are pressured still do while really not into it however it is a choice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> "One could think that having kids or building a family is a choice. Even assuming this is true (it really isn't)"

What? Of course it's a choice.

And I'm sorry but, you can choose to leave programming at the office and be a perfectly good programmer but if you don't love it so much that you do it for fun as well then you are not going to be a master programmer. Just like a classical violinist who only practices a few hours a day is probably not going to be a virtuoso.

<comment><USER35> The best software engineer I know doesn't hold a degree in the sciences, has a family with 4 children, and spends little to no time out of the office writing code.

I don't know if I agree with your assertion. There is more to life than programming, and I think, if anything, you need some of that to become a great programmer.

<comment><USER58> Maybe the best programmer you know is not that great. I'm not disputing that you can have a life and be a good programmer. You must have a deeper level of commitment to be an outstanding programmer.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> At a certain point in any endeavor, you hit a point of diminishing returns. At that point, success becomes less about the logistics of getting enough practice in and more about the broader world. All arts exist in the broader world around them, programming even more so than most. You need to learn about that world.

Just like with the arts, a great great many things can be likened to code. Anything else you learn how to do well will also make you a better coder.

</comment><comment><USER60> The author talks about open source as if someone is selflessly contributing their spare time for no real reason. Who does that? Whenever I work on open source, it's because I need something personally, and it doesn't exist unless I create it. It's like criticizing someone for spending all week at work, and then mowing their lawn or painting their house on a saturday. (Although I find programming to be 100x more fun.) If it's not fun, you're not getting paid, you're not doing it for yourself, then you really don't need do it. Unless you're doing it for clout or your portfolio, I guess.

</comment><comment><USER61> This article is a bit lopsided. I work for 8 hours and I work on open source projects when I have the time. This means that it is no more than 5-6 hours per week on average. I don't feel that I don't have a life after spending a Saturday morning with some OSS contribution. Life is not black and white. If you contribute or have your own projects you don't have to work on them all day. Several hours per week will quickly add up! The same stands for education. I am very concerned by work-life balance and few hours per week is not much. I can also read about the trends or some tech book when I travel or commute.

</comment><comment><USER62> I started my own company 5 years ago to have a life outside of coding.

The business depends on code, but I can choose when to go on vacation and work from home or at the office when I need to.

It also helps that my wife runs the company with me.

I finally made the decision to quit when my last boss called an emergency meeting on new years eve over webex, because she wanted to go to a party and also get our product released. She also is the one that caused our product to be delayed by at least a month due to her inability to manage the project.

</comment><comment><USER63> > This blogging platform (Ghost) doesn't allow comments, but I'd love to hear > your suggestions as well. Just give me a shout at @ladybenko!

Is it really a blogging platform if it doesn't allow comments? Commenting to me is a prerequisite for something being a blog. Absent the possibility for interaction, it's not a blog, it's just a website.

</comment><comment><USER64> Optimization is possible in most programmers schedule, true. But I still believe it's necessary to spend 30-60 hours a week for 11 months a year to successfully increase your skill. You can't cut off these either, if you want to be good. And your skill is bad at bargaining. You can't tell it "Listen to me skill, I have that other hobby as well. Give me a break!" Skill doesn't work that way.

<comment><USER65> At some point the real skill becomes to develop a reasonable solution with reasonable effort. You don't have to keep chasing the latest cool frameworks forever. It's good to know what the trends are but you can safely skip many of them.

<comment><USER64> You are right, that if it is about putting bread on the plate of your children reasonable results are enough and for that reasonable effort is enough. I assume you don't plan on getting to the top with that, though. That's what the article and title limit the discussion to though. And that's what I'm arguing against. You can't be at the top with "reasonable" effort.

And in case your first sentence means that you have given up finding ways to multiply or exponentiate your skills I would like to give you a little new hope. It's true that this kind of skill increase can't be found in new frameworks and tools. The reason is that it was already found in the 60s and 70s. Look for unix, look for vim, look for lisp (some may argue to add git to that list). Even if you don't use them in your daily life. Studying them will increase your skill to levels you cannot imagine.

<comment><USER65> I think you get to the top with reasonable effort because it's the shortest path to success. The best programmers I know don't work 80 hours per week. They work 40 or less but each of them with purpose. They don't do team building or play foosball. They don't attend endless meetings.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER66> belief that only people who code (for free) after work are passionate and/or good developers has become a "truth".

No, but people with this trait will be easier to manipulate into staying longer hours for no extra pay.</comment>


Early rev of 'Clojure Programming' book from O'Reilly now available - <AUTHOR> http://cemerick.com/2011/06/10/clojure-programming-book-now-available/

<comment><USER2> Just briefly looking at the topics index list, I don't see anything about macros (or even meta-programming). Was this done on purpose? Should we expect a sequel if this does well?

<comment><AUTHOR> The ToC only includes what was released to Rough Cuts this time around. We're pushing up a large backlog of content into one end of Rough Cuts on Monday (including a chapter on macros); it'll hopefully come out the other side so you can see it before the end of the week.

<comment><USER2> nice, looking forward to it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Is this going to be out on Kindle?

It would be awesome if you could get the Rough Cuts and final form on Kindle as I can't imagine buying it on anything else.

<comment><USER4> Not one of the authors but I have a ton of oreilly books and the ones I have all got a mobi version at some point. Though the impression I get is the rough cuts is pdf only.

<comment><USER5> Yeah for some reason oreilly doesn't use the same system for final books and rough cuts. Rough cuts are on safari, their online book library service, while regular books are just available from oreilly.com. I think it's because each rough cut is generated for one user.

I wish they could unify those a little. At least have Safari generate books in multiple formats.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Becoming a successful solopreneur - <AUTHOR> There are several successful solopreneurs on HN:
Patrick McKenzie:
http://www.kalzumeus.com/
Dan Grossman
http://www.awio.com
Although they occasionally deal with contractors, they are one man shops. There are benefits and costs to do this.
It really limits your "impact" and how much money you can make...however there is a lot less stress involved.
Would you want to be a successful solopreneur or do you feel the traditional startup is the right path? <comment><USER2> This is what I do as well, so I'll chime in with a few more upsides. (Honestly, I haven't yet found any downsides to bootstrapping vs. going the VC route, so I can't list any).

As a single founder, you get the maximum leverage out of being good at what you do. The ratio of deadwood at your company is either zero or one, so as long as you are in fact genuinely good at building things, you can get things built a lot faster than you'd ever expect to see at a larger company.

You also get maximum control over what you're building. No cramming in dumb features that don't fit because somebody in marketing decided they might be a good idea. No stepping on anybody's feelings by cutting a feature they wanted or abandoning their vision for what the product should do.

And of course you get to play on the whole stack. You get to make the schema changes for that new feature, as well as the back end, layout, and all the fiddly javascript bits. And you get to market that feature and handle customer support for it and play Social Media Coordinator. Racking servers, conference calls with Fortune 500 CEOs, it's all your job.

Best of all, you get to decide how much of your life this thing is going to take up. If you're the kind of guy that needs to pour 80 hour weeks into his baby, sacrifice all his free time, lose his girlfriend, and live 100% for his business, then cool. You get to be that guy. Or if you're more of a "roll out of bed at 10am, check HN over coffee, spend a couple hours on a feature then head out to the mountains because the sun's out" kind of guy, then cool too. You can be that guy instead.

Whichever path you take, chances are you'll find your way to profitability at some point. And when you do, those profits all flow directly into your bank account. Granted, your "impact" might be "limited" in as much as you might never become a billionaire. But hey, a few hundred grand a year will buy a lot of beer.

And since it's really hard to set things up in a small SaaS business so that they consume more than a small fraction of your time once the basic product is out the door, you'll have lots of free time to contemplate where and how to consume said beer.

All the best!

</comment><comment><USER3> So I can't call myself a solopreneur at this time, but I am a solo-founder that started as a solopreneur. All the things that are good about being a solopreneur are pretty compelling, but there are some serious downsides too.

One of the most prominent to me is the lack of ability to have people around to challenge you, your ideas etc. And for me, being the smartest (or only) guy in the room is never a way to get the best idea when you have the final say on said idea. Which for me generally meant I spent more time trying to find multiple ideas/solutions so I could weigh their options. Having a team around that could be done in a couple of hours because people think differently, by yourself its tougher and takes longer if you are honest with yourself.

As a solopreneur you rely on clients more to give you feedback to help mitigate my last point, and done right that can be super powerful, but if you get one client that can tip the scale too much by being too much of your revenue then they can put you out of business quickly. This is simply because you will feel obligated to keep them happy and so they will be forcing your hand more than you would like and you keep deluding yourself with I'll do it this time... With a team even a large client will get more of a balance because the team is talking to multiple clients, but when its you by yourself it is harder to manage.

There are a ton of other things I could mention, but no matter, I wouldn't say being solo vs a team is better or worse, just different with different challenges and benefits. You just have to weigh them to see what is right for you. And I would not say that there is less stress being solo, it is just stress of a different nature, e.g. you aren't responsible for other peoples income just your own, but you still have all the client and engineering stresses except they are all on you whether its 3am or 10am.</comment>


A hole in space... no really, an actual hole - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2010/05/11/a-hole-in-space-no-really-an-actual-hole/

<comment><USER2> _"Nothing makes scientists happier than having to turn their pencils around and use the other end."_

What a great turn of phrase.</comment>


How we're creating a privacy-preserving AI for your smartphone - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/snips-ai/how-we-re-creating-a-privacy-preserving-ai-for-your-smartphone-83665c90f0d5#.mv8vkisuv <comment><USER2> Inspiring article !

</comment><comment><USER3> Nice article

</comment><comment><USER4> Nice one

</comment><comment><USER5> we think the same!</comment>


Ask HN: What is your preferred JavaScript bundler, and why - <AUTHOR> With the plethora of JS bundlers, it seems hard to know why to choose one over the other. Webpack configuration is still as complex as ever, and each new version breaks my carefully constructed build tooling, especially when used with TypeScript
What have you found to be a reasonable simple, stable, and yet powerful JS module bundler that is friendly to TypeScript? And what is the current state of native modules feature of ES6?
Is SystemJS a standard here? As far as possible, I would like to stick to standards that are likely to be supported out-of-the-box by major browsers. <comment><USER2> Rollup is great: [https://rollupjs.org/](https://rollupjs.org/)

The configuration is super simple compared to webpack, see their example for a library: [https://github.com/rollup/rollup-starter- lib/blob/master/rol...](https://github.com/rollup/rollup-starter- lib/blob/master/rollup.config.js)

I'm only using it for libraries at the moment, but I would like to try to use it for apps in the future.</comment>


Low-Salt Diets May Pose Health Risks, Study Finds - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/articles/recommended-salt-levels-could-do-more-harm-than-good-study-suggests-1407964274?mod=WSJ_article_EditorsPicks <comment><USER3> Anecdotally, I have been a massive consumer of salt for my entire life. I consume almost no sugar; I have no attraction to eating food that is sweet and therefore do not eat it. Insulin resistance, and its myriad side effects, are not a major risk factor for me.

I would argue that my risk factors are probably driven by factors associated with salty food that have nothing to do with sodium consumption per se. My blood pressure (and blood sugar) is essentially perfect after decades of absurd sodium consumption. However, as an example, a lot of salty food is deep fried and so there are other relevant consumption biases. Salt and sugar are not uniformly distributed throughout our food. My current (Pacific Northwest) diet of lean protein and fatty fish plus fresh vegetables has not exactly been detrimental as far as I can tell, even though it is loaded with salt.

</comment><comment><USER4> _The new study, which tracked more than 100,000 people from 17 countries over an average of more than three years, found that those who consumed fewer than 3,000 milligrams of sodium a day had a 27% higher risk of death or a serious event such as a heart attack or stroke in that period than those whose intake was estimated at 3,000 to 6,000 milligrams. Risk of death or other major events increased with intake above 6,000 milligrams._

What are the chances that there are many other confounding factors? The first one that comes to mind is that people with extremely low sodium intakes may also be the same ones who are malnourished because they can barely afford food.

It might also be interesting to see if there's a strong correlation between sodium intake and life expectancy; comparing [http://cdn.chr- hansen.com/fileadmin/user_upload/Salt_Consump...](http://cdn.chr- hansen.com/fileadmin/user_upload/Salt_Consumption_Map.png) and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Life_Expectancy_2005-2010_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Life_Expectancy_2005-2010_UN_WPP_2006.PNG) roughly, it doesn't seem like there is much of one... and in fact the other sources I could find indicate a slight _positive_ correlation.

<comment><USER5> Isn't it also plausible that many people on low-sodium diets were at risk of heart attack or stroke already (and that's why they were on the low-sodium diet)? Interesting result, for sure, and it'll be interesting to see the follow-up studies.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> We're finding out that fat [1] isn't actually bad for you, now salt, too. I wonder if we'll find out sugar is good for us, too, before long.

[1] [http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1000142405270230367840...](http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303678404579533760760481486)

<comment><USER7> There's been some evidence that sugar is actually worse for you that we used to think.

It makes a bit of sense really. Fat and salt has always been part of the human diet, but large quantities of refined sugar are very recent.

<comment><USER8> > It makes a bit of sense really. Fat and salt has always been part of the > human diet, but large quantities of refined sugar are very recent.

That kind of reasoning is very much flawed. Why would the diet of x years ago be relevant versus having a better diet nowadays ? For all we know, our ancestors were eating berries and much less meat than we do, yet we seem to live longer those days and yet we ingest substances (such as medicines) that were not part of the human diet before.

Actually, that line of reasoning does not make sense at all. That's why we run clinical studies. To find out answers.

<comment><USER9> Possibly but two things to consider:

\- big factor in longer life spans are the advances in medicine last 150 years \- our increase in meat consumption and cooked meat goes ways back and likely tied to our (threefold) increase in brain size

<comment><USER8> We have been eating meat for a long time, but the quantity of meat eaten since the second half of the 20th century is unprecedented. We are eating way more meat than before, that's for sure.

<comment><USER7> >he quantity of meat eaten since the second half of the 20th century is unprecedented.

That's not true at all. We're eating more meat than we did 100 years ago sure. But looking back significantly further than that, it's estimated that hunter gatherers got about 65% of their calories from animals, compared to much less than 20% we get today.

See my reply above for references.

<comment><USER8> I'll check you references later, but I'm wondering where the hunter gatherers got so much meat before they had industrial meat factories that we have - <USER2> cost much more energy before to either hunt or breed animals than it does now, it was not a viable proposition to eat as much meat as it is now. It just does not make sense to me at all. Besides, percentages is one thing, absolute intakes are another, too.

EDIT: Besides, I can tell you from what I know on how people were living 50-70 years ago (grandfathers for example) that meat was expensive during their youth and that they only ate it once or twice a month, certainly not every single day like we do now. So I'm not sure where you got the impression people ate so much meat in the early 1900s while it defies all conversations I had with people who lived in that era.

<comment><USER7> > So I'm not sure where you got the impression people ate so much meat in the > early 1900s

I said this in the comment you're replying too "We're eating more meat than we did 100 years ago sure". I'm agreeing with your assertion that we eat more meat than we did 100 years ago. 100 years ago we ate significantly less meat than our hunter gatherer ancestors did.

>I'll check you references later, but I'm wondering where the hunter gatherers got so much meat before they had industrial meat factories that we have

They didn't need industrial farms because there were far fewer people. They hunted animals, which were relatively abundant. Meat is much more calorie dense than most plants.

Hunter gatherers didn't have agriculture, so many of the plants we eat today weren't yet domesticated. They lacked entire categories of food that we have today.

The largest percentage of daily caloric intake today comes from grains--hunter gathers didn't farm grains, so they had to get the largest share of their calories from something else--meat.

>Besides, percentages is one thing, absolute intakes are another, too.

An average adult male can't live long term with fewer than around 2000 calories per day (A very active hunter gatherer would require a far amount more than 2000 per day). The average American male eats about 2700 calories per day.

Let's take the lower end estimate for 2000 calories per day for a hunter gatherer. At 65%, meat accounts for 1300 calories per day.

At 20% of 2700 calories, an average American male gets 540 calories per day from meat.

So 1300 for the hunter gatherer vs 540 for the average American male. Almost 3 times as much. Even in absolute numbers, the hunter gatherer at much more meat.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The cochrane review ([https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21735439](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21735439)) already pointed in this direction, namely that although a reduced salt diet reduced blood pressure, that reduction was not correlated with decreased mortality in this case. Looking at sodium consumption without taking into account potassium consumption also appears to be a major issue with lots of previous salt studies. We had people recommend putting 1500mg (DASH diet level) in MealSquares, but we feel confident not going below the 2400mg level for health.

Soylent ran into issues by including around a gram of salt in their 1.0 version with people getting dizzy from too little sodium in the diet. They're now suggesting adding some extra.

</comment><comment> k-mcgrady So once again the advice seems to be, "eat a balanced diet, everything in moderation".

<comment><USER11> This one appears to be useful because it has some concrete numbers. Because otherwise how would you define moderation? What is moderation to one is excess to another. Here we at least have "less than X and more than Y appears to be harmful", which is some actionable information.

Edit: actually, my opinion on "everything in moderation" is even stronger: I consider it a useless advice. Because, where do you even begin? Should you use _some_ salt in your cooking? But how much? Or should you use _none_ , because there is already some present in foods you buy? Or should you _actively avoid_ foods that have already some salt added?

And it ends up like this: everyone thinks that he eats X in moderation, while anyone who eats less X is just unnecessary resticting himself, and anyone who eats more X is a glutton.

Or consider, would you say "smoking in moderation is okay and healthful"? And if not, how do we know that there are no substances consumed as foods that act in a similar way - hurt us even taken in moderation?

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Why isn't there a soap opera about nutritional research?

<comment><USER13> Nutritional research is more ridiculous and less scientific than any soap opera could ever hope to portray.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> IMHO it is damn near impossible to cut salt out of your diet in America unless you prepare everything you eat from scratch. Salt is _everywhere_.

This sort of study makes me feel better about my intuition of what to do when my doctor told me to cut back on the salt, though: stop letting myself use it as a seasoning, think a few times before grabbing a snack whose entire purpose is to shovel salt into my mouth, but still eat things that had salt involved in their preparation. My blood pressure has gone from "why are you not keeling over right now" to "slightly elevated" thanks to this.

</comment><comment><USER15> Next thing they will me telling me there is no evidence than salt raises blood pressure.

<comment><USER16> Yeah?

[http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/its-time-to-end- th...](http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/its-time-to-end-the-war-on- salt/)

[http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist- explains/2014/04/ec...](http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist- explains/2014/04/economist-explains-12)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> lol no shit, old news

do people still believe salt raises blood pressure too?

keto recommends between 3 and 5 grams of salt per day

your blood is salty, only way to replenish salt is through the diet, especially important if you're sweating

<comment><USER18> > keto recommends between 3 and 5 grams of salt per day

While I'm on keto myself and I love it, that sentence isn't exactly a proof for anything.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> _The research was funded through a variety of public, private and corporate sources, according to PHRI._

Until I know who funded the research, I'm taking the results with a grain of salt.

Do populations with high sodium intake also have other lifestyle factors that influence mortality and morbidity? Is it really the sodium that's causing the differences found in the study or are there other factors?

How many times have we seen corporations fund research designed to support their interests and then selectively publish the results that are favorable to them?

Would you view the research in a different light if you knew it was funded by PepsiCo, McDonalds, Sara Lee and Campbell Soup Company?

Why aren't the funders disclosed along with the results?

</comment><comment><USER20> considering the role sodium and potassium ions play ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium_in_biology#Animals](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium_in_biology#Animals)), it isn't surprising that too low of them is bad. Of course it is already well known that too much of them bad also.

"Sodium is an essential nutrient that regulates blood volume, blood pressure, osmotic equilibrium and pH;..."

doesn't it sound like it better be not too low and not too much ? :)

<comment><USER21> >doesn't it sound like it better be not too low and not too much ? :)

That statement is pretty much impossible to logically disagree with so yes

<comment><USER20> >That statement is pretty much impossible to logically disagree with so yes

not impossible. At least for proponents of low sodium it is possible.

<comment><USER21> If you're a proponent of low sodium then you don't believe the amount of sodium you advocate is "too low", you believe it's correct, and that the standard amount is "too high".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Tomorrow high-salt diets may expose severe health risks, haha theese studies need to be drowned.

</comment><comment><USER23> Come on, some common sense is needed. Salt is required by our bodies, too little and we die, too much and the same thing. Same goes for fat, sugar, vitamins, minerals, etc...

This isn't even new knowledge... Our bodies need various proteins, sugars and minerals in certain quantities - call the fucking press...

<comment><USER24> As I've commented on similar articles in the past, it's not enough to "just know" things; science has to _prove_ them, repeatedly, in multiple ways. Sure it's tedious and repetitive, but it's absolutely essential to lay a solid foundation for the next generation of research.

<comment><USER23> One only has to look into history - where there have been epidemics and people have died from lacking salt in their diet in various salt-deficient places.

As an aside, there's also a reason that iodine is required to be added to salt and various stable products in some countries.

Animals seek salt because they need it, as did ancient humans to the present day, saying humans need salt is like saying humans need water, or protein, or vitamin B.

It's not like salt is some new chemical we know nothing about - we've known about it for at least 10,000 years (probably longer). It's nice and all that now we know you should have between 3000 and 6000 mg per day (which is higher than what agencies recommend, but apparently around the average consumption in many places anyway), but come on...

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyponatremia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyponatremia)

Also, there's a reason athletes drink liquids with electrolytes in them (salt is one) - because the effects of a deficiency of salt and other electrolytes is known...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> You know what would be super helpful? If scientists came up with a rating system that described how confident they were in the results from a study. That way the public would know how much weight they should give the results.

Independent body who runs a well-controlled double blinded study? A+

Biased organization who runs an analysis of questionable observational data with barely passible statistical significance? F

They already do this for cancer therapies. NCCN gives rating that describe how much evidence exists for a given therapy.

<comment><USER26> Scientists do in fact report how confident they are in their findings. Read original sources, most of them say things like "in X% of observed cases there was a Y% of Z over the course of T with confidence level of P".

But that sells a lot less clicks than "SCIENCE SAYS LOW SALT IS BAD FOR YOU OMG"

<comment><USER27> The truth of the matter is that the general public shouldn't be reading scientific publications, because without the context of the intended audience, reasoning about what you read is incredibly difficult or impossible. This is doubly true for 'science journalists' who so very rarely are educated to be able to correctly translate and very often distill a paper into an incorrect and baiting article with only the tiniest shreds of truth.

The confidence rating you mention has little value to the general public, and even among scientists, the value of 'p-value' is questionable and the matter of occasional debate.

[http://annals.org/article.aspx?articleid=712762#ThePValueFal...](http://annals.org/article.aspx?articleid=712762#ThePValueFallacy)</comment></comment></comment>


Your tech job just laid you off. Now what? - <AUTHOR> https://www.getclockwise.com/blog/your-tech-job-just-laid-you-off-now-what <comment><USER2> Side projects can help you escape the game.</comment>


New Android Malware Can Steal Google Authenticator 2FA Codes - <AUTHOR> https://daringfireball.net/linked/2020/02/27/android-malware-google-authenticator <comment><USER2> Actual link: [https://www.zdnet.com/article/android-malware-can-steal- goog...](https://www.zdnet.com/article/android-malware-can-steal-google- authenticator-2fa-codes/)</comment>


" the Story of Evil King Java" - <AUTHOR> http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2006/03/execution-in-kingdom-of-nouns.html <comment><USER2> This is for 2006. And before we pile the hate on java do consider what still applies. And what of it applies to your language of choice.</comment>