Comment by bsenftner | Hacker News Reader

Comment by bsenftner | Hacker News Reader

I'm hesitant to post because there is so much anguish here about winning the lottery for interesting work.

I have been extremely fortunate in my career. I'd say I won the interesting lottery. I started very early by today's standards, taking my first programming class at the local university when I was in 5th grade, back in '76.

At 17, in '82, I had a game company selling nationwide in Sears & KMart a few Vic-20 games I wrote. That got me a beta testing role with the unreleased Macintosh. Which got me to move to Boston, where I worked for Mandelbrot & DeVenney on the initial publishing of Fractals.

Basically, I've been fortunate to be an early developer for a series of advanced technologies: - initial 3D graphics research community (back when the question was "how to do 3D graphics at all"), - initial GUI developments (before Windows 3.1, there were a lot of competitors), - early real time mapping / navigation, I worked on one as my first post graduation job - early streaming media, I was writing media players for CD-I/CDROM/Network back in '90-'92 - early 3D gaming consoles, I was an OS developer for the 3DO and the first PlayStation - early 3D games, lead developer for games for 15 years - VFX, left games and worked on 9 VFX heavy feature films at an academy award winning studio - startup, left VFX and spent 7 years doing a ML based 3D reconstruction of photos to realistic 3D avatar web service - Facial Recognition, closed my startup and now I develop facial recognition software for an industry leader

There is not time enough in a day to explore all the stuff I've done or am interesting in further pursuing. Luckily, I am one of those that sleep less: 5 hours leaves me groggy, and 4 is just right. So I spend my daze 10 hours coding for work, and another 4-6 pursuing "mad science".

Wow, it sounds like you’ve had a fascinating career. You say you may have just been lucky to get in on the ground floor as it were, but would you attribute your success to any other habits, behaviors, or personal qualities?

I'm enthusiastic, almost to a childish degree, and I obsess. The joke at work is I'm "Sheldon", and I don't watch that show so I'm only vaguely aware that he's some type of bad communicating nerd. I think I communicate better. I'm also somewhat fearless, accepting projects over my head and still delivering.

Wow pretty amazing. A little OT but just reading about coding 10 hours a day is just making me think of back pain.

Is it really possible to sit for that long everyday and not suffer from it. I know I'm probably focusing on the wrong thing but just the idea of being able to code for that long everyday without suffering any physical problems would be reward enough for me.

I actually code closer to 14-16 hours a day. But I have a standing desk / bar stool combination, plus a compile of my work typically takes 3-4 minutes, so I have a yoga mat, weights and stuff to work out while I think & wait. I'm 54, yet look 40 with a near six-pack. I'm really lucky.

Wow man that's really awesome. Would you mind doing a blog post about it sometime (or maybe linking to the source where i can learn more about it).

It can help a lot of people like me who are struggling to work even 5 hours a day at just 37.

Still thanks for the reply, I am now seriously thinking of getting a standing desk.

My #1 advice for being a healthy developer is to observe a regular hard cardio workout.

<back story> When I was 16 I was a fairly muscle bound half geek / half athlete. To give you an idea, I was a running back on my high school football team, and a tackle and two linemen and I would have to shampoo one anothers head's after weight lifting practice because our arms could not reach the top of our heads from being so buff. We were muscle bound jocks in Iowa, what can I say...

Well, I had a bad tackle when running with the ball during a game, and I crushed 3 vertebra, doubling over backwards with my hips pushed backwards till they touched my shoulders. The stadium had a collective gasp and then silence as I was seen on the field broken. Long story short, bolts in my temples and hanging vertically for 6 weeks healed my young spine with only weather changing aches. However, I went from 230 lbs to 130 lbs, and it took another 6 weeks of therapy before I could walk.

That was the start of a decade of no athletic activity and nihilistic punk rockerism mixed with quite the intellectual journey as I left Iowa and became a part of the Harvard/MIT/BU 3D graphics research community. (This was the early-mid 1980's)

It was not until I was 30 that my then girlfriend, now wife, got me to start morning walks, then light jogs, and finally an actual return to an athletic lifestyle. To give you an idea, at 30 I could not jog a block without heavy panting and sweats. After a year I was able to jog 1 block. It took whole year to do a block without dying! During that year, I'd get delirious and throw up if I pushed. But the persistent and incredible patience of my girlfriend slowly got me back into what is considered "normal" shape.

Once I'd refreshed my previously athletic muscle / body memory, all kinds of positives kicked in like a general optimism, a general active energy level, and greater interest in everything in general.

However, this was tempered with realization that if I slacked for even a few days, I'd get depressed, and if I went a week I'd start having bone/joint chiropractic misalignment and then I'd be injured and unable to be active at all.

So, now I have a strict 3 days (at least) per week hard cardio. I ride my bike about 8 miles, living near a bike path in the San Fernando Valley. Plus I have a yoga mat next to my standing desk. I need to get a newer computer, as a recompile of my work take 10-12 minutes. But I exploit that time working out, so maybe I don't want a new development computer...

wow.. first of all thank you so much for taking the time to write that out. I found it super motivational and tbh it really means a lot to me that you are fit and fine after what you've been through during your younger years, and the kind of pain you were in at your 30s.

I've never had any injuries but doing long hours siting all day without exercise has taken a huge toll on my back. I'm not overweight but my lifestyle is very sedintary :/ Long story short lately I've have my issues become so much that I've had trouble with simple things like putting on pants, getting in and out of the car, sometimes even sleeping. Have done lots of mris, xrays and months of physio and pain keeps coming back. Also religiously did the exercises prescribed by my doctor but nothing is helping.

I'm kind of like at that point in your 30s where even jogging for a block is a nightmare for me. But reading your story gives me hope. I'm 37 and just learning that taking health forgranted for work has been a big mistake.

I will try to research some cardio exercises that won't aggravate my pain and get started. I love your idea about doing things during code compilation. What a blessing in disguise that is. I already started that today doing some SI joint exercises that I can do while sitting. It's a start and I now to get involved with beginner cardio next.

Another aspect that has helped a lot is taking a b-complex vitamin every day. B-Complex has two major benefits: it aids in the energy recovery during food metabolism, maintaining one's energy level, but the major benefit for developers is the reduction in nerve sheath inflammation. There are times when I am doing some heavy, redundant motions, like when working on 3D animations, the repetitive mouse use for multiple days can wreak my wrist and that "mouse fatigue" spot in your upper back. When I know I'm going to be abusing my wrists like that, I make sure to have B-Complex each day and for a few days after - for the reduction in inflammation and the resulting continued wrist health.

I appreciate your thanks. I could write a book about my career and maintaining health in both physical and mental aspects - being a developer can be a hell of a mental game too. If I were not so busy writing code, I probably would. Developing my ability to live like this has taken decades, and now in my middle 50's I am peaking in multiple aspects: I know how to code an immense number of highly complex things, my mental game is such that I am coding like water pouring, and my work is offering me the freedom to use everything in the creation of a new flagship application for the company. I'm simply having too much fun and getting too much done to write about it at length. I do post on Quora.com quite a bit though.

Great tip about B complex. I didn't know it could heal muscle fatigue and makes healing faster. This is great tip for almost all programmers who risk RSI at some point in their life.

Anyway yes it no ordinary thing you're in such good health and are putting 10 hours a day at 50 years while some of us are struggling lot younger.

I'm sure you already have done quite a bit of research that lays ahead of me. A book does sound like a big commitment but if you have a blog I'd surely hope you would put your story and what you did to fix yourself and how you're so productive.

A lot of people would be inspired and helped by it I'm sure.

P.S. just read this book called 12 rules for life (huge bestseller) and the author starts it by saying so this book started as a result of my quora post :)

VideoToaster?

BBSs?

What was your first computer?

I first had access to a PDP-1170 at my local university, then a borrowed Apple II, then my first computer was a Vic-20. Then a C-64, then the beta Mac.

Do you think if you had not started with a 16-bit computer, your learning would have progressed differently?

I know this is a highly speculative question.

The Apple II and Vic-20 were both 8-bit computers. The minis and mainframes at universities were 16 and 32-bit systems, but for the large part I just ignored the word-length of a system. I really only cared if I needed to work in assembler, which I preferred for a good 15 years. I generally work in C flavored C++, and don't really optimize via process bit knowledge until bottlenecks are being removed.

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