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Comment by njs12345 | Hacker News Reader

> 'But the reality is talented people are able to sustain a high level of productivity at long hours.'

This, in my opinion, is the flaw in the argument. I don't think it's true for writing code, unless what you're writing is boilerplate which requires no mental effort.

> Some of the best engineers in the world work insane hours at Google, Apple and facebook and put out great products.

Google doesn't have fixed working hours: http://www.quora.com/Does-Google-have-fixed-working-hours

From what I've heard, you're expected to get things done but no one cares how you do it. Some people work crazy hours; that's fine for them. Some people probably work 10-4 and then a little bit in the evening. Matt Welsh seems to work 9-5: http://matt-welsh.blogspot.co.uk/2010/12/day-in-life-of-goog...

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This, in my opinion, is the flaw in the argument. I don't think it's true for writing code, unless what you're writing is boilerplate which requires no mental effort.

Most projects involve both boilerplate and cleverness. Mine certainly do.

The cleverness I do while not tired. When I'm tired, and less productive, I do the boilerplate.

Suppose I work 60 hours, with 40 of them occurring before I'm tired. Then I get 40 hours of cleverness and 20 hours of boilerplate (while non-tired, you could probably do the 20 hours of boilerplate in 15 hours).

If you work 40 hours, you are probably doing 25 hours of cleverness and 15 hours of boilerplate (while your 15 hours are equivalent to my 20 hours). That means I'm getting 60% more hours of cleverness than you are.

I suspect this is where it comes down to anecdote and personal preference. Where we both agree I think is that (for programming especially) it's not as simple as X% more hours give you X% more work done; there are other factors at play here..

Now, I could buy a four day work week causing an overall drop in the amount of work done, but comparing them based on the same productivity is meaningless.

I'm not comparing based on the same productivity. I'm assuming that boilerplate (done while tired) takes 33% more time.

Constant productivity with regard to working time is an assumption of the original article, it wasn't intended as a criticism of your comment.

I am the writer of the post and I completely support flexible work hours. Personally, I work 8:15 - 6 pm. I then go home and see my children before bed time and eat dinner with my wife. I also spend great time on the weekends with them. What I don’t do is sit in front of a TV very much being a couch potato. So my work time comes out of my personal time. Not my time with my kids.

The problem with working more hours has nothing to do with getting stuff done. The most productive code is code you don't write which you don't need to test, debug, deploy, or maintain. I have worked half as long as someone else, I produced 1/3 the code, and 1/6th the bugs. Eventually he left and I re-implemented some of their systems in 1/4th the time.

We had similar backgrounds and he was intelligent and capable, but nobody is thinking strait after an 11+ hour day. And once you start falling behind there is this tendency to either work on meaningless crap to feel productive or add just one more hack for an edge case to close out some, bug you don't really understand.

Sounds like you make your time work for you. So do I, I've had plenty of days where the clock hits 4 and I feel mentally drained and know I'm not going to get much done, and I go home. I don't work well in the morning either, so I often come in at 10. I do work very well in the evening (10-11pm) so sometimes I'll a bit of work then, if something comes to mind.

Nobody's ever complained about the amount of work I get done. The problem I have with this article is that it assumes the more hours you work the more you get done, when it's just not that simple.

Obviously this is personal experience. What I'm trying to say is that everybody's different --- the Treehouse guys are working a 4 day week with $3m a year in revenues. You can't just say 'well, if they worked a 5 day week that'd be an extra 25% more work for them' any more than you can say 'an extra 25% more work will lead to an extra 25% more in revenues for them'.

you are referencing flexible work hours, which is very different then what I am discussing. I couldn't care less when my developers work. if they want to leave at 4 pm and work late in the evenings, all good.

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