Dilbert: "I Found A Clever Way To Write My Application Code in One Hour" | Hacker News Reader

Dilbert: "I Found A Clever Way To Write My Application Code in One Hour"

dilbert.com

30 pointsnickb10 comments

It's meant to be funny and it was funny, but in reality, this this dude wouldn't keep working for that manager unless he had severe self-esteem issues. I've managed to write some functionality that was scheduled to take a month in a weekend (I'd figure most programmers have at some point), and it definitely didn't come back to bite me in the ass at all. If this is what happens, get another job. Someone else will be more than happy to hire you.

> It's meant to be funny and it was funny

Really? I don't believe that you said that with much conviction. I agree with your other comments. I thought the comic sucked. I rarely find Dilbertian cynicism to be funny.

> I agree with your other comments.

Oh, that didn't make sense. I meant to say, "I agree with the rest of your comment".

I once had a user complaining how long a batch job took. After much research, I found a "SLEEP 10" command (sleep for 10 seconds) inside a loop. I commented it out and the run time went from 2 hours down to 6 minutes.

At the next meeting, my PHB asked why Joe User was gushing with so many compliments about me. I explained what I did.

"Idiot!" he said, "You should have changed it to SLEEP 5 so the next time he complains we have something else to give him."

Reminds me of the Daily WTF one where a customer complained about the length of time a batch data processing operation was taking, so they optimised the hell out of the routine and did the same job in 1/100th the time, and charged them $x.

The customer decided that, obviously, something must be wrong since something that is doing so little work can't be accurate, how can they trust it? etc. So they added a delay 5, charged them an extra $x/4, and everybody was happy.

I'd try to find the link, but pretty much every Daily WTF article contains the same search terms...

I often do work on an hourly basis. Suppose I charge $500/hour and write a function in one hour that a less skilled programmer charging half my rate does in four hours. Guess who gets paid the most.

John.

I think you should work slower and/or charge by the job rather than the clock. Capitalism is not about charging what things are worth (to you), it's about charging what the market will bear.

Presumably you, because if you are that good, you will be in no short supply for work. Thus, while the less skilled programmer is still hacking away at the function, you are writing new functionality and earning twice as much while doing so.

Also, the less skilled programmer is going to have a hard time winning projects when his proposals are double the budget and four times the schedule length of yours.

Dilbert: Just like reality

How true.

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