Do Long Work Hours Affect Code Quality? 911
tooTired asks: "At my company the owner is heavily implying that the development staff needs to start working longer hours and weekends to shorten the time-frames on our current projects. The exact quote is 'These 8 hour days have to stop, we need to be working 15 hours a day and weekends, balls to the wall.' We are heavily under-staffed even with my multiple attempts to show the owner that we need more resources. My general feeling is that long hours is generally a symptom of poor project management, and not something to be sought after. I wanted to ask the Slashdot community their opinions on how working long hours during the week and weekends affects the quality of the code they produce, and the overall success of the project." A large reason why many in this industry find themselves working long hours and weekends is that management makes unreasonable expectations and deadlines. Are there ways of communicating to management that long hours to rush a project to completion is not the way to complete a successful project? Update: 08/30 23:11 GMT by C :Grammatical errors in title, corrected. Sorry about that.
Illegal in Europe (Score:1, Informative)
In Germany companies are fined hundreds of thousands, if a company exceeds working hours.
There are ways round this, but fortunately, in the UK, there are more LAWS to protect the employee, then to protect the employer.
We all live, but we we work to live, not to work.
Thank you Churchill.
Just quit. (Score:5, Informative)
Sure, sometimes coders spend a lot more time then that on their job, but that's because they enjoy it, because they want to spend that time working on code for their job.
If your boss is demanding you work 15 hours a day, quit.
Will it affect code quality? I don't really know. In the short term I doubt it, actually. Will it affect your quality of life? Absolutely. Will it affect employee satisfaction? Probably, and down the line that will affect code quality. If you don't like your job, you're code will definitely suck.
Good Resource (Score:5, Informative)
Here's a good reference: Forty Hour Week [c2.com] on c2.com, which seems to be the best web authority for Extreme Programming discussions and patterns.
Give it a gander.
The best option... (Score:3, Informative)
Back on topic, working 15 hour days WILL affect your code quality, not to mention your quality of life. Different people have different ways in which they work best, and sometimes a long coding session can work wonderfully, but over the long term it will result in frazzled nerves and bad code.
If he's expecting you to work 15 hour days, you need to let him know you should have twice as many people working 8 hour days instead. If he protests, drop that job like a bad habit. You'll only be hurting your health and sanity if you stay.
check into the legality.... (Score:1, Informative)
http://www.fairmeasures.com/asklawyer/questions
Bad management (Score:2, Informative)
Peopleware (Score:3, Informative)
Use external libraries and reduce requirements (Score:2, Informative)
There are bound to be areas where you're re-inventing the wheel. Do a freshmeat search and find something which does the work for you.
You might be able to remove entire sections of development and the areas replaced will probably have extra features you'd never have added.
I think this approch should be taken more often.
If the code isn't precisly what the software's about -ie where it adds value, you need to justify not using external code.
Remember, if you code remains in-house you can use GPL'd code.
Also, make sure all the functionallity really is needed. Drop any extra work to improve flexibility, -your guesses will probably be wrong so spend the time once you know what the new features are (this is just XP).
Re:Yup (Score:5, Informative)
No, eight hours was defined as a work day in the US because of the efforts of the labor movement, beginning the middle of the 19th century and, after a great deal of struggle, culminating in FDR's passage of the National Industrial Recovery Act, which was then struck down by the SCOTUS, and then partially replaced by the Wagner Act. The eight-hour work-day came at the expense of workers who were beatened, imprisoned, and killed trying to win it.
Re:Agreed (Score:3, Informative)
Ever heard of an unenforceable contract term?
The EU working time directive trumps the language of the contract. In fact trying to put language in the contract might be used as evidence against the management at a tribunal.
It would be like adding a contract term in the US that said the employee waives rights under the equal opportunity laws.
Labor law is taken very seriously in the EU. Overall the costs of disputes is probably less than in the US however because jury awards in the few types of case allowed in the US tend to be much higher than EU awards.
Passivism? (Score:2, Informative)
Where did he say anything about passivism?
He said to spend your time working on a relationship. If you've ever been involved in a relationship, you've got to know that it's not even close to passive.
He said to spend your time raising your children. You must have been a child at one point... Perhaps you've forgotten it? A passive parent is NOT a parent raising his/her child.
He said to spend your time caring for your parents when they become elderly. You also think that's passive?
He didn't tell people to spend their time watching TV. He told them to remember what's really important.
If making that one last software package work perfectly is what's important to you, so be it. But don't blame him when you look back at your life and realize you haven't lived it at all.
Re:Hmm... (Score:1, Informative)
A few years ago a researcher decided there must be a very basic requirement for sleep, otherwise various animals would have evolved to never sleep.
The energy needed by a vertebrate brain exceeds the amount of energy which can be delivered by blood to the brain. The brain requires stored energy to operate properly.
So as the stored energy is used up, the brain starts to malfunction.
Drink lots of sugar, you say? But that alters serotonin levels...which is OK if higher serotonin is helpful.
The brain can only (Score:2, Informative)
On average I end up working about 7 hours a day, I never work on weekends, and sometimes I work from home (and these are the most productive days).
I get more stuff done than some of my colleagous who work 12 hours or more plus weekends.
In these 6-7 hours however, I work very concentrated without any distractions.
Actually it has been shown (although I have no reference right now to back this) that humans can work focused for only about 6 hours a day and after that productivity tapers of dramatically.
Now, of course I sometimes put in 16 hours or more a day, mainly to meet deadlines, but I always make sure that this is limited to one or two days.
I think companies that make their employees work long hours on a continuing basis -- especially in the software business -- are extremely short sighted. Nobody in his/her right mind wants burned out, unmotivated software engineers. Humans aren't robots and should not be treated as such.
long hours == more pay? (Score:2, Informative)
In other words, is your lunatic boss expecting you to effectively take half pay or less, or is he going to pay the same hourly rate for the extra time?
If he's going to pay the extra, why not just use that money to buy extra employees. If he's not going to pay extra, then he's probably proposing breach of contract - you did sign a contract stating 40-hour weeks @ $xxx per hour/week/month, right? Tell me you did, please?
Surprised no one has mentioned "Death March" (Score:4, Informative)
Death March: The Complete Software Developer's Guide to Surviving 'Mission Impossible' Projects [amazon.com] by Ed Yourdon.
Buy, borrow, or spend a few minutes in a bookstore reading the first 2-3 chapters, where Yourdon describes the four different type of death march projects, the prersonalities and politics surrounding them, and what your options are.
What you'll read there will likely be the same sort of advice you're getting here. Yourdon's presentation is a bit clearer, though, and he raises a lot of good points about how to make a decision with regards to whether or not you'll buy into a death march project. The middle section of the book details how to survive on such a project if you do, indeed, decide you're going to take it on.
At the end of the book is "Death March as a Way of Life." The long and the short of it is that these type of projects are increasingly common. If the project fails, then then it's your fault - you didn't work hard enough; the next batch of folks will no doubt be harder workers than you were. If you succeed, and ship on time, you'll just show management that death march projects work. Either way, you'll be in a job where every project requires increasingly superhuman efforts.
Better to decide if you want to deal with that now, instead of trying to do so after a few years of insane workloads have destroyed your marriage, health, and/or mental faculties.
Re:Agreed (Score:1, Informative)
1: Ensure a safe and healthy working enviroment
Right, so allowing a company to create a work environment where everyone is working 15 hours a day, 7 days a week is safe and healthy?
Fucking idiot.
Re:Prediction: you will get fired (Score:4, Informative)
They were so certain of this that I gave up debating the topic, and when month 3 rolled around, lo and behold, NO SHIPPABLE PRODUCT. 2 of the 3 developers were asked to resign with severance pay. I will NEVER accept that kind of shit from management again-- next time it'll be "I work 8 hours a day, and if you don't like it-- too bad!".
May I suggest some research? (Score:2, Informative)
Henry Ford appears to have been a great proponent of the 40 hour work week. He actually looked at the economics of the work levels.
HENRY FORD: Why I Favor Five Days' Work With Six Days' Pay [vcn.bc.ca]
Ford Timeline [hfmgv.org]
American Labor Timeline [hft1052.org] This does say that the move towards 8 hour days started in the 1880's. Ford didn't go to 8 hour days until 1914. But his company wasn't started until 1903. The assembly line started only in 1913. It was the assembly line that increased production enough that it made sense for Ford enough clout to cut hours.
Not discounting the deaths/beatings/other stuff, Ford was a pioneer for the forty hour week.