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Typical day of a programmer

 
Greenhorn
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Many people on this board wants to work as a programmer / developer. So they learn how to program, learn more and more components of the Java language. They come to this forum to ask questions: how to do this, how to do that, whether it be so, or perhaps otherwise. So they dream and dream, and they are learning. But they do not know one thing ... What is the typical day of a programmer. Therefore, they would be grateful for describe one typical day of your work. For example: "I get up early at eleven o'clock in the morning ..."
"My boss tells me to write a class named CleanUpUrDeskToday"
and so on and so forth.
But seriously, many will surely want to know how the work of the programmer really looks like. So, inscribe, lament, parade .... For us - the non experienced greenhorns
Thank you
 
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Because every developer's day will be exactly the same...
 
Slawomir Wieczorek
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Bear Bibeault wrote:Because every developer's day will be exactly the same...


Okay, so now we know everyday looks different, great. Now I feel super and even more dream about getting that job
 
Marshal
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Not necessarily... Bear's day is different from my day. Which in turn is different from the day of those unfortunate consultants I met once who spent all day in project meetings hoping not to be asked any questions.
 
Bear Bibeault
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The point is that there's no such thing as a "typical" day.
 
Slawomir Wieczorek
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So there isn't any way to describe what are you doing at work? I mean like for example "My boss brought me those blue prints of a project in an UML for this company.... And I have to implement them within one day. Damn!" or something like that....
I'm sure there is a way to explain how does your work look. If not just give some example from lets say this week...
 
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Sounds like he/she is looking for things to say in his/her next job interview, i.e. wants to say something that sounds "natural."
 
Slawomir Wieczorek
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Jimmy Clark wrote:Sounds like he/she is looking for things to say in his/her next job interview, i.e. wants to say something that sounds "natural."


He is looking for things to say in his first job interview, yes
To me it looks like you just don't want to share... Or maybe are afraid of something...
 
Jimmy Clark
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Sounds good, Sir I wouldn't know how to respond. I'm a financial analyst and my day-to-day work deals with inferential statistics, standard deviations, probabilities, Minitab, etc. I pick up a few things at the water cooler and am able to share here at the Ranch.
 
Paul Clapham
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I don't get it. You are a programmer with no experience, and you are going to a job interview where you imagine the interviewer will ask you about the typical day of a programmer? I haven't had a job interview for a very long time but that sounds quite unlikely to me.
 
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I'll bite. My day wasn't terribly useful for someone to repeat at an interview. While there is no typical day - even for the same person, I think it is interesting reading about a day of others. (My company does this to help people learn about other jobs. They even use times to get a feel for the pace.). Times are estimates

7:45 - catch up on email
8:00 - write code as examples for a presentation I am giving Friday
9:15 - take two online training modules
9:45 - "part one" of lunch
10:00 - interview two consultants
11:00 - co-present to another team on testing
12:00 - moderate a lunchtime discussion on eclipse plugins
1:00 - status meeting with my boss who returned from vacation today
1:45 - "part two" of lunch
2:00 - meet with three teammates
2:15 - paperwork for project
3:00 - meet with teammate to discuss a task I gave him last week
3:30 - create slides for Friday presentation
4:45 - go home

By contrast, yesterday I did more coding and UNIX scripting.
 
Slawomir Wieczorek
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Thank you Joanne.

Paul Clapham wrote:I don't get it. You are a programmer with no experience, and you are going to a job interview where you imagine the interviewer will ask you about the typical day of a programmer? I haven't had a job interview for a very long time but that sounds quite unlikely to me.


The main purpose of writing this topic was a curiosity. Many people simply do not know how it really looks "from inside".
 
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Like folks here mention, there is no typical day. This was my day yesterday

Read email
Look into a customer's problem
Exchange emails/plans with the QA team
Remind developers about pending tasks
Meet with my manager
Interview
Meeting with the team on product release strategies
Go home

The other day, I spent my entire time releasing a product.
 
Bear Bibeault
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OK, I'll take Jeanne's lead; today:

8:45 Make coffee
8:50 Check email and JavaRanch from home, read an online article
9:30 Head to the office (after the majority of the traffic has cleared)
9:45 Arrive at office
9:50 Spill coffee on floor when coffee machine spits hot coffee at me
9:51 Split back of new pants while wiping up coffee
9:55 Use packing tape in bathroom to repair pants enough to attend meeting without revealing the color of my underwear
10:00 Prepare presentation for meeting
10:30 Present proposed API for a new application platform initiative to team
11:30 Go home for lunch and to change pants
12:30 Return to work, coffee machine shows error 14490, "reboot" coffee machine
12:40 Make refinements to API based upon feedback from team
2:00 Begin research on new build tools and system for app platform
2:30 Get more coffee, coffee machine is out of beans, refill machine
3:30 Fight with Perforce which refuses to let me log in
4:00 Bi-weekly status meeting
5:00 Head home
 
Deepak Bala
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9:51 Split back of new pants while wiping up coffee
9:55 Use packing tape in bathroom to repair pants enough to attend meeting without revealing the color of my underwear



That was a quick bug fix sir !


Credit: http://askbobrankin.com/myspace_salute.jpg
 
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Slawomir Wieczorek wrote:Thank you Joanne.


You're welcome. I love taking credit for stuff I haven't done.

Bear Bibeault wrote:9:50 Spill coffee on floor when coffee machine spits hot coffee at me
9:51 Split back of new pants while wiping up coffee
12:30 Return to work, coffee machine shows error 14490, "reboot" coffee machine
2:30 Get more coffee, coffee machine is out of beans, refill machine


Ever thought of drinking tea ?
 
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Joanne, you daft girl, how on earth could a programmer drink tea? Coffee is even required for the standard GridBag tutorial!
 
Bear Bibeault
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Joanne Neal wrote:Ever thought of drinking tea ?


The coffee machine delivers hot water through the same mechanism and so the outcome would likely have been the same.
 
Paul Clapham
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So far today:

(1) Co-worker is getting JSP exceptions from new code I wrote. I don't get those exceptions, and he just got my code from the repository. His configuration must be different somehow. Nothing visible is different. Send him off to clear his version of the RAD project and reimport everything from the repository.

(2) Get tea from lunch room without incident.

(3) Discuss testing of acknowledging JMS messages with second co-worker. Features unrelated to message acknowledgement seem to be causing problems with acknowledgement. Seems bizarre. Second co-worker goes off to do more testing.

(4) Drink tea and eat mince tarts left over from Christmas.

(5) Second co-worker has to go and pick up his son from the school because the son apparently has pink-eye.

(6) Start on JMS testing. My test data from the other day has disappeared (deleted by scheduled historical data purge). Make up new test data.

(7) Check e-mail about last night's support calls. Nothing relevant to my areas of responsibility in that e-mail.
 
Slawomir Wieczorek
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See? Nothing is impossible to the willing mind. Thank you
 
Bear Bibeault
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2:00 Returned pants and got a new pair in return -- different color though
 
Jeanne Boyarsky
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I like how Bear's day prominently features coffee. And thanks for posting. It is interesting to read about other's days. Shows how different our days are and how there isn't a typical one. I'm going to post one more day (today) to show how different two consecutive days can be.

7:45 - catch up on email
8:00 - paperwork
8:30 - more online training modules
9:00 - meeting
9:30 - review presentation for Friday and make some changes based on online training modules. handle formatting in presentation
10:00 - investigate a performance problem in Java
10:45 - read about a UNIX problem
11:30 - meeting
12:00 - walk to Toastmaster's meeting
12:30 - Toastmaster's meeting
1:30 - walk back from Toastmaster's meeting
2:00 - catch up on what happened over last two hours of work
2:30 - pair with a co-worker on an accessibility change to show her how to do it and test my solution worked
3:00 - explain the accessibility change to another developer so the three of us can split the work
3:15 - make coding changes for accessibility change in four applications and test through browser. this involved writing a unit test to make sure the problem doesn't show up in future JSPs which is always fun
4:45 - read about a UNIX problem
5:45 - end of day
 
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Here is what I was doing from last 2 months in my new job.

1. 9:30 Come to office.
2. 9:30 - 10:00 Read online news papers.
3. 10:00-10:30 Javaranch.
4. 10:30-12:00 Read technical books (PDFs).
5. 12:00-12:30 Lunch
6. 12:30-1:30 Reading news updates
7. 1:30-2:30 Facebook
8. 2:30-3:00 Linkedin
9. 3:00-5:00 Reading process oriented stuff (RUP, Agile)
10: 5:00-6:00 Javaranch
11. 6:00 Go home

I am really bored of this schedule and I haven't given any serious work until now.
I am about to ask my lead for any contribution I can make.

However, people around me also seems to be having same schedule like me. Trying hard to keep my mind out of rust.
 
Bear Bibeault
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Jeanne Boyarsky wrote:I like how Bear's day prominently features coffee.


My tag line has long been: "Turning coffee into quality software since 1976."
 
Slawomir Wieczorek
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Bear Bibeault wrote:
9:50 Spill coffee on floor when coffee machine spits hot coffee at me
9:51 Split back of new pants while wiping up coffee
9:55 Use packing tape in bathroom to repair pants enough to attend meeting without revealing the color of my underwear


Ever considered waterproofs? You could save few minutes
 
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Jeanne Boyarsky wrote:.... to show how different two consecutive days can be.



Heh.... I agree that no two days are the same. Espescially the difference between days when I have to go to the office vs days I work from home....

Here's an example day.... and this will be really good to use for an interview
5a - wake up / get ready / get dog situated
6a - leave for work
9a - arrive at work, listen to jeanne talk about weekend, get coffee
9:30 - try to do work while someone stops by my cube asking for jeanne
10 - get more coffee
10:15 - try to get work done
11:30 - get lunch / bring back to desk
11:45 - realized I screwed something up, wait for jeanne to come back from lunch
12 - jeanne back from lunch, she puts up a do not disturb sign, I get more coffee
12:30 - realize my screwup was from something dumb, spend rest of day fixing it
4:30 - leave for home

 
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Janeice DelVecchio wrote:6a - leave for work
9a - arrive at work





Luke
 
Janeice DelVecchio
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Luke Kolin wrote:

Janeice DelVecchio wrote:6a - leave for work
9a - arrive at work





Luke



It's only 2 days a week, thankfully.
 
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Currently am working on researching a product using python, so coding has been drastically reduced, but user requirements are tried upon.
My present schedule :
10 : Be there at work (surf internet for news/tech to get myself simulated)
10:30 : look into problem at hand
10:30-2:00 : Code and sleep in between
2:15-2:45 : Have lunch and talk with fellow devlopers
2:45-7:00 : Code again (intermittently reading technical books)
7:00-8:00 : Fix the loose ends and make sure day's requirements are met/shipped.

p.s. In a rush as today's friday, but will relax this evening!
 
Sumit Bisht
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Sai Surya wrote:Here is what I was doing from last 2 months in my new job.

1. 9:30 Come to office.
2. 9:30 - 10:00 Read online news papers.
3. 10:00-10:30 Javaranch.
4. 10:30-12:00 Read technical books (PDFs).
5. 12:00-12:30 Lunch
6. 12:30-1:30 Reading news updates
7. 1:30-2:30 Facebook
8. 2:30-3:00 Linkedin
9. 3:00-5:00 Reading process oriented stuff (RUP, Agile)
10: 5:00-6:00 Javaranch
11. 6:00 Go home

I am really bored of this schedule and I haven't given any serious work until now.
I am about to ask my lead for any contribution I can make.

However, people around me also seems to be having same schedule like me. Trying hard to keep my mind out of rust.


I envy you!
Why don't you try spending some more time on github. It would suit you, perhaps.
 
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7:30 - get to work
7:31 - read email, check ranch, a few tech blogs
8:00 - start working on my work
8:01 - get interrupted by someone who needs me to "Look at this RIGHT NOW"
8:06 - get interrupted looking at whatever that was by someone else who needs me to look at THEIR problem RIGHT NOW
8:09 - get interrupted by someone else...
8:17 - resolve one of the issues.

random 5-10 minute intervals throughout the day - do my own work on my projects
repeat similarly all through the day

4:00 go home

Weeks when I carry our PRODUCTION pager are even worse
 
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fred rosenberger wrote:7:30 - get to work
7:31 - read email, check ranch, a few tech blogs
8:00 - start working on my work
8:01 - get interrupted by someone who needs me to "Look at this RIGHT NOW"
8:06 - get interrupted looking at whatever that was by someone else who needs me to look at THEIR problem RIGHT NOW
8:09 - get interrupted by someone else...
8:17 - resolve one of the issues.

random 5-10 minute intervals throughout the day - do my own work on my projects
repeat similarly all through the day

4:00 go home

Weeks when I carry our PRODUCTION pager are even worse



You are pretty much dedicated to your work you dont go out for a half hour walk just to get relaxation??
 
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All of my jobs have been a real life incarnation of a Dilbert cartoon or the movie Office Space.

I'm currently working on achieving my dream of doing nothing....
 
Bear Bibeault
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Wally, is that you?
 
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I work from offshore(India). My day:

11:30 AM: Reached Office, Opened Todos excel sheet. Thought and entered the things to do today while also having a look at last day's Todos list if anything is left.

11:45 AM: Went for tea.

12:00 PM Started working on the top most priority items in the Todos list. Started Coding for the Sprint User stories.

12:30 PM: Random team discussion with any other developers at offshore.

02:45 PM : Lunch

03:30 PM : Conducted telephonic interview and forwarded the feedback to HR and onsite.

04:00 PM : Had cofee.

04:30 PM: Daily Standup call with onsite. Told the status of task worked on today.

05:00 PM : Continued with coding.

07:30 PM: Send mail to onsite for the work that has to be done for the Sprint so far.

20:00 PM: Check the todo list and see which of the items on it are yet to be done and which ones can be done today.

08:45 PM: Created tasks in timesheet and filled timesheet.

09:00 PM : Went home.
 
Don't get me started about those stupid light bulbs.
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