I usually do 3-4 coding hours but to be real it's more than that since i keep thinking about the code in my bed time, shower time, dinner time, basically all day just to find a solution
according to my habit logger i am coding for 60minutes Mon-Sun of normally just writing tests (unit tests and integration tests), and 24 hours of thinking about writing well written, thoroughly tested, well architectured software. Coding is an application of endless thoughts of how to approach and solve a problem. I think about my programming challenges non-stop, 24/7, that coding is really just summarising my thoughts into tests and production code...
Honestly the amount of time reading up documentation (and recently spending time with AI) is crazy, as well as just thinking about the solution. Actual code writing part is small because of AI too
Don't ask mines I am one day like sure I am bored of python lemme learn Lua(roblox studio) and other day I am like lemme continue watching that 12 h Python course
I always loved Wednesdays growing up, but I'm not even sure why. Friday was nice because of the end of school, but I was always loved Weds. Hated Mondays with a passion. I think Wed was the day I saw hope for getting to the weekend, it's the halfway point... almost there.
This is kinda true.😅 I spend most of the time back and fort on documentation or discussion to resolve the problem until my focus drop. But actually I do it 9:00AM to 12:00PM then 2:00PM to 4:00PM. Then I spend my time watching Anime and Watch boot camp alternately for the whole night.
After long ardous programming session, and finally celebrating to have something working - I am often surprised by how short the actual code is. :) And I consider short, neat concise code as an indicator of something positive. If I end up writing long complicated code - that just means I kept banging at the thing just to make it work.
This sounds about right. We spend way more time reading terrible documentation, or even worse undocumented code, in order to figure out how the heck to make the system do what we want. The actual writing of the code simply doesn't take that long. Then of course there is the other half or more of our day: Debugging. Sometimes you do get to a do a really nice flow-state coding session for an hour or two because you know what you need to write already, and just have to write it down. But usually it's write a line. Test it. Doesn't work. Read documentation. Oh that's why. Fix it. Test it. Still doesn't work. Oh, the documentation is wrong, check the source. Fix it. Test. Finally compiles. Run it. Wrong output. Repeat.
Yeah I don't know the exact time I sit and type code but, when coding full time I probably spent a solid 6 hours a day sitting at the computer either reading about the problem or researching it or writing the actual code or test code. The other 2 hours were for breaks, just thinking about the problem, etc. some days though, I'd probably only spend like 3 hours like that, the rest of the time I'd be trying to rest my mind because I was stuck on something and needed to refresh my mind.
Ouch I code 8 hours a day 😢 Some times 12 hours If I don't do that the project we'll not progress... And you are saying there are programmers that don't even code for 1 hour a day ... This must be a mistake
Programmers are not encoders. So if codings will be counted alone in the IDE then I totally agree. Because most time are thinking before writing codes. We are not encoding paragraph or writing essay. We do research and analyse things first.
Stand up, retro, backlog refinement, review, catchup, 1:1s, 1 hour for lunch - a lot of time is spent NOT developing but generally it's for the benefit of the team and yourself (except when it's crunch time)
Just finished a 10 hour debugging nightmare that turned out to be just a misplaced } the data of a http mock. It wasn't discovered for 2 years, because another bug caused the mock to not be used, instead hitting our production backend on each test run 🤦🤦🤦
makes sense. Gotta do the daily standup where we stand up to see if theres any upstanding issues and then sit down to see which meeting is going down next
As an ex-corporate software engineer and supervisor, I can attest to 52 minutes per week. The rest is bureaucratic overhead, meetings, code reviews, requirements gathering, artifacting, q&A, etc. But mostly meetings - endless meetings. Day and day. Back to back. UGH
@broggully testing, documentations, code reviews. The projects I worked on because the tasks were divided, I only coded a section and then spent most of the time debugging, testing, etc.
Sounds about right. I can imagine they spend most of their time prepping and writing pseudocode, so when it comes time to actually program, it probably takes about 1-2 hours depending on the project.
The productivity on Wednesday is so true lmao. However, as a junior software engineer, we don't have much responsibility other than coding. So seniors will get to meetings and do all the important managing stuff and we the juniors just use the task board and keep on coding for 8 hours a day. Even if I take debugging out of the day and browsing the web for some answers - I would still end up about 3 hours of literal active code writing. There are days where it is much less or much more, but 3 is the average at the company I'm working at (not third-world country based).
Hey Lewis, not sure if you'll see this, but I wanted to ask your advice because I love your videos and hope to be either a front-end dev or back-end dev. I'm currently studying a Master's in Computer Science, but I'm a little nervous about breaking into it. I know lots of jobs ask for a degree whilst others don't. Are coders still needed? Is it like with teachers (a supposed shortage of them), is it a high demand job?
I dont even work as a programmer and im actively typing code for more than 1 and a half hours, and maybe like 3-4 hours of coding daily. Im studying if y’all wondering.
This is true, earlier today I was wondering how much time I actually spent coding to spend time finding solutions. I have reached the conclusion that my active code time each day is no more than an hour. So I have been rethinking my productivity. Trying pull the coding time together so as to reuse my lost time.for something else.
That sounds about right. My time is split roughly as follows: * 30% on code review * 20% on issue investigation * 20% on design review & specs * 10% on meetings * 10% on my phone waiting for the day to end
i put in like 5 hours a day on my game. 1 hour coding. but 2 hours dealing with assets, level design, character design. 1 hour debugging. half an hour of working on story and half an hour of misc
During holidays, I code for 6 hours 5 hours reading docs, creating documentation on how the apps work, watching youtube streams while laughing, and drinking coffee Then, I spend another 20 mins staring at my editor 👁👄👁
That’s where there is the misconception of what programming is. I had a professor tell me he took two weeks to create a program that took him a few hours to write, writing a program is writing a program. But creating the program, now that’s the long haul.
I would say I genuinely spend at least 4 hours out of my average day literally coding, but that’s because I work at a startup environment where I have a lot to build out and a very long but clear path forward.
1-2 hours a day. The rest of the time is taken up by planning meetings, meetings that could have been emails, design, research, reading the existing code base, testing, debugging, Agile ceremonies that go on so long it's a farce to still call them Agile, etc. Actually committing code to file is way overblown by wannabe rockstars, and those people tend to really slow down and hold back the rest of the team.
Most of my time is spent in useless meetings. Rest of it on fixing jiras or deployment issues. Finally get to write a few lines of code every few weeks.
I debug about 2 hours when I code, research another 2 hours, and code about 10 minutes of that time. I don't code professionally, I'm just doing projects to learn, so I don't take it as seriously as I should tbh
2 hours are spent drinking coffee and small talks 2 hours coordinating the team or helping junior devs 2 hours stupid meetings (with customer or internal) 1 hour coding 1 hour debugging
7 hours of meetings 30 mins lunch (dont even get a full hour) 5 mins writing code interrupted by 25 mins of arguing with coworker on why my approach is better than theirs
Have been measuring mine on Code::Stats, and yeah, like 1-2h focus time is not unusual, though there are spikes out to 10h pretty frequently. Though in my case, unfortunately, I am directing multiple people instead of just coding.
35% meetings, 35% is the time between meetings or getting into the problem, 10% getting interrupted with random questions and then at most 20% coding. Seems legit
Lots of incompetent managers will bring this up, and then ask you for two 1.5 hour meetings with clients and install a laptop and then again complain that you didn't do much coding today. The narrower you define a thing, the less you'll find of it.
Me over here thinking I wasn’t very good cuz after about 4 hours of coding my brain goes on vacation and I start creating more bugs then fixing things…. Man this makes me fill way better
Im clearly doing something wrong... As a freelancer, some periods of the year, specially when I underestimate some project, I'm putting over 12 hours a day, sometimes consistently over several weeks, yes, I burnout sometimes. A little bit misleading? I need to get hired. 😂
I code 60 minutes/day, but doing debugging 6 hours/day
The only right answer
Even with chatgpt or Claude?
Even with Chatgpt or Claude?
Even with Chatgpt or Claude?
@@sohail789I’ve been an embedded developer for 10 years and I know exactly 0 people who use chatgpt to debug their code at work lol
Can’t write bugs if you don’t write code
Facts
55 minutes coding
12 hours stack overflow 💀
I had an error with printing to a piece of hardware until I realized that it only accepted const_strs.
People still use stack overflow?
@@realfejiro Yes every time
I usually do 3-4 coding hours but to be real it's more than that since i keep thinking about the code in my bed time, shower time, dinner time, basically all day just to find a solution
So true
Same with every true programmer
2-5pm? Nah that's insane. That's when I'm lackin and catching some zzzs.
According to my statistics, I'm the most productive between 11pm-3am so who knows xD
@@9xtryhx230same 😂😂 its always the midnight motivation
1h daily standup, 1h coding, 6h gaming
I code all the day, because coding is a way of thinking, not only an activity.
according to my habit logger i am coding for 60minutes Mon-Sun of normally just writing tests (unit tests and integration tests), and 24 hours of thinking about writing well written, thoroughly tested, well architectured software. Coding is an application of endless thoughts of how to approach and solve a problem. I think about my programming challenges non-stop, 24/7, that coding is really just summarising my thoughts into tests and production code...
Honestly the amount of time reading up documentation (and recently spending time with AI) is crazy, as well as just thinking about the solution. Actual code writing part is small because of AI too
Makes sense but I was expecting higher 💀
Don't ask mines I am one day like sure I am bored of python lemme learn Lua(roblox studio) and other day I am like lemme continue watching that 12 h Python course
Wednesday being the most productive is so true though, idk why but i always get motivated on wednesdays
Me too it takes me 2 days to actually understand what I have to do 😂😂😂
I always loved Wednesdays growing up, but I'm not even sure why. Friday was nice because of the end of school, but I was always loved Weds. Hated Mondays with a passion. I think Wed was the day I saw hope for getting to the weekend, it's the halfway point... almost there.
you forgot hazily staring at the screen mentally calculating where you went wrong
its all started when i was born
This is kinda true.😅 I spend most of the time back and fort on documentation or discussion to resolve the problem until my focus drop. But actually I do it 9:00AM to 12:00PM then 2:00PM to 4:00PM. Then I spend my time watching Anime and Watch boot camp alternately for the whole night.
After long ardous programming session, and finally celebrating to have something working - I am often surprised by how short the actual code is. :)
And I consider short, neat concise code as an indicator of something positive. If I end up writing long complicated code - that just means I kept banging at the thing just to make it work.
I code for 8 hours and 20 minutes a day, 20 minutes proompting to get 8 hours worth of code and bugs from GPT
Don’t forget the DSU & Shareholder meetings, massive time commitment 😅
24/7 and really enjoy it too much
This sounds about right. We spend way more time reading terrible documentation, or even worse undocumented code, in order to figure out how the heck to make the system do what we want. The actual writing of the code simply doesn't take that long. Then of course there is the other half or more of our day: Debugging.
Sometimes you do get to a do a really nice flow-state coding session for an hour or two because you know what you need to write already, and just have to write it down. But usually it's write a line. Test it. Doesn't work. Read documentation. Oh that's why. Fix it. Test it. Still doesn't work. Oh, the documentation is wrong, check the source. Fix it. Test. Finally compiles. Run it. Wrong output. Repeat.
Yeah I don't know the exact time I sit and type code but, when coding full time I probably spent a solid 6 hours a day sitting at the computer either reading about the problem or researching it or writing the actual code or test code. The other 2 hours were for breaks, just thinking about the problem, etc. some days though, I'd probably only spend like 3 hours like that, the rest of the time I'd be trying to rest my mind because I was stuck on something and needed to refresh my mind.
I find Friday is the worst day, I'm productive in the morning but come 12, I tend to decline😂
Fridays are a write-off for most businesses, lol. Almost everyone can't focus and just wants to leave early.
I code until my brain turns to mush and I can't code any longer. Could be an hour, could be 16 hours.
Ouch I code 8 hours a day 😢
Some times 12 hours
If I don't do that the project we'll not progress...
And you are saying there are programmers that don't even code for 1 hour a day ...
This must be a mistake
Programmers are not encoders. So if codings will be counted alone in the IDE then I totally agree. Because most time are thinking before writing codes. We are not encoding paragraph or writing essay. We do research and analyse things first.
Stand up, retro, backlog refinement, review, catchup, 1:1s, 1 hour for lunch - a lot of time is spent NOT developing but generally it's for the benefit of the team and yourself (except when it's crunch time)
Just finished a 10 hour debugging nightmare that turned out to be just a misplaced } the data of a http mock. It wasn't discovered for 2 years, because another bug caused the mock to not be used, instead hitting our production backend on each test run 🤦🤦🤦
I'd say at least 90% of coding time is debugging, and only 10% is implementation.
makes sense. Gotta do the daily standup where we stand up to see if theres any upstanding issues and then sit down to see which meeting is going down next
8 hour workday - 7 hours spent on calls, 1 hour spent on actual work
As an ex-corporate software engineer and supervisor, I can attest to 52 minutes per week. The rest is bureaucratic overhead, meetings, code reviews, requirements gathering, artifacting, q&A, etc. But mostly meetings - endless meetings. Day and day. Back to back. UGH
I'm guessing that endless meetings are killing that by at least 10 minutes a day 🤣
This kinda makes me happy....
I realized this when I started my internship working with a team. I have no coding sometimes unless it's a personal project.
What do/did they have you do?
@broggully testing, documentations, code reviews. The projects I worked on because the tasks were divided, I only coded a section and then spent most of the time debugging, testing, etc.
Sounds about right. I can imagine they spend most of their time prepping and writing pseudocode, so when it comes time to actually program, it probably takes about 1-2 hours depending on the project.
Less than 1 hour is absolutely wild
The productivity on Wednesday is so true lmao. However, as a junior software engineer, we don't have much responsibility other than coding. So seniors will get to meetings and do all the important managing stuff and we the juniors just use the task board and keep on coding for 8 hours a day. Even if I take debugging out of the day and browsing the web for some answers - I would still end up about 3 hours of literal active code writing. There are days where it is much less or much more, but 3 is the average at the company I'm working at (not third-world country based).
As a web developer, Half of my time goes in Fixing a code snippet and refreshing the page, seeing the log statements of what went wrong.
Hey Lewis, not sure if you'll see this, but I wanted to ask your advice because I love your videos and hope to be either a front-end dev or back-end dev. I'm currently studying a Master's in Computer Science, but I'm a little nervous about breaking into it. I know lots of jobs ask for a degree whilst others don't. Are coders still needed? Is it like with teachers (a supposed shortage of them), is it a high demand job?
I dont even work as a programmer and im actively typing code for more than 1 and a half hours, and maybe like 3-4 hours of coding daily.
Im studying if y’all wondering.
I spend 2 hours a day thoroughly focused on coding and thought I was slacking
55 min - actually writing code
16 hours - staring at a bug in the screen thinking "WHAT DID I DO WRONG" and questioning your whole life
This is true, earlier today I was wondering how much time I actually spent coding to spend time finding solutions. I have reached the conclusion that my active code time each day is no more than an hour. So I have been rethinking my productivity. Trying pull the coding time together so as to reuse my lost time.for something else.
Watching it between the most productive day and time😅😅
Coding is not the same as programming, learning, or researching
1 hour coding, 1 hour debugging and fixing bugs
That sounds about right. My time is split roughly as follows:
* 30% on code review
* 20% on issue investigation
* 20% on design review & specs
* 10% on meetings
* 10% on my phone waiting for the day to end
i put in like 5 hours a day on my game. 1 hour coding. but 2 hours dealing with assets, level design, character design. 1 hour debugging. half an hour of working on story and half an hour of misc
Coding 3 hours. Reading documentation and online searching 6 hours. Debugging code 9 hours. Eating 25 minutes. Getting distracted on TH-cam 1 hour (okay 3). Hearing the birds start chirping because it's already the next morning: priceless.
During holidays, I code for 6 hours
5 hours reading docs, creating documentation on how the apps work, watching youtube streams while laughing, and drinking coffee
Then, I spend another 20 mins staring at my editor 👁👄👁
They should add a timer in IEDs to calculate actual coding time.
Probably some do have.
Me resting in sunshine while watching this video and today is Wednesday. 😂🤓
I'm not sure coding time but coding sessions... Where I'm researching, coding, reading documentation, planning... 12 hours a day.
Wednesday is the last day of the sprint after all
Exactly 55 minutes of writing code, and the rest is purely debugging that code
Depending on how i woke up. Sometimes 4 hours, sometimes 12 hours starting at 1am in the morning till I fall asleep
Correction: 7 hours brute force, 1 hour reading and 1 hour actually writing working code
Wow, 52 minutes per day: these guys must be working 12 hours a day
That’s where there is the misconception of what programming is. I had a professor tell me he took two weeks to create a program that took him a few hours to write, writing a program is writing a program. But creating the program, now that’s the long haul.
I usually take 1h or less when coding, but if the task is really difficult, then I can spend some time googling for the solution.
Yeah coding isn’t the hard part, it’s figuring out what you’re supposed to be writing
I definitely do more...
There are days when I just know what I'm doing and I just go 8h straight
Yeah I probably code for 2 and research for 5-6 probably 😭🙏
Also on weekends 5am-12pm is the best and most quiet time for programming fr
Waiting 20 minutes for a pipeline
Im working on a game rn, almost 2 hrs of coding between 2-6 pm
I would say I genuinely spend at least 4 hours out of my average day literally coding, but that’s because I work at a startup environment where I have a lot to build out and a very long but clear path forward.
1-2 hours a day. The rest of the time is taken up by planning meetings, meetings that could have been emails, design, research, reading the existing code base, testing, debugging, Agile ceremonies that go on so long it's a farce to still call them Agile, etc.
Actually committing code to file is way overblown by wannabe rockstars, and those people tend to really slow down and hold back the rest of the team.
Some days 0 hours, some days 9 hours+
Most of my time is spent in useless meetings. Rest of it on fixing jiras or deployment issues. Finally get to write a few lines of code every few weeks.
I debug about 2 hours when I code, research another 2 hours, and code about 10 minutes of that time. I don't code professionally, I'm just doing projects to learn, so I don't take it as seriously as I should tbh
4 hours of typing prompts into chatGPT, 52 mins of ctrl-c ctrl-v and 7-9 hours debugging and trying to make it work
2 hours are spent drinking coffee and small talks
2 hours coordinating the team or helping junior devs
2 hours stupid meetings (with customer or internal)
1 hour coding
1 hour debugging
a tenth of the time I spent reading docs and finding library/component
7 hours of meetings
30 mins lunch (dont even get a full hour)
5 mins writing code interrupted by 25 mins of arguing with coworker on why my approach is better than theirs
Have been measuring mine on Code::Stats, and yeah, like 1-2h focus time is not unusual, though there are spikes out to 10h pretty frequently. Though in my case, unfortunately, I am directing multiple people instead of just coding.
Depends, how much coffee you got?
Man I feel like I'm configuring neovim more than I actually code 😭
5hrs when serious,
2 - 3 is good for me, the rest i flip, train Martials and write stories❤🎉
Not to mention being dragged into needless meetings
35% meetings, 35% is the time between meetings or getting into the problem, 10% getting interrupted with random questions and then at most 20% coding. Seems legit
I've been assigned to just fix bugs because I only work 4 hours a week (still a student).
Me all of the day just inconsistently
if you count coding in brain as well as running python and node inside my brain, i code 24/7
I spend 9-14 hours sometimes debugging and sometimes 4 hours coding
yeah 2-5 is yeah the real time because I have school till 2 and then in 6 another thing so it's pretty accurate
Lots of incompetent managers will bring this up, and then ask you for two 1.5 hour meetings with clients and install a laptop and then again complain that you didn't do much coding today.
The narrower you define a thing, the less you'll find of it.
and 6 hours of meetings explaining project manager 😅
I have a full time SWE job but only have work to do about 3 to 4 days a month
idk my per day stats but I have an ide plugin that tracks time per commit and as of recent they average 2-4 hours
Me over here thinking I wasn’t very good cuz after about 4 hours of coding my brain goes on vacation and I start creating more bugs then fixing things…. Man this makes me fill way better
I think you mean 2am to 5am. That's when I've made my best code at least.
I knew a dude who coded for an hour and then the rest of the day played Dead By Daylight.
Hahahah they got my stats cause that’s literally me
I just done a 11 hours coding shift lol
Is debugging considered as actually coding as that takes a lot of time?
They should code a script that continuously but harmlessly modifies a text editor u have open 🤣
Im clearly doing something wrong...
As a freelancer, some periods of the year, specially when I underestimate some project, I'm putting over 12 hours a day, sometimes consistently over several weeks, yes, I burnout sometimes.
A little bit misleading?
I need to get hired. 😂
Right now. I’m working around 10 to 12 hours per day as a freelance. I want to buy a car. I’m going to slow down a little bit after that.
12 mins code, 12 hours crying
Atleast like 2-3 hours and I'm just an intern
60 mins is coding but googling and debugging is 8 hours
100 % well said.
3 hours a day, debugging 13 hours