Yes, we really do work that hard.
Today on Slashdot a reader asked, "Can People Really Program 80+ Hours a Week?", which infuriated the hell out of me. All of the posts said, "No, that would be silly, you'd have diminishing returns after about sixty hours. Nobody can work that hard without making more mistakes than they fix. Preposterous!"

< rant on >

To both the poster and all the people who responded, I would like to send out a heartfelt, "No Shit, dumbass!" I mean, no offense, but when you're staring a fact in the face, then saying, "Is this possible?" then you are a dumbass. We have been doing this for years, decades, nearly two generations! We've always known they were crap work conditions, and we have always done it because we love our work. We have told you about it in the past, and you have still denied it. You have laughed at us making "Toys" while we worked harder and longer work weeks than you can apparently conceive of.

Are there diminishing returns with "crunch time"? Of course, dumbass! But unlike you, we have not thrown up our hands and said, "Impossible". In my industry people who give up like that become part of the high turnover rate in our industry. Instead, we become masters at writing stable code, making our engines data driven, and generally owning our code on a level that you cannot easily understand. I'd bet even money that we are better at crunch time than you "normal" programmers are, because we're trained in sleep-deprived work conditions.

Wives and girlfriends are called "computer widows". People who have outside lives are called slackers. I heard once of a designer who completed his degree while working for Acclaim. Nobody could believe it, because "who has the time?"

If you want to be helpful, fight to stop this stuff. Boycott EA, join the IGDA and support their findings. Christ, do something! But don't look me in the eye and tell me that I am not able to do the things I do every day.

Do not deny us our dedication just because you can't imagine our level of commitment.

</ rant off >

- posted by BrandG @ 1:37 AM