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by detaro 3528 days ago
Do you really think that he didn't do anything visible for hours and then had a magic spark that led him to delete 2000 lines? GP was careful to only point out strong negative signals.

Even if you do a lot of work on paper you're going to look stuff up online or in the code base, which is visible on screen.

That doesn't mean that this tool can't be abused in both directions, but it seems like an unfair critique of the GP post.
1 comments
Turing_Machine 3528 days ago
"Do you really think that he didn't do anything visible for hours and then had a magic spark that led him to delete 2000 lines?"

OP said something about "not seeing anything on the screen for an hour or more". Not multiple hours. I would almost guarantee that Atkinson thought about the Quickdraw problem for more than an hour before coming up with his insight. I know he wasn't "looking it up online" because, you know, that didn't exist in 1982.

If I'm thinking about something really hard while working at home, I go in my bedroom and close my eyes. That looks just like I'm sleeping, but, you know, I'm hard at work. Sometimes I take a shower.

I think the attitude that "typing" = "programming" has much to do with the popularity of languages like Java that encourage the production of reams of code with very low semantic content.

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Mithaldu 3528 days ago
You're assuming that the OP doesn't know whether the specific task he set the freelancer to includes the possibility of a lengthy amount of planning and preparation outside the computer, without even referring to any material on the computer, or not.

That's a fairly strong assumption and your subthread here would've gone a lot better if you'd started it by asking whether your assumption is correct or not.

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Turing_Machine 3528 days ago
"You're assuming that the OP doesn't know..."

He is quite clearly incapable of making an accurate estimate of the amount of time, planning, and preparation involved, or he wouldn't need to spy on the programmer to assure himself that the programmer was "working". He'd know just from the number of billed hours.

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