[therm0]

>There's been times where I've spent weeks or even months going down a path that has ultimately proven fruitless, including spending really long hours on it. That certainly counts as work, but if it results in no meaningful value being produced, then what's the point?

how do you do this and not get fired? i got a lecture earlier this year about how spending two weeks on a difficult problem in a project that i'd just gotten dropped into was not befitting of a senior software developer.

[peterkelly]

Communication is key. Once you've started working on something and it looks like it might not work out or take a lot longer than expected, discuss this with your manager and find out how they would like you to proceed.

My approach is to make my case for why I should keep working on a particular thing (especially if I feel strongly about it and/or confident I can make it work given enough time), but ultimately respecting their decision. I find this works well.

The cases where I've spent weeks/months on something are either where I was in charge of the project (during grad school, and later as an indie developer), or as an employee where my manager considered the task to be of sufficient importance to the business to continue down the path, even if it means spending more time or trying a few different approaches until I find one that works. This is especially the case with research-oriented projects where you don't know where a path is going to lead until you go down it.

[mjrbrennan]

This is super workplace dependent. Some places just want you to churn stuff out quickly and are unforgiving of research and time spent thinking things through. Other places value everyone taking their time, learning, and finding the right solution, even if it takes longer, rather than the solution that works right this second.