[ramesh31]

>The world is being optimized for clockwatchers who want to do their work with the least amount of effort. Before long (if not already) people who enjoy their craft, and think of their work as a craft, will be ridiculed for wanting to do it themselves.

There is one clock you should be watching regardless, which is the clock of your life. Your code will not come see you in the hospital, or cheer you up when you're having a rough day. You wont be sitting around at 70 wishing you had spent more 3am nights debugging something. When your back gives out from 18hrs a day of grinding at a desk to get something out, and you can barely walk from the sciatica, you wont be thinking about that great new feature you shipped. There are far more important things in life once you come to terms with that, and you will learn that the whole point of the former is enabling the latter.

[bmgxyz]

Writing code _has_ helped me feel better on some bad days. Even looking back at old projects brings me contentment and reassurance sometimes. On its own, it can't provide the happiness that a balanced life can, but craft and achievement are definitely pleasing. I would consider it an essential part of a good life, regardless of what the actual activity is.

This is different from meaningless work that brings you nothing except a paycheck, which I agree is important to minimize or eliminate. We should apply machines to this kind of work as much as we can, except in cases where the work itself doesn't need to exist.

[esafak]

You could say the same about every job, so you are really arguing against jobs in general. Who's going to help you fix your sciatica if your doctor and physical therapist think like that?

[insin]

The opposite of a clockwatcher isn't a workaholic, it's someone enjoying writing code and the collaboration, problem solving and design process which leads to what you end up writing, and enjoying _doing it well_ inside normal work hours, remarking at how quickly the clock is going when they do check it.