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temporallobe04/02/20253 repliesview on HN

This is my experience as well. In the late 90s/early 2000s I had the luxury of a lot of time to deeply and learn Unix, Perl, Java, web development, etc., and it was all self-directed. Now with Agile, literally every hour is accounted for, though we of course have other ways of wasting time by overestimating tasks and creating unnecessary do-nothing stories in order to inflate metrics and justify dead space in the sprint.


Replies

TuringNYC04/02/2025

>> literally every hour is accounted for

I saw one company where early-career BA/PMs (often offshore) would sit alongside developers and "keep them company" almost all day via zoom.

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ecocentrik04/02/2025

If you're creating nothing stories to justify work life balance and avoid burnout your organization has a problem. Look into Extreme Programming and Sustainable Pace.

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singpolyma304/03/2025

And yet well over half of professional developers have productivity so low that if they get laid off the term gets the same amount done...