Programmer Productivity as a Drake Equation?

Question

I sometimes think of programmer productivity as being able to model as a Drake Equation:how well you know a prog langXhow concise or powerful that prog langXhow well you know the editor/toolchainXhow powerful your machineXhow much/little interruptedXhow much/little distractedXhow many relevant "variables" & constraint factors are fresh in your brain's registers/cachesXapplying lots of little "best practices" in your workflowXstimulant abuse (CAFFEINE, PEOPLE! CAFFEINE! sheesh)anybody else? thoughts? better / more refined versions of this equation/mousetrap?

muzani · Accepted Answer

My favorite equation is justproductive programmer &rarr; happy programmerhappy programmer &rarr; productive programmerIt's a feedback loop though "happy" and "productive" are all complex equations in their own right. Also there's a soft cap on productivity and happiness.

kratom_sandwich · Answer

Same equation, different framing: What you're saying is that programmers are producing according to a Cobb-Douglas Production function with output elasticities of 1. Only caveat: in this setup, the production function has increasing returns to scale, i.e. doubling all the inputs (simulants, power of the machine, ...) more than doubles the output.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobb%E2%80%93Douglas_productio...
[2] https://jigjids.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/cobb-dauglas-tan...

jstx1 · Answer

I want to add a technical factor - the thing that slows me down the most is lack of knowledge about peripheral operational details - what all the configuration files do, how my repository is templating something from a different repository, how all the deployment steps get executed etc. It&rsquo;s a lot of details, many systems, some of which you only touch rarely so it&rsquo;s very easy to lose track of things.

pillefitz · Answer

Your factors are tech focused, but almost always what's more important: Are you working on the correct problem and do users care?

revskill · Answer

Nothing above is the cause of real productivity.To me, it's about FUN.Without fun, your productivity is of course low.

joshxyz · Answer

are we talking about views drake or scorpion drake, i prefer the latter.

b20000 · Answer

why do you care about productivity?

Programmer Productivity as a Drake Equation?

My favorite equation is just
productive programmer → happy programmer
happy programmer → productive programmer
It's a feedback loop though "happy" and "productive" are all complex equations in their own right. Also there's a soft cap on productivity and happiness.

Your factors are tech focused, but almost always what's more important: Are you working on the correct problem and do users care?

Nothing above is the cause of real productivity.
To me, it's about FUN.
Without fun, your productivity is of course low.

are we talking about views drake or scorpion drake, i prefer the latter.

why do you care about productivity?