Many years ago, about 1995 or so, I started keeping a personal log of my time spent coding per the instructions of the famous Watts Humphrey's Personal Software Process. What I learned in the first year or so, especially as I move to new jobs was that the tools I used to do the tasks I was recording kept changing, and what was a lengthy task in 1995 became a quick simple task in 1997. The tools for the trade keep improving and productivity logs have limited usefulness.
So how do we manage to measure our own productivity as software developers?
This is not to say that such a log is useless. In 20 years it has saved me once from an attempt to blame me for something that I didn't do. Several times it has provided real data for how long a project takes if it is using the same tools in the same environment as previously recorded. But how often do repetitious jobs come up? Well that depends upon how long I decide to to hang around a job where I have already mastered the skills, and now I am in the process of teaching new folks how to do what I have done. Probably a sign of stagnation, now that I write about it.
So how do we manage to measure our own productivity as software developers?
This is not to say that such a log is useless. In 20 years it has saved me once from an attempt to blame me for something that I didn't do. Several times it has provided real data for how long a project takes if it is using the same tools in the same environment as previously recorded. But how often do repetitious jobs come up? Well that depends upon how long I decide to to hang around a job where I have already mastered the skills, and now I am in the process of teaching new folks how to do what I have done. Probably a sign of stagnation, now that I write about it.
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