[Crockeo]

Right over by the sign-up for creativity class!

EDIT: That came out a lot more hostile sounding than intended...

This post has been edited by Crockeo: 05 January 2012 - 10:17 PM

[wordswords]

I had some time over christmas where I could sit back a bit, and work on my own 'practicing' projects. One of the projects I worked on was a Java application that scraped information such as title, author and last modified date for our change requests, and collected them in a MySQL table. I then used PHP to generate a BBCode wiki page out of the change request index, and published it on the wiki. Now I have a wiki page which links to all 800+ change requests and you can sort by title, last modified author, original author, date, and so on.

The 'practicing' project I am working on now used python and the language 'expect' to automaticaly log in to a list of our linux servers, and get information on them, such as which common usernames allowed logins, what directories were present in the /home directory, what the kernel version is, what distribution of Linux we were using, and so on. Then I can build up a table of all the servers we have, and all relevant data. I will put that table as a wiki page so that everyone can refer to it when needed.

This post has been edited by wordswords: 06 January 2012 - 07:04 PM

[Eric115]

Quote

I make use of the time by napping, playing games, working on my own projects, and watching TV.

Gee, these jobs as a programmer sound even better than I thought they were.
I guess though it depends on the season as to how busy you are. I worked in a computer store for a while, most of the computers that came in were just virus removal or my printer won't scan (see this switch here, that says scanner, On-Off? It is set on the off setting....). Because of this it was busy for a while in the morning, when you set up the computers to scan them and test them, but after about 1-2 hours, we were just standing around waiting for scans to finish and doing nothing. It would've been good if I could've done some coding or something, but sometimes you just get those vibes from employers that you shouldn't be "wasting" time and eventually you either run out of computers to fix or places to put them while you are fixing them.

This post has been edited by Eric115: 09 January 2012 - 08:05 AM

[BenignDesign]

I get a handful of not-really-much-to-do days per year. Last year, I used those days to start learning Ruby. Hoping when those days surface this year, I'll get to go back and relearn the Ruby I've forgotten since my last day with nothing to do.

[3P1C_F@!l]

BenignDesign, on 10 January 2012 - 11:46 AM, said:

I get a handful of not-really-much-to-do days per year. Last year, I used those days to start learning Ruby. Hoping when those days surface this year, I'll get to go back and relearn the Ruby I've forgotten since my last day with nothing to do.

Almost sounds like a vicious cycle of learning Ruby every year

[xclite]

There is nothing vicious about learning Ruby =p

[MrSooty]

I tend to get those dull periods where I'm waiting for feedback from the clients so we can change/modify/release as necessary, so I often times see myself browsing DIC to see if I can help anyone or just reading Twitter

[WinkyCode]

When I work with tech support, I had some days in the beginning with nothing to do. Then I reviewed my work, customers review and what-not. All to improve my performance. But then we got "hit".

The last four month I worked I had no time to review work. Just taking calls.

So yeah, I am jealous on some of the stories here

[MirrorFish]

3P1C_F@!l, on 04 January 2012 - 10:45 AM, said:

I have been programming for a couple years now and at two different employers. I have found myself involved in some rather interesting/challenging projects and enjoy what I do. "Problem" is that I find myself seriously under worked at times. Under worked meaning nothing to do(or very minor 30 minute to 1 hour code revisions) for a couple days at a time. I am wondering if this is normal for other programmers in the professional world?!?!

Hello,
I do agree with everyone suggesting self education / personal project. However I would like to note that occasional movements (spikes ?) in multiple directions don't really make much difference in one's life.

I guess you have a dream or goal to achieve so If I were you I would concentrate on that every time this slippage happens.

I personally enjoy working on something that is to become my future company once (soon, I hope). I do it when ever I have a minute or too. Sometimes - even when I am supposed to do something else . My company is going to change my life for better after all, so what can be more important ?

As for your question if it is normal in the industry or not - yes, it is quite normal, IMHO. Let's consider the following analogy. Imagine a person that travels. If she keeps just walking without seeing around, checking the root and direction, and taking breaks to rest - what kind of journey would it be ?

Professionally (I do management/programming 40/60) I would suggest to keep 10-30% of your time unplanned. If something sudden comes out - you always have time to manage it and still keep up with the schedule. If all goes well - you just have a "filler"-task to work on in these 10-30% of your time every day. This served for me well when I was a student and worked full-time simultaneously.

Regards

[anonymouscodder]

Yes, it's common.

I got friends in the industry that eventually they got literally nothing to do in their jobs. I never really got one job like that, I always got the clock tickin behind me and a full board of tasks to be done.

I think it's amazing getting a free time. No, not that I'm lazy, but I would improve, research, analyze, whatever, in the existing code (framework, product, server, whatever!) being completely free to put my opinion in it without the clock ticking.