Ask HN: What do you do on weekend?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=844177

by anildigital • 17 years ago

25 65 17 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

What do you do on weekend? (for programmers)

edw519• 17 years ago

Code with less interruptions.

Novash• 17 years ago

Ditto. Code my own projects with little to no interruptions.

timmaah2• 17 years ago

Make sure I spend some time outside away from the computer and technology in general...

RossM• 17 years ago

Very successfully in your case!

timmaah2• 17 years ago

Curious as to what your reply is referring to?

(Still Friday here..)

petercooper• 17 years ago

Exactly the same as during the week. As I work for myself weekends are normal days like any other. I just take random days off with no regard for what name they have.

My wife has always worked weird shifts (and is now off for a year on maternity leave) so it works family-wise.. and we don't have to wrestle with the horrible weekend crowds at places. The only real benefit of the weekend is less e-mail to deal with :)

Mongoose• 17 years ago

Read and fiddle with code by day. Hang out and imbibe with friends by night. I've been doing a lot of tea tasting around Seattle lately too.

leftnode• 17 years ago

Is this only what I do programming wise, or for all programmers? Cause I:

* mow the lawn

* exercise

* clean the house

* watch some TV with my wife

And then programming-wise, I work on my side projects and work on building my own software company.

wheels2• 17 years ago

What's a weekend?

tptacek3• 17 years ago

The 2 days you allocate to every week to keep yourself from burning out in 3 years and then spending 7 months doing nothing but following links on Reddit.

dschobel• 17 years ago

doing nothing but following links on Reddit

ah, the good old corporate job.

wheels2• 17 years ago

At this point I plan for burnout. It's just part of my productivity cycle. Small burnouts happen 1-2 times a year and involve about a week of doing nothing; large burnouts happen every 2-4 years and require a couple months. This happens with or without weekends.

jhancock2• 17 years ago

reddit's still around? I though all the users moved to HN?

tptacek3• 17 years ago

Saturday is my sleep-in day, Sunday is Erin's. I'm on the hook for dinner Saturday night; I try to do something interesting. Sunday night I tend to watch TV.

In between, I get some super-unproductive computer time in and hang out with the kids. Recently, it's been Mindstorms. Last weekend we picked apples. This weekend is my sister's wedding. Next weekend I owe my son his belated promised Dim Sum birthday lunch.

A couple weekends from now, I'm doing a class in Chicago for cryptography for security testers. If that works out well, I'll probably try to do some kind of class every other month. A class occupies two weekends, one for the class (and dinner afterwards) and one before that to rehearse.

More than you wanted to know, but hey, thanks for giving me the chance to straighten my schedule out in my head.

pasbesoin2• 17 years ago

Reminded me to check the website for the local orchard. Golden Delicious picking scheduled to start next weekend. Yum! And a few hours in the orchard is generally one of the highlights of the year. :-)

tptacek3• 17 years ago

Always go earlier in the year than you think you should; right now is perfect. :)

dkasper• 17 years ago

The same things I do any other time.

felideon• 17 years ago

Get out of the house for my family's sake. (With them of course.) We also sleep or watch a movie in the afternoon if my son is tired and needs a nap.

At night I try to be productive and hack, or I do some research/reading since my mind is not fatigued.

raquo• 17 years ago

Some times I even meet with friends on weekends.

dnaquin• 17 years ago

watch football.

ax0n2• 17 years ago

If it's like the last two weekends, I'm going to be working. so far 18 days without a proper day off.

logicalmind• 17 years ago

I hope you are working for you own company. If not, maybe you should be...

ax0n2• 17 years ago

Well, it was only ~5-10 hours per weekend 2 weekends in a row, and it was in the name of making stuff easier for my team for the future. In general, I like my job.

And I actually got out on my bike the past two weekends without working, got some computers built to hopefully find their way into the homes of school kids who need something simple at home, and I'm about 18 chapters deep into Snow Crash, which I feel REALLY BAD for putting off for so long. Never read it before.

rokhayakebe• 17 years ago

Email bloggers, or reply. Email distribution partners, or reply. Make changes on the site. Then from 11PM until 2 AM I actually go out.

dfranke• 17 years ago

The same thing I do every weekend, Pinky...

comster• 17 years ago

Try to take over the world!

timwiseman• 17 years ago

Play with the kids and try to get caught up on my homework for my Master's program.

kd5bjo• 17 years ago

- On call

- Sleep

- Spend time outside

- http://sfgames.org/

- http://www.berkeleygoclub.org/

alum• 17 years ago

Sometimes I'm on the computer, sometimes not, but I always try and catch the Arsenal match (whether on TV or some online feed).

mrshoe• 17 years ago

http://dieselweb.org/

http://shoptalkapp.com/

Ah, the joys of bootstrapping a startup on the side...

apalmblad• 17 years ago

Get the hell away from a computer. Heh, that sounds negative. I love by job but I find it easiest to keep balanced by getting away as much as I can for the weekends. For me, that's hiking, climbing, and back-country skiing. I pay for managed hosting for a reason.

Or work on code of a more interesting variety. As a startup founder, there's usually an interesting problem percolating in the back of my mind, and some days just finding a nice coffee shop and working on code with less distractions is perfect.

icey• 17 years ago

Anymore I write more software on Saturday & Sunday than I do M-F. So which one is my weekend?

staunch• 17 years ago

Some combination of:

Programming, Reading, Drinking, Poker, PC Gaming (Urban Terror, StarCraft, UT3, Quake), Magic: The Gathering, Catching up on entire seasons of good shows, Movie theater, Shopping (food), Walking (w/dogs)

Big fan of being home on the weekend. I like my home.

movix• 17 years ago

Surf, learn and practice bushcraft techniques, daydream about owning a campervan for kids/bikes/surboards, take photographs of clouds, go fishing but never catch anything.

allanj37• 17 years ago

I brew and/or drink beer! Camping, computer games, ultimate frisbee as well.

DarrenMills• 17 years ago

I would be glad to share, but I cannot remember.

leviathant• 17 years ago

Go to a concert Go kayaking Work on the house Dishes, laundry, groceries, lawnmowing Drive to another city (east coast megalopolis FTW) Stay in and chill with me wifey Work on music stuff

apgwoz• 17 years ago

Who needs the rest of megalopolis when there's nyc? :)

warp• 17 years ago

I spend two weekends per month just at home, mostly coding +reading/playing video games. The other two weekend usually involve concerts/festivals or just visiting friends.

I need that balance, too much activity on weekends means my head won't calm down when i need it to... and too long without seeing normal people and i get lonely :)

davidw• 17 years ago

I play my favorite video game: emacs.

Joking aside, I make sure to do a bike ride on Sunday, and lately, I spend lots of time with my daughter.

msluyter• 17 years ago

Boardgames.

mangoleaf• 17 years ago

1) Continue playing taxi by driving son to engagements. 2) Downtime from taxi work: movies, hang out at beach, etc. 3) Step back from implementation and think big picture. Meditate on what I have been working on. Veg-out. Let the mind wander. It has often wandered interestingly.

sgoraya• 17 years ago

If we are not headed out of town:

- Clean up around the house / garage / yard-work

- Wash the truck if needed

- Watch a movie or sports (I like to set aside time for at least one football game if possible)

- Read lazily into the afternoons

- Videogames if time allows - my ps3 is collecting dust and a couple of unopened games...

PieSquared• 17 years ago

Practice capoeira, spin poi and contact staff, contact juggle, read, program my own projects, play Dungeons and Dragons and see moview with friends. In general, live.

tgittos• 17 years ago

A random grab bag of spend time with my partner and friends, watch movies, read, code personal projects, blog and goof off online.

Some weeks I'm really energetic about progressing in my personal projects (or getting side tracked and coming up with new ones), lately though I've been avoiding computers.

Tonight I might drink, then try some drunk coding.

PStamatiou2• 17 years ago

typically dinner and drinks with a couple of friends friday night. catch up on sleep, wake up 10-11am saturday, clean up the apartment (more productive when it's clean!), take the puppy for a super-long walk, work on my blog (it pays more than my startup does, so gotta show it some love), keep working on the blog, go out for dinner with friends, wake up late sunday, finish working on blog, then back to startup work until 1-3am. then startup stuff during the week. more or less.

logic• 17 years ago

Wrenching and racing. Occasionally programming, as it relates to wrenching and racing.

PStamatiou2• 17 years ago

auto-x, scca, drag, what? i tinker with a mustang myself.

tokenadult• 17 years ago

Watch children's soccer games after teaching my supplemental math lessons, at this time of year.

b-man• 17 years ago

Meet with friends, some scheme coding, little running, sometimes surfing, beer, stoned gaming, judo/jiujitsu. Oh, and

if has-girlfriend

  girlfriend pleasing

else

  girl hunting

end

keefe• 17 years ago

don't forget...

if count-girlfriend > 1 juggle

steveplace• 17 years ago

I talk about the stock market for 2 hours live on stocktwits.tv

herdrick• 17 years ago

Headed to the beach this weekend, I think. Will snorkle.

JangoSteve• 17 years ago

I used to work straight through, nothing like 2 entire uninterrupted days of pure productivity. Then I got a girlfriend. Now I spend those 2 days being productive in other parts of my life.

ApolloRising• 17 years ago

Dog Parks and Hiking

wmblaettler• 17 years ago

Act as stay-at-home Dad since my wife works as an RN for 28-32 hours over the weekend and is off during the week, where I work 40 hours + parttime freelance/hacking. Clean, cook (I enjoy cooking immensely), fix stuff around the house, spend time with the kids.

jhancock2• 17 years ago

Saturday I spend with my son. Sunday, a bit of rest. If I'm feeling fidgety, I spend a little time online but am trying to find better outlets.

_b8r0• 17 years ago

Admin saturday. I do all the business stuff that gets in the way during the week and (if time permits) write some proposals or produce some deliverables without interruption.

Sunday I try to keep as my day, which I spend with the one I love.

potatolicious• 17 years ago

Taking pictures. I hate exercise, and the only way I'd get out of the house is with the promise of good photo ops. This weekend I'm doing a 13mi bike ride to get pics from a lighthouse.

astrec• 17 years ago

If the weather obliges I might go paragliding, if not geocaching. Which ever way it pans out there shall be beer.

Travis• 17 years ago

Weekends are when I'm able to work on my startup. Compressed work schedule for paying job, 4 days x 10 hrs / day. 3 day weekends mean I can relax and put some solid hours in on my startup.

Ask HN: What do you do on weekend?

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