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I realized that people who stand around the window watching the construction workers are not actually doing anything useful. Although they feel like they are having a blast.

Whoah. Feeling like you are having a blast is useful. This isn't a sweatshop.

There are a lot of solitary software engineers out there - either freelancers or people embedded in a "regular" office setting or people surrounded by programmers who really don't like coding (hard to believe, I know!). "Virtual" watercoolers like HN do serve a social function and there's nothing shameful about it.

The only downside is that there is an implicit timer for watercooler chats, whereas it is possible to dip in and out of HN all day. Well, if that is a problem for somebody, they know where to find the procrastination setting.

Obviously with any community, after you have been around it long enough you can get the "ok I've heard everything" feeling. In which case it is quite natural to move on, but that doesn't mean the community is worthless, just that you have extracted all the value you could out of it.

I spend a lot of time on HN and enjoy commenting quite a bit. I'm honestly curious as to whether it makes a difference to productivity or not, so I'm currently imposing on searchyc's cache for a few minutes to gather some data, and then I'll chart it against evidence of stuff actually getting accomplished and see what pops out.

I don't expect it will really matter either way.

[Edit: Story of my "quick, knock a script to do that" life: I spidered 3,380 comments and then attempted to write them to a file... only to find that fopen was undefined. File.open(). blargh.]

If I'm on the computer, my time on HN is the leading reverse indicator of how productive my work is that day.

This be true for me too. I find myself saying things like "Wooh! You missed a whole day of HN today!" at the end of productive work days, and after awhile the glow of doing so much work sorta gets linked to the act of not going on HN as much.

It seems like HN's anti procrastination feature isn't well known. I now am only entitled 2 twenty minute sessions a day. The first one starts when I first get to work, the second one at about lunch time. It works great, highly recommended for those who are lacking a bit in the will power.

It also makes getting sucked into debates impossible.

No I do have noprocrast turned on. But even with checking HN just four times a day, the blow to my productivity is many times that, considering how many articles I open every time I visit.

Then again - I suppose I should start using noprocrast like you do.

Agree that it's not something one should spend a lot of time on, but often times, you make serendipitous discoveries through "chit chat" with others in your field. A chance meeting, an interesting new project, a company that's hiring - there are some good things here.

Great recommendations on books, meditiation/concentration/flow techniques, useful technologies...

I realized that people who stand around the window watching the construction workers are not actually doing anything useful

That's an interesting point of view. Certainly in office situations some of the most useful and enlightening conversations I have happen in a "water cooler" type setting. Cigarette break perhaps. Indeed, when I gave up smoking, I changed to chewing gum in the smoking area. The people who meet in random places spark new ideas, bring parts of a business (or community) together who ordinarily would have no reason to meet.

I certainly hear your point about addictiveness of comment ratings, but I think the value of randomly mediated conversation is huge. (As an aside, I started putting together a business presentation on how watching who talks to each other on a smoke break, water cooler run, etc. has valuable lessons for where communication lines may be missing in your organisation. Not always, sure, but there's hints there)

Living in Europe, it's exciting to think, that I'm part of a conversation with people from the valley.

But maybe you're right; maybe working together with others (on an open source project for example), or helping someone on stack overflow for example is a better way to develop more meaningful relationships.

I don't agree that commenting is always useless because on occasion I've actually learned something new and even changed my mind about something as a result of a reply to a comment I've made.

Also if you care about something enough to comment on it, the act of articulating a comment can make you think deeper about it and even uncover flaws before you've even submitted your comment.

Commenting is failure, as it always just sucks you into more commenting.

What a strange remark from one of hn's best commenters.

It's not necessarily the choice of posts that distinguish hn, but the discussions hanging from them. Those discussions need worthwhile comments. Like the ones you consistently make, Daniel. Please keep making them.

Commenting can be failure, but only if you let it. Personally, I rarely respond to challenges to my comments. Engagement in debate can easily lead to lost time. (And others usually respond before I return, anyway).

Not every minute of your day has to be invested in today's programming goal. Think of your comments as deposits into some kind of "knowledge bank". There may be dividends later, maybe tomorrow, maybe 6 months from now. Maybe for you, maybe for someone else. Either way, "failure" is the last word I would use to describe anyone's investment into this community.

Ed, you are correct. Yet we disagree.

I'm not saying that comments don't provide useful pieces of information to the world at large, searchable and present for future generations to read. Of course they do. I'm not saying (as other commenters have sad) that comments have no value. Every now and then I get some really good pieces of information from comments. But total value and net present value are different concepts.

Case in point: I made the parent comment, then logged off. Today I'm pretty sleepy, so I am having a hard time focusing. 15 minutes later I'm thinking "wonder if they downvoted me over on HN?" so I pop back over. What?!? A score of 15? Perhaps it was because I prefaced my remark with "you guys are going to kick me in the ass"

Take note of the comments. Most, as usual, miss my point or are trying to argue some other point. I have found that when I post a comment read by 10K people, 40 or 50 will take it the wrong way. These are folks that if you try to engage will just argue with you. Close the window.

Ten minutes later pop back. Score up again, eh? There might be a good discussion that hangs off this. Bears paying attention to. But must get to work. Close window.

Five minutes later, back over here again. See your comment. Well heck, I'm not saying it's all bad. I should type a pithy response. Ed has a good point.

Yes, to future generations who are googling for specific data these conversations are going to be a goldmine, hopefully. For us, every now and then, you get something awesome -- just enough to keep you participating.

But overall does the participating directly relate to the work you have planned for yourself today -- programming, hiking, reading, whatever. Or when you find a "goodie" do you use it to justify all the time spent? It's the Facebook question -- people you like, giving you pieces of information that from time-to-time are valuable, letting you feel part of a group -- something good for you or something sucking you in?

Future generations, sure. Getting things you can find nowhere else? Absolutely. But in the present sense, in the next hour, for the next minute -- best use of time? Am I selecting to use it, or is it (and the great people who participate!) sucking me in and then I'm rationalizing?

I can't answer the question for others. Took me a long time to figure this out for myself, and as I am now showing, I am not very good at listening to my own advice :)

Most, as usual, miss my point or are trying to argue some other point.

Many people get your point but don't comment to say so. Making (pithy sarcastic lol agree simple rude first ...) comments is generally unacceptable on HN unless you are one of those few people who has name recognition.

I agree with you that commenting can generally be distracting and conversations and responses can linger as a distraction. Sometimes that is what I'm looking for and I comment and sometimes I want to comment but just know it could suck up the rest of my day. Obviously some people are not affected by this. But I can relate to what you are saying. The best advice - do what is best for you. You shouldn't feel obligated to participate.

>> But overall does the participating directly relate to the work you have planned for yourself today

If you consider breaks important (e.g. for organizing thoughts, etc), I'd say yes, this beats water cooler chit-chat about Starcraft 2, for the reasons ed mentioned.

I completely agree on the point about HN being a time/mindshare drain though.

I used to do such reading and commenting in the evenings. Never really had much problem with wondering if they've answered to me now, since I had a list of things to read and then I'd get sleepy and not comment on anything more. Sometimes I'd get an urge to check in the morning or midday, but that wasn't the time.

The obvious downside was that I often stayed up too late, and ended up amassing bookmarks. I'd say it was still better than my current schedule, where I read some comments whenever I'm not doing anything else, like in the mornings, and then intermittently throughout the day.

In light of that, I'd suggest you try reading HN only in the evenings, unless you already have something else to fill that time (like, say, The Simpsons). Topic churn will be a problem, but perhaps there the cure will be in not seeing the problem.

>>>Most, as usual, miss my point or are trying to argue some other point.<<<

You know this happens a lot in real life too. It's as if people don't listen to listen. They listen to dash off their own insightful reply. Maybe it isn't this forum or any other thing, but simply a cultural bias that exists in most of us and is magnified on the internet.

On the other hand, you're absolutely right and it's time for me to shut down this machine.

Why not just cut back on the time you spend here? I bet you could get 80% of the value in 20% of the time. A simple thing like only coming here two or three times a day would probably help a lot.

Cutting back is way better than burning out.

This should be mentioned in every discussion about HN's negative aspects: click your login at the top of the screen and change noprocast to yes. Next time you'll visit HN, you'll see a "Get back to work!" message and hopefully you'll go do something more productive.