I wonder about that kind of argument. I find it super appealing because I would love to work a lot less and yet get more done. Unfortunately I've found that if I work more, I do get more done. Granted, there's a time for stepping back and thinking about a problem rather than continuing to brute force your way through it. And you can get to a point where you spin your wheels and it's better to stop. But generally, more time spent does mean more done, no?
I find that it can be really difficult to measure productivity some times, especially when long hours are involved. If I work 2x hours and I get stuff done all throughout that time (beginning, middle, and end) then I'll tend to think all of those hours were well spent. But when I spend the time and effort to really look at productivity I find that typically spending more hours only produces the illusion of greater productivity. Often times I'll easily forget the downsides of working more hours, such as poorer quality of work, less focus and ability to concentrate, more down time between periods of work, greater likelihood of being OK with partial or inferior solutions, etc.
Over time I've come to the conclusion that except for "it's broken, and time is money" or "I've found inspiration at midnight" situations it's pretty much never a good idea to consistently work long hours on software projects. It's better to work smarter and more efficiently and to have the resources available to do big refactoring / redesign / performance improvement projects when necessary than to just work flat out and always be in an "ok, that's good enough, moving on" state of mind.
Software development is a created process, like writing fiction. Imagine a fiction writer doing a 60 hour (or hell, even a 40 hour) work week to try and get more work done. It just won't work, certainly not long term.
But you do need to put in the practice time to be able to be productive when you need to be. If your process involves a lot of procrastinating with intermittent bursts of brilliance ,you won't be able to be relied upon when things get tough. Stephen King became the writer he did because his wife would tell him to write a story, the baby needs diapers, and he did.
So before you can work smart, you have to know how to work hard. Otherwise you're just goofing off.
Yes, it is a creative process. I think that a better analogy is to a scientist though. Sometimes, scientists spend a lot of time thinking about what an experimental result means and planning out their next set of experiments. But oftentimes, they also have to crank through a bunch of experiments that they've planned. The more time they spend at that point, the further they get.
