While I find this somewhat fascinating, I think this kind of analysis would be similar to trying to figure out how to make great food by examining the molecular contents of the final product.
It was hard for me to get past the 'two week' problem being the opening argument for this. It has never taken me 2 weeks to get any machine configured and ready to go. I agree with cmwalsh in that this drastically weakens the overall message. The only reason I continued past the 2nd paragraph is because this was linked from HN. My initial response would normally be "Who really takes 2 weeks to configure a machine??" and then move on to something else worth reading.
I've seen that happen, but only due to some exceedingly bad environmental and architectural issues. Poor SVN management was the chief problem - there were around 100 interdependent repositories that had to have certain versions built and linked in as libraries depending on what you'd actually be working on.
Hiring a new person and finding that literally nobody could get them set up to develop in a reasonable time frame led directly to cleaning those issues up.
You never worked with a service oriented environment, right? When you need to override dozens of services your build/local instance depends on, it could easily take a couple of weeks, especially for fresh graduates who used to "./configure && make && sudo make".
Why don't your configuration files have service client configs on them?
Does it take two weeks to deploy a build to a production machine or the integration test farm? No. Then why would it take two weeks to pushh the code to a dev machine?
It's taken me more than two weeks in some cases. Because after a week of thrashing, a new hire will quite rightly get panicky if they aren't yet writing code. So one may just give up and accept a machine in a 'limping' state.
When I was younger and stupider, I accepted a 'limping' dev box for months at a particular new job, because everything was undocumented and I was afraid to ask for help.
It looks like somebody has taken yet another stab at re-writing 'The Pragmatic Programmer' :-)
i don't think you've really leveled up until you get past using phrases like 'Level Up'. You're not a 14th level Ranger with a potion of strength and +4 leather armor. You're supposed to be an engineer ( or software developer or pick your favorite name ) helping real people solve real problems.
Funny. I was thinking that they could have done these people a favor and defined it for them. That would have helped after writing 2 pages about how confused everybody is :-)
A better question is how doesn't having a baby change your life.
As others here have said, it changes everything. Some of the changes are good, some are annoying and honestly some of them just plain suck. But you deal with it because that eating, pooping, crying, sleeping (sleep is optional) machine becomes the single most important thing in your life.
Python. I'm sure people will fill in the scripting language of your choice, but knowing at least one is a real time saver. I have lost count of the hours and hours and hours of drudgery I have saved because of being able to fire up a script in short order.Life is good when you can make a 2 hour task take several minutes :-) Especially if that task is something you have to do on a consistent basis
For life in general, exercise has been good. I'm in crappy shape now, but getting back on the wagon. Being in some semblance of shape does wonders for your health and well being. And strength training in particular makes you less of a victim in many life circumstances, like having your snack stuck in the vending machine or moving furniture. The downside, obviously, is that you get asked by people to tip vending machines and move couches...
