Good Morning!

Hi folks!

👋

Morning (again). That bug on java.exe I mentioned the other day has been confirmed and is being tracked here: https://bugs.java.com/bugdatabase/view_bug.do?bug_id=JDK-8266473

Congrats on finding a bug in java.exe. My rule number one is “It’s never the compiler”

Although, strictly speaking, it isn’t the compiler this time around either 🙂

That’s what I told my family last week when I started to suspect java. “It is never Java’s fault, kids.” But it was this time.. 😃

Whoever processed the report at Oracle noted that the bug can be reproduced in JDK11 as well. I was pretty sure I had confirmed the opposite, but my Windows-fu is not what it could be. Managed to uninstall JDK16 properly after some fiddling and, yes, JDK11 has it too. Where has it been hiding all this time? The Clojure CLI runs into this bug pretty quickly if you want to give it some Clojure string as an argument…

Morning

Are most just on openjdk?

@pez If this error is so common with the Oracle stuff, maybe a better "workaround" is that people use AdoptOpenJDK ;)

I read somewhere that this other executable is some kind of symbolic link, maybe it's possible to follow the symbolic link to the "real" executable

morning, and well done @pez on finding a JVM bug, I once found a problem with the IBM JDK when running clojure. It caused a JIT failure, hard crash as well. got fixed quite quickly as well. thank to using some internal channels I think.

good morning!

Good morning!

pretty sure @thomas is a "made man" in IBM

yeah, that is why I had to leave 😉

I thought you'd just gone undercover

good morning

Morning

do any of y'all have any experiences with implementing 4 day working weeks and consequent issues and impacts on productivity ?

I have always worked 4 days (paid, let's say)

I currently work only 4 days a week (30 hours) since I dedicate every Wednesday to paternity leave

hard to say what kind of effect it has on productivity. Presumably, it’s not a linear equation.

There’s some amount of fixed costs spent on meetings, but there is also a mental limit to how much actual work you can get done in a day. I read the book Deep Work a few years back, and the thesis there is that even the most efficient workers will only spend 3-4 hours on actual “deep” work on a given day since the brainpower is essentially spent at that point.

I think productivity is strongly related with motivation. When I work 4 days a week I'm more motivated since I have enough time for something else. I would not be surprised if I am just as productive.

no, i wouldn't think it's linear - there does seem to be some reasonable evidence around that for some types of work it's roughly a productivity no-brainer... and the effects on employee motivation and wellbeing seem uncontestable

Yes, I agree with @borkdude that motivation is key, but it’s not the only factor.

While people are motivated by different things, I think self-determination is the strongest contributor

An important factor is how it fits with the schedules of those you work with.

True

definitely @pez - we have enough people, and our comms are sufficiently well organised, that i think we can arrange full coverage of schedules

Due to deeply sad reasons I worked 80% a long while and made it mon-tue, and thu-fri. Taking Wednesday off. That was quite much better than prolonging the weekend, for me. At that place there where important sync meetings on Mondays and Fridays.

I am also doing this, but not for sad reasons

Happy reasons > sad reasons.

imo it's a choice between more money or more free time. I value more free time over more money

Me too. I’d love to work 3 days a week, payed. Then I can work 4 days unpayed. 😃

i'm coming at it from the other side @borkdude - i'm wondering whether to experiment with a 4 day week in my company, without reducing pay

I have chosen to receive 20% less money

I think you can (and should), but if it’s productivity you’re after, maybe co-ownership is the solution

A lot of the literature I’ve read seems to link motivation to feeling like you have an actual stake in things

There is also a thing about employee loyalty. Compensation is all about giving something that is more worth to the employee than what it costs the employer 🙂

we give people options, but our ownership structure is fairly baked and i can't change that

So, I could imagine giving an employe 20% off for a 10% pay cut.

Yeah, that would be a good way to do it

Seems a good deal to me

One could also imagine working with an options program. You take a 20% pay cut for 20% time off, but you receive more options than what you’d normally do.

(if you have an options program)

Yup, that is a lot like what I imagined

Someone here went to working four days/week recently, with a corresponding pay and annual leave reduction

When it was announced, my boss emphasised those last parts a lot - I'm not sure if that's because he didn't want anyone else to do it, or if it's because he didn't want us to think it was unfair, or something else

I think that is fair. If you give 20% time off for a 10% pay cut, you are essentially motivating pretty much everyone to work 20% less (time). If you want this to happen to your company, do it, but else 20/20 seems a more logical deal.

I can also imagine that there are people who like the 5 day workweek and they might maybe feel unfairly treated by a 20/10 deal (since they are essentially working the 5th day for half the pay compared to others)

You can do a four day work week but do x contracted hours per day. But as soon as there’s a customer involved, they’re not going to see your four day week the same way you do. So five days it is.

I used to work 4 days a week for years, it was great. I had Wednesday off, never working more than 2 days in a row. I am not sure about productivity changes, I tend to be a bit obsessive with tasks for their duration, so sometimes the interruption was a bit annoying but I guess it depends what you do at work and it's very personal.

About the relation with pay there is not an easy answer. I think some people will be just as productive, some not, so I don't know.

In half an hour: https://www.meetup.com/Vaxjo-Functional-Programming/events/277486086 Wish me better luck with the live coding this time, friends!

It’ll be in English, btw.

Good morning. The presentation went well! Probably a lot due to your wishes here. Live coding is great fun given the right context and also the format of that particular meeting when things are allowed to take their time is very nice.