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Discussion - Is Covid Impacting Developers Life?

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Don't leave this article before taking this quick survey:

Covid had the most impact on your...

❤: Social life
🦄: Work
🏷: Family


Hello World! Today we will talk about a more serious topic answered to my others #healthydebate. I'm interested in how Covid is impacting your life as a developer. Also, by telling your experience, you have a chance to get featured in our newsletter.

Question of the week: How covid is impacting your developer life?

--> Some starting points are the influence that the covid has had on you on a social level (how the covid has influenced your social life), at the family level, and at work (in your professional life). What has changed in your life since the start of the covid? What is positive and what is negative? What are some of the challenges you have faced during COVID-19? What advice would you give to others to keep their spirits up during the pandemic?


I will be building and updating this list directly with what you say, so...
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Last week's discussion was about what work would developers do if they weren't developers. An astronaut🚀, a cook👩‍🍳, a dancer🕺 (maybe not this one), a policeman👮, a footballer⚽ (only if I lose my brain)...
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TL;DR
giphy (5)

Top comments (24)

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theowlsden profile image
Shaquil Maria

Well, it's simple really. Days become weeks and those become months. Since the start of the pandemic and the lockdowns, there is no difference between mornings and nights for me. I'll start working in the morning, then slack off and continue at night and there is no difference in between.

I think one can say, this is the ultimate challenge of self-control. It is entirely up to you how to manage your days. There is no 9-5 at the office to manage your working hours, or specific times to go to the gym, or follow a course. And I've been failing that challenge for over a year now😅

As for personal projects? At least that is a benefit of the lockdowns. Instead of going out and partying, I'm working on those. That's a win in my book.

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niorad profile image
Antonio Radovcic

Everything got worse coding/dev-wise. I have no more energy and/or time to code for fun. At work and home office, the productivity sank to a fraction and only this year started to normalize. Much less motivation to take care of DevLids since meetups and conferences are not a thing currently. Online conferences also ain‘t worth it IMHO.

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lvtdeveloper profile image
Lesly Villalobos

The obvious answer is yes. The real question is for better or for worse? I think everyone has their own experience with Covid but in general statistics, the vast majority have benefited.

Let me tell you about my experience.
I quit my job (to dedicate myself completely to be a freelancer) the same month that the pandemic began in my country, I did not know what to expect, the first month was very hard because I had no work, the projects were canceled, however, the next month new projects began to arrive, due to the demand for software worldwide and there was an increase over the previous months, demand that has been maintained until today. For this reason, I can say that it has affected my life in a positive way, however, I don't know if it would have been the same without the pandemic.

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barelyhuman profile image
Reaper

I think it’s impact has been mostly positive.
I’m not as tired so i get more time to work on side projects and the sleep has reduced to 4-5 hours but then that’s always been the case with me so no big difference there.

I now find more time to do stuff i like , for example while xcode compiles and uploads to testflight, i have enough time to sketch or play the guitar for a few minutes.

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edo78 profile image
Federico "Edo" Granata

I really love this pandemic because I'm lucky as hell (nobody near me died and I even got a better job). I already experienced a couple of days a week of smartworking but now I'm full remote since end of february 2020 and ... just wow.
I usually spend 2-3 hours each day commuting, now I have 2-3 hours each day for me and my family. I have launch each day with my daughters and wife. I can sleep more in the morning and when the working day ends I go out and walk in the wood near my home.
I only miss a few friends and I'm a bit worried when my daughters have to go to school ... beside those minor issue I'm happier than ever.

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kayis profile image
K

It had the most impact on my social life.

No more parties, concert, or meetups for a year now.

My job was mostly impacted positively, because I write technical articles for a living. Companies cranked up their online presences so I got more clients.

Family was so-so. I didn't meet them for a year, but I only saw them twice a year anyway, so not much change in that department.

One thing was kinda interesting. I got a new girlfriend in Dec. 2020, so most of our first year of relationship was in the pandemic. Normally you become couch potatoes later in a relationship, haha.

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johnmunsch profile image
John Munsch

Socially: I used to play board games with a group every week, meeting up at someone's house or a local game store. All of that has moved online to BoardGameArena.com and Yucata.de. When combined with Discord, it's a passable experience and something I still look forward to.

Family: Well, working from home for an entire year is different. My wife and I still love each other, no attempted murders, so that's good. Haven't seen anyone other than her on a social basis in more than a year though.

Work: This is absolutely the biggest change. I was already talking to my boss about going fully remote and moving to another location. He okayed it, but asked that I give him a year to get things in order. Then the pandemic hit and after three months with everyone working from home full time I asked if we still needed to wait a year and he said no. I packed up everything I owned, bought a house in Santa Fe, NM, moved, and then sold my house in Fort Worth, TX.
Given that I had spent my entire life in either FW or Houston (when I was going to Rice) this has been a huge change for me and the change bleeds into family as well because obviously my wife wanted this too.
We'll see how this changes when some people return to the office later this year and we're not all remote all the time. Will they still remember me and include me in 100% of the things they do today, or will I start to get sidelined?

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csuszka profile image
csuszka

I got my first dev job in May 2020, and now an even better opportunity.
I'm an introvert, so I was totally fine with the lockdown.
Family and friends stayed healthy.

I hope that optional remote work will be more and more popular after the pandemic, and that people will realize that it is better for the environment and to the mental health of some people.

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rinkattendant6 profile image
Vincent

How the covid has influenced your social life [...] and at work (in your professional life)

Socially, the big thing would be limited in-person gatherings with friends.
At work, well since our offices have been closed except for absolutely essential staff, I haven't had a physical location to work from for more than a year now. During the summer months when the virus slowed down for a bit, I was able to work from a public area and/or coffee shop but that only opened up for a short time. The lack of physical work environment has been a huge challenge. I made a choice to switch teams and take on a different position within my organization a few weeks before the offices closed, so not only did I have to adapt to the pandemic changes but I started a new job two weeks into the pandemic.

What has changed in your life since the start of the covid?

Outside of work, I used to go on adventures around the city on public transit but of course that is no longer an option as the transit in my city mostly stopped running as of June 15 last year. Since I haven't gone through the process of purchasing a motor vehicle (it's not an absolute necessity for me), I've had to rely on Uber to get anywhere beyond walking distance.
Since the beginning of the covid situation, I started doing weekly video chats with a few of my friends as a way to keep some sort of sanity. Otherwise I'd just try to bury myself with work to avoid stress. Sounds counterintuitive, but it's what I turn to when I don't want to deal with life outside of work.

What are some of the challenges you have faced during COVID-19?

My biggest challenge is having to mostly remain in a place I absolutely hate being in, home. It's hard to be productive or to relax in a place you hate being in. You can decorate it to be physically and cosmetically pleasing, but at the end of the day, it's still home.

 
natalia_asteria profile image
Natalia Asteria

The FAQ says no!

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razbakov profile image
Aleksey Razbakov • Edited

I am missing offline conferences, meetup and talking to developers face to face in the office on coffee breaks. I realised that I have sometimes raw and unshaped ideas that I can't just express with written words, I need a dialogue, a whiteboard and some brainstorming and IRL collaboration. All this is absent. I miss it. My head goes rounds and ideas don't find their way out.

I enjoyed dancing salsa after work and socialise and get to know new people. As an expat I don't have much friends, so my solution to that was organising grills and parties with strangers. That's not happening.

My passion to dance and lots of free time punched me to kick off WeDance to find dance partners and unite dancers during these times.

P.S. This is open source project, if anyone interested to join and code together - welcome on board!

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onurbraga profile image
brunobraga • Edited

I miss bars and going to the office (specially because of the free food).

Maybe more importantly, I miss the clear cut between work and leisure time. The worst part about only working from home is how blended things can be.

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kiliankilmister profile image
Slick Kilmister

Bold of you to assume I wasn't an isolated dev-goblin already, code-crafting away in my poorly lit layer before the pandemic started.

Long story short: I desperately need a good night out and some extravagant socializing, but other than that, the changes have mostly been superficial.

Having been working from home on my own clock already, my routine fit nicely into life during the pandemic. What is nice is how the rest of the world suddenly was really eager to cater to people with this lifestyle. A lot of stuff became more convenient for people like me over the past year, and I'm quite happy about that. "Distractions" by pre-pandemic social-life have also become more scarce, and it does feel like I've become a more focused and creative developer because of that.

Not having to pay as much mind to social things, I can fully immerse myself in even obscure topics and disciplines with minimal distractions. And this is reflecting on my approaches to solve coding problems. This can be in some practical fashion.
Like my (still ongoing) deep-dive into bottom-up-parsing, or my crash-course of the Haskell programing language and it's functional allies.
Or in more abstract ways like through insights I gained while exploring esoteric languages like Brainfuck or when studying topics like ternary computing or alternative number representation systems.

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panditapan profile image
Pandita • Edited

Covid has mostly impacted my work life for the better: found a new and better job ;3

Before Covid I had no social life... honestly XD the city where I live is very reserved(?), most of them don't want new friends and I'm an immigrant, so I've learned to be satisfied by chatting with my friends from home, my family and being by myself c:

Family life as usual, except that on February I lost a cousin to Covid, but otherwise as usual, I'm hoping my parents get their vaccine shots soon c:

Honestly, I really want this covid stuff to end so I can travel around! Mexico has so many beautiful places to go to and I feel like I'm missing my chance ;W;

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pracoon profile image
Prasham Ashesh • Edited

For me social life sort of went up because, I was connecting with friends concerned about their health.
Crisis brought my family together and we definitely developed some strong bonds. I left house as a kid, for college job etc. and its the first time I get to live with my parents for such a long duration.
But the developer life that's messed up work isn't easy, the discipline routine changes everyday. Motivational videos and songs are keeping me up and working. But with all the death and problems my closed ones and my country is facing I can't focus. I end up on social media following the news and stuff.
I recently started 100daysofcode challenge which had to be disrupted because of my health and covid. 😔

Stay safe please
dev.to/pracoon/day-4-dayofcovid-4e25