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Can you please elaborate?
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"Quote: A programmer is just a tool which converts caffeine into code.
Caffeine is a mind-altering drug, but I would agree that it improves focus, clarity of thought, length of attention span, and the quality of the end product.
There have been a handful of times where I coded after consuming alchohol, and even my managers are guilty of that. The responsible folks in Quality Assurance take care of situations like this.
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RichardInToronto wrote:
Caffeine is a mind-altering drug, but I would agree that it improves focus,
clarity of thought, length of attention span, and the quality of the end
product.
Some people forget, focus comes at he expense of seeing the big picture, and from my feeling, caffeine does not "help" you to focus but it forces you to a narrower perception, especially when it's used in attempt to compensate for lack of sleep.
So I'm not sure I can agree on that "improves quality of end product" thing. When automated testing is in place anyway ^^
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Caffeine makes little difference to me since I was drinking between 2 to 6 Liters of Mountain Dew a day for 20 years, the exception being when I get a large iced cappuccino with 6 to 9 shots of espresso, but that has been less than 5 times in my life. Recently I switched my primary drinks to Green Tea (just under a gallon a day), Vitamin enriched kids orange juice (1/2 Gallon/day) and chocolate soy milk (1/2 gallon/day). Much healthier, and much more expensive.
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Those answering "no" to the survey are either
Saints: since they don't do drugs or alcohol when working (which is very sainty from my point of view)
Liars: since there are quite a lot of people who will not admit to taking drugs (legal as well as illegal) or drinking while at work and omit those few times they resumed coding after going to a leaving / retirement party of the gal / pal from the third floor....
I agree that some people will never dringk a cup of coffee or tea nor drink any redbullish beverages, and will never drink any alcohol (I knew someone really like that), but that much in the developper community is incredible and seems suspect to me. There are definitely liars...
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Or maybe we're just health nuts! I don't drink, smoke or do drugs. I try to eat right and I spend a fair amount of time at the gym or exercising at home. I'm only about 5 years away from retirement and I actually want to be able to do stuff when I retire as opposed to sitting on the couch watching TV and eating bon-bons! 
A little addition: I will admit to working while overly tired because of the ridiculous schedules management wants. 12+ hour days does not make good code.
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Well actually that's very good of you !
I wish I could be that way but I am more of a "bon vivant" as we say it in France.
Actually the debate about drugs could on, considering what can be considered a drug....
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I agree, as I stated earlier too. 
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Sorry mate, did not see your post yesterday before posting mine....
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No they are not because there are some people who never have drink/take ALCOHOL/DRUG
Life is all about share and care...
public class Life : ICareable,IShareable
{
// implements yours...
}
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yes I know, that's why I said "Saints or Liars" see my other posts on this thread
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I have never used alchohol or illegal drugs, but I'm sure I've coded on benadryl and many different prescription drugs before. And seriously, most developers I know have never written a line of code when not under the influence of caffeine.
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If tea contains caffeine then yes. I only drink tea, milk, or yoghurt when working.
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You know the situation.
You get am urgent support call on a weekend from a senior exec, but you're already on the 2nd or 3rd glass of wine.
So you (1) fire up the laptop, (2) connect to the VPN, (3) login, (4) bring up the IDE, (5) do a fix, (6) test it and (7) put it live.
If you can do steps 1 to 6, then step 7 probably isn't a problem!
Also applies to system changes, reboots, etc.
Of course, you check it all on Monday morning....
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I'm happy by the results (until now) because the majority of people related to coding (assumption for voters) use their brain for more than coding. But I'm sad because the figures for the minority are high (1/3).
To make it short for anyone who combines drinking and coding (including the ones who don't remember) I'll ask a very simple question: Will you ever trust a doctor who is under the influence of alcohol? As for drugs I don't see how and why people can deal and live with trash.
In any case I can accept any objection but I cannot understand it and support it.
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I was going to write something, but you said it all.
Pierre Boucher
'Bien souvent on se rend coupable en négligeant d'agir, et non pas seulement en agissant.'
- Marc Aurèle, empereur et philosophe romain.
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Well, the question left out a key quantifier. It just said 'drugs' and did not specify legal or illegal. I have a prescription medication that I take daily, so all the code I write for production is under the influence of drugs.
I read the question like a programmer. 
Also, you might not know it but you do trust doctors who are under the influence of alcohol. I used to work at a medical facility as a developer and there were times that a doctor was on call and had a glass or two of wine with dinner and got paged. It was kind of like the overweight cardiologists who told their patients to exercise and quit smoking... then went out and had a quick cigarette.
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Prescribed medication is not illegal drug (at least for me - sorry for that) since in my native language there are specific words for separating aspirin from ecstasy that are no synonyms. You probably don't know greek, but I'm sure that you're familiar with words like pharmaceutical (based on greek word pharmako) and narcotics (based on greek word narkotiko).
I also read the question as a programmer but as I explained my native language "pushed" me to accept or reject the use of word "drugs" for both pharma and narcotics and I kept narcotics in my mind.
Is your prescribed medication result any kind of inefficiency to perform successfully your daily tasks at work? If no (hopefully) then it's fine. If yes then it will be an interesting topic for discussing about the way people handle a case like this in their working environment and more importantly how working environment handles it.
There is no doubt that there are doctors like the one you describe, therefore allow me to rephrase my question: Will you ever trust a doctor who you know that is under the influence of alcohol?
modified 10-Dec-13 11:45am.
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No need to apologize. The question reads "under the influence of alcohol or drugs", it does not specify what sort of drugs, Scripted and Over-the-Counter medications versus narcotics. Aspirin and Ecstasy are both 'drugs' however one will get you hauled into jail a lot faster than the other. Yes, we can draw a conclusion about what the person who wrote the survey meant, but I'm just being pedantic.
Actually, for my prescribed meds, it is quite the opposite. If I don't take them there will be an inefficiency in performing daily tasks. On the other hand, many people do abuse it and doctors are watchful for that. Highly competitive people abuse it to improve their focus and get more work done. The same can be said for a medication like pseudoephedrine (Sudafed). While it is a good decongestant one of the reasons I have to sign my name every time I want to buy a box of it, is that people use it to make meth.
As for the last bit... would I ever trust a doc who I know is under the influence? That is a bit of a grey area. In a hospital? No. If I was backpacking, in a life threatening situation, hours from a proper medical facility and an inebriated doctor could potentially save my life?
Well, I'm going to die if I don't try. So why not try to survive?
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drdigit wrote: Prescribed medication is not illegal drug
Neither alcohol (at least in a big part of the world)
M.D.V. 
If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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I put it to you that comparing computer programming with the practise of medicine is an inappropriate comparison at best.
Have you ever seen a doctor that saved the current state of the patient, in case they did something foolish. Only to reload the previously saved state? Nah, me either. "Alt-F, Save-As 'patientPreAortaIncisionInCaseIDoSomethingDumb.human' " Try saving then restoring that.
Never seen a doctor with Ctrl-Z either. Seen dozens that wished they did. 
I'd consider it a reasonable comparison if the survey asked if the code had been written _and_ released while in an intoxicated state, but it doesn't.
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A doctor doesn't often get to debug and put out a service pack post-release.
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I work at home, I often work in the evenings. I sometimes work with a glass of wine or a beer to hand.
That's not the same as throwing together a quick untested fix in a drunken haze, and/or pulling the trigger on a major release when stoned out of one's mind.
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Right. The underlying need to get out more is part of the issue.
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Can't disagree with that. Send me money, and I won't have to work evenings any more
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