How to pull an all-nighter

April 7, 2006 | General | By: Mark VandeWettering

This blog article reminded me of a part of my life that is long past: the times of the all nighter.   Back in my undergrad days, I would fairly regularly pull all-nighters, usually working on some kind of computer programming assignment.   I think this culminated in a massive 72 hour awake-athon, where I consumed over 100 cups of coffee in three days.   I was working the breakfast shift at the cafeteria, doing an easy job, just checking IDs of students who come in and reading the newspaper.   I remember trying to read, and suddenly seeing words suddenly jump off the page.   I decided that hallucinations were a bad sign, and got someone to take my shift, went home and slept for twelve hours.

Shortly after this, I began to notice something: the code that I wrote past midnight was usually really ugly, buggy, and didn’t make much sense the next day.   I also found that programs were just easier to write when I wasn’t tired.   So I created a rule: I simply don’t program past midnight.

As I’ve gotten older, I have begun to realize just how dependent your brain is on being properly fed and rested.   Caffeine just makes you jittery.   Loud music and bright lights just give you a headache.  You need sleep, so sleep.   Plan ahead enough to keep allnighters from becoming a necessity.

[tags]Advice[/tags]

Comments

Comment from Theo Honohan
Time 4/8/2006 at 8:28 am

Nobody else in the pretentious bit of the architecture world (where I happen to be stuck) seems to have figured this out.

Today I saw the Pixar show at the Science Museum in London. I was a bit disappointed that there was zero technical graphics content, but never mind. Ten years ago, a glimpse of an SGI monitor would have got me excited, now it makes me think “SGI? why?”

IMO nicest thing in the show by a long shot was Dominique Louis’ colorscript for Monsters Inc.

Comment from Dan Lyke
Time 4/8/2006 at 9:41 am

I remember having some simple game on my Palm Pilot, one that was just a mindless score-a-thon, and being at some conference where I was waiting for someone and where I’d been partying too much, and realizing that even though I thought I was just fine the game wasn’t the mindless score-a-thon.

I don’t carry a Palm Pilot any more, but I’ve occasionally since then used video games that I know how well I do on as a benchmark for figuring out if I’m trying to exist on too little sleep or too much caffeine or what.