Is my remote experiences strange or do other remote workers not have some sort of chat where people ask if you've got a minute and drop in a video conference link if they need a quick chat on something?
No idea, but yes, that's exactly how we do it. We've been full remote since COVID and honestly, I don't think any of us would want it any other way but we're a very small team so not representative of larger trends.
I've had to cook from scratch for many years because I've lived with people with various food restrictions and sometimes that's just the easiest way to do things.
That said, you really don't need to spend 1-2 hours a day on cooking. If you put a little time in and level up on some basic skills, you can make shockingly good meals in 10-20 minutes.
It's mostly a question of figuring out what you like and getting good at making those things, then generalizing the skills you have into making more things.
Comments are a gift to future you. When you pick up the code again after 6 months/years/however-long-in-the-future and it looks like something you've never seen before, the comments you left should be notes you need to build context around what's in the code and (sometimes more importantly) what's NOT in the code.
This is one side, and this is something that I had in mind. However, I found that there is another popular opinion (1): that in reality, commented code is harmless. The problem is that it's messy and makes it difficult to read, etc.
I have heard devs (typically on the greener side) make the argument that comments in code are bad because they need to be maintained along with the code they're commenting on. It's quite common for devs to neglect this, leading to comments that are no longer correct, and an incorrect comment is worse than no comment.
The argument touches on truths, but in my opinion pretty seriously overstates the problem. Good comments tell you things like why a design decision was made, what hidden assumptions the code is relying on, etc. Things that don't often change unless refactoring is happening. The benefit of good comments is so large that, in my opinion, they are well worth this cost.
The same devs are often also of the opinion that writing code in a self-documenting manner eliminates the need for comments. This is just incorrect. Good comments tell you what the code itself can't.
> writing code in a self-documenting manner eliminates the need for comments. This is just incorrect.
why do you think it is always incorrect? in my opinion "good comments" about design decisions, hidden assumptions the code is relying on, etc. should be included in documentation or surrounding .md files, but not in code sources. Sentences made of english words and sentences made of instructions for computer/interpreter are completely different constructions which imply separate language processing in programmer's brain. it is like mixing up english and french in a single book page -- one french sentence per 30 english is tolerable, while 30 french sentences mixed up with 30 english ones become much less informative than if they were seprarated into different pages.
Hmm...a lot? For a complex work, you'll sometimes do some number of sketches and studies and drawing and underpaintings...Lots of things get tried/discarded/modified before you land on a final painting.
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