The Culture of Overnight Coding
Imagine being expected to work any time of the day
Unlike many other occupations or as opposed to in most industrial sectors (or so-called gainful activities), programming/coding/software development seldom requires direct interaction with users/clients. Collaborations with colleagues/peers may be needed on occasions, but it tends to be not persistent. This means that many coders can 1) work from home; 2) work in isolation; 3) work overnight.
Many coders actually prefer working at nights like nocturnal creatures because it's quiet and calm compared to daytime, depending on factors such as who they live with, where they work, the nature of the work etc.
When it comes to gainful activities (i.e. with salaries), most of my life I worked at night. It's not just me though. Many colleagues were the same. In University, for instance, I ran my experiments (research work) overnight in the labs when students were away. Even more than 20 years ago, with wake-on-LAN, I could grab a lab-load of machines (almost 100 PCs) over SSH and then run things on them to prepare academic papers. It was permissible and it was pragmatic (easier than having to book HPC time at the University).
The health implications of overnight work are known and widely publicised. There are physical aspects and lesser-visible mental aspects (which are connected to the former, e.g. due to lack of exposure to natural light). Some employers don't pay attention to the underlying research on the matter and therefore compromise the wellbeing of staff. We wrote about this in relation to the EPO, where some but not all the work can be done overnight (you would not wish to contact applicants at 4AM, but you can research prior art or draft reports any time of the day/night).
The unique thing when it comes to Free software is the lack of bossing or lesser bossing. Free software developers have more liberty and leeway; so many of them work overnight, sometimes at risk to themselves (hidden dangers include a lack of social interaction).
I myself mostly quit the habit of working at night. I like to read at night, sometimes I read and write overnight, but for any lengthy tasks I wait for daytime (e.g. writing my claims against the Serial Strangler from Microsoft).
As someone who spent over 20 years living a mostly nocturnal life I can see the downsides of it. Nowadays I try to stay awake until it gets dark, or to generally maximise exposure to natural light.
Decades ago it was fashionable to pay double (or more) to people who work outside "working hours" (i.e. before 8AM and after 6PM - or something roughly like that). Now, with the whole "gig economy" (exploitation) mindset and practices we're meant to think that working on weekends, holidays and during nights is no different than the 'standard' working window (about 40 hours out of 168 weekly).
Employers that expect working bees to code overnight (or even after 5PM, 6PM, or something along those lines) should pay accordingly. Humans aren't nocturnal animals (not naturally anyway) and if they're made to compromise/defy social norms, then they should get compensated adequately. 2-3 years ago when I wrote about Sirius Open Source I covered this aspect quite a lot. At one point someone had the audacity to propose paying less - not more - to whose who worked outside working hours (i.e. before 9AM and after 5:30PM).
Society and working standards/antics are getting worse (labour protections are - in practice - relegated to some theoretical things in old encyclopedias). An industry-wise push-back is needed. It is well overdue. █