I'm reminded of the story of Windows NT and how David Cutler commented at one point after the release that divorces and nervous breakdowns were tracked in the program metrics. I expect that's hyperbole, but there is a real cost to these death marches.
I couldn't find that specific quote, though, and being 25 years back it could be a false memory of who said it (I did read it somewhere, if you were on the team at the time, please speak up!). Here are a couple of illustrations[0][1].
> I expect that's hyperbole, but there is a real cost to these death marches.
I used to be a game developer at EA. In the middle of one particularly nightmarish 60-hour-weeks-for-months crunch, a twenty-something artist with no known pre-existing conditions spontaneously died in his sleep.
I find it fascinating that so much engineers (arguably « smart » people) are actively hurting themselves over a freaking job and acting as if it were just a fact of life.
Plenty of people throughout history have martyred themselves for what they believed in. Fascinating for sure but being smart is a completely different question.
I couldn't find that specific quote, though, and being 25 years back it could be a false memory of who said it (I did read it somewhere, if you were on the team at the time, please speak up!). Here are a couple of illustrations[0][1].
[0] http://read.pudn.com/downloads196/ebook/923902/ShowStopper!-...
[1] http://www.proudlyserving.com/archives/2007/09/dave_cutler_w...