As others have pointed out a programmer's day does not involve only typing keyboard. If you do that 8 hours straight without thinking, it'll be as good as a pianist randomly typing keys for half of the time.
A good programmer should think forward in time and type rather less, coming up with a good logic and analysing problems take as much time as coding that thought into programs.
Also, when you do think for a long time, brain naturally needs rest, so if you're like me who can work alone, you can find out your best pattern, such as work a few hours then throw yourself on the bed, play with your phone etc and come back when your mind feels straight.
This makes me think the other thread with a poll mentioning how people are only productive for 2-4 hours a day kind of makes me wonder... Sure you may have to be at office for 8 hours and you could be productive for less than half of the time being there... But right now when I'm behind schedule from multiple clients, I work the whole day, even splitting the sleep time into 2 times for 4 hours, working only when my mind feels straight, I can definitely do 8 hours plus of decent quality work and do that for days until maybe once every 10 days I'm used up for most of that day.
It's definitely not easy for office workers to do same.
I work alone at home against multiple clients I know locally and if I'm assigned a whole project, obviously I quote for the entire project, so I may get lucky and go well as hourly basis pay but for assignments that are only tasked to fix small problems, I just give them quote of roughly $300 a day.
Try to think how worth your day can be when giving them quotes.
If you're inexperienced and needs lots of time googling around, you should lower it and consider it a good chance to learn, not earn but if you're very effective against their problem for most of the day, give them a good one.
Also, don't start from lower point, because raising later considering it just won't cut it will raise their eye brows. If you ever feel you quoted too high, it's a good motivation to work more as well and make up for it.
A good programmer should think forward in time and type rather less, coming up with a good logic and analysing problems take as much time as coding that thought into programs.
Also, when you do think for a long time, brain naturally needs rest, so if you're like me who can work alone, you can find out your best pattern, such as work a few hours then throw yourself on the bed, play with your phone etc and come back when your mind feels straight.
This makes me think the other thread with a poll mentioning how people are only productive for 2-4 hours a day kind of makes me wonder... Sure you may have to be at office for 8 hours and you could be productive for less than half of the time being there... But right now when I'm behind schedule from multiple clients, I work the whole day, even splitting the sleep time into 2 times for 4 hours, working only when my mind feels straight, I can definitely do 8 hours plus of decent quality work and do that for days until maybe once every 10 days I'm used up for most of that day.
It's definitely not easy for office workers to do same.
I work alone at home against multiple clients I know locally and if I'm assigned a whole project, obviously I quote for the entire project, so I may get lucky and go well as hourly basis pay but for assignments that are only tasked to fix small problems, I just give them quote of roughly $300 a day.
Try to think how worth your day can be when giving them quotes. If you're inexperienced and needs lots of time googling around, you should lower it and consider it a good chance to learn, not earn but if you're very effective against their problem for most of the day, give them a good one.
Also, don't start from lower point, because raising later considering it just won't cut it will raise their eye brows. If you ever feel you quoted too high, it's a good motivation to work more as well and make up for it.