Programmer Interrupted (2013)

http://blog.ninlabs.com/2013/01/programmer-interrupted/

by joeyespo • 11 years ago

50 14 11 years ago

blog.ninlabs.com

dang• 11 years ago

Discussed at the time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5092589.

T3RMINATED• 11 years ago

People say get headphones :-) at our company there is only a 1 ear-piece policy.

Shengbo• 11 years ago

May I ask why?

deciplex• 11 years ago

What kind of wonderful life you must lead, where you think a question like this has any hope of being productive!

Zergy• 11 years ago

Because you're in an open office where you are in earshot of 20 or so people.

collyw2• 11 years ago

I find headphones are great when you know what you are doing and churning out more code. However when I am needing to read documentation and learn something new then I find them a hindrance.

robertfw• 11 years ago

I find myself wearing my headphones even when I am not listening to anything. It acts as a signal.

Raphmedia• 11 years ago

This is rubbish. You are not children.

If a coworker needs to talk to me, he sends me a message. If he really needs to talk to me, he waves his hand in front of my screen. If we are pairing on something, I obliviously don't wear the headphones or we both do and simply communicate using chat.

collyw2• 11 years ago

Amazing that none of the solutions involved trying to cut down interruptions.

falcolas• 11 years ago

Sadly, this is becoming less and less of a viable option, if you wish to participate in the workforce. Open offices where your visibility is valued more than your performance, the expectation to respond immediately to chat and email, and the rise of the phone call all create the potential for interruptions.

Cthulhu_• 11 years ago

The only way to reliably do that is get a smaller office or fire people.

dasil003• 11 years ago

Well, that, or you know, educate the staff and discuss strategies to asynchronize things.

trjordan• 11 years ago

He did mention trying most of the standard techniques for that. From an individual perspective, I think that's a reasonably well-explored space.

If the problem statement is "interruptions cause me to be unproductive for some time after one occurs", there's a lot of value to working on cutting down "some time" as well as simply trying to avoid interruptions. Some interruptions are unavoidable, as well: bathroom, RSI-induced rest breaks, loud noises from outside.

I moved away from programming a couple years ago, and I've found that there are non-programming tasks that require the same amount of "load-up" that development does. Writing comes to mind. Programming is unique, though, because there are far more digital artifacts you have to navigate while you do it. That makes these sorts of techniques particularly interesting. How do we take advantage of the fact that there are so many markers in the code, instead of making their complexing the problem?

teddyh• 11 years ago

Whenever this comes up, I usually link to this:

Don't Wake Up the Programmer!

http://alexthunder.livejournal.com/309815.html

Programmer Interrupted (2013)

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