Ask HN: Music while coding • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Music while coding

#101

Post by wwortiz » Sun, Jul 18, 2010, 4:02 PM UTC

apsurd wrote: post #63

jarin wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thankfully there is still http://old.thesixtyone.com :)

=D Thanks!! You just made the end (technically start) of my day! That and having a ASK HN submission that got wonderfully great feedback. I am thankful for HackerNews. I bet we'd all get along reasonably well offline which is a very very unbelievable thing to say relating to anything involving the internet. Thanks a lot, have a good day!

You'll find it is still not really the same, they took quite a bit out of the UI and old.thesixtyone.com sadly isn't quite right.

But it is better than the new UI

Re: Ask HN: Music while coding

#102

Post by jaredhansen » Sun, Jul 18, 2010, 4:14 PM UTC

Try Dan Deacon - especially Bromst. Discovered this a few months ago; now probably my all-time favorite for coding music.

Re: Ask HN: Music while coding

#103

Post by dunham » Sun, Jul 18, 2010, 4:15 PM UTC

I don't usually listen to music when I code, but when I really need to concentrate or am distracted by background conversations, I usually go for Einstein on the Beach by Phillip Glass.

Back in college, I'd often listen to classical music while working on math. But I occasionally found it distracting (especially Bach, I'd concentrate on the sequence of notes rather than the problem at hand).

Re: Ask HN: Music while coding

#104

Post by jackfoxy » Sun, Jul 18, 2010, 4:15 PM UTC

Gets me in the zone: John Coltrane, Chic Corea, Miles Davis, Grateful Dead, Allman Brothers

Re: Ask HN: Music while coding

#105

Post by ryanjmo » Sun, Jul 18, 2010, 4:16 PM UTC

kenjackson wrote: post #86

ryanjmo wrote: post #81

If you never have try some 8-BIT music while coding. It really gets you in the zone.

Where's a good collection of 8-bit music? I like the music the 8bit renditions of popular music that Engadget stars their podcast with, but don't know a good archive for them.

YouTube is currently the best place to find it, just put together or find a playlist. I was spoiled with this, because we built a website for creating YouTube Playlists and we made a bunch of really good ones for Video Game Music. That site is mostly broken now though...

But I will still provide you with my favorite collection of 8-bit (well 16 bit technically) music: http://flotate.com/?p=12352-Phantasy-Star-2-Soundtrack

Re: Ask HN: Music while coding

#106

Post by ncarroll » Sun, Jul 18, 2010, 4:18 PM UTC

I highly recommend: http://www.radioparadise.com

Listener supported radio with an eclectic mix of music, Pink Floyd to Beethovan, Portishead to Cab Calloway, and plenty of indie music I'd otherwise never have heard. DJ Bill Goldsmith mixes his playlists so they almost never interrupt my train of thought. When the music does, my concentration was usually dragging anyway and then I take a 3 min break to check the playlist page and set a rating so I don't forget to pickup the cd next time I'm on a spree.

Bill and his wife Rebecca have a nice community going and it's pretty obvious they're passionate about what they are doing.

Re: Ask HN: Music while coding

#107

Post by ivanzhao » Sun, Jul 18, 2010, 4:22 PM UTC

http://www.eastvillageradio.com/

HN equivalence of subculture musics radio, very diverse. My favorite is the sunday afternoon program "Minimal Wave Electronics"

Re: Ask HN: Music while coding

#108

Post by magma » Sun, Jul 18, 2010, 4:23 PM UTC

I prefer to listen to the same track over and over again. Sometimes I do this with a new song, and listen to the same thing for the entire day.

I find this less distracting that listening to a radio station or a long playlist.

I generally pick the song in the morning depending on my mood.

Re: Ask HN: Music while coding

#109

Post by jai » Sun, Jul 18, 2010, 4:46 PM UTC

moxiemk1 wrote: post #82

I'm a big fan of ambient electronic music; it fades into the backgrounds well while still being interesting. To that end, the "Neotokyo" soundtrack by Ed Harrison http://www.neotokyohq.com/music.html is amazing. Whenever I put that on (all 2 hours of it) I get things done.

Another excellent game soundtrack is the Machinarium OST

http://machinarium.net/blog/2009/09/29/machinarium-soundtrac...

Re: Ask HN: Music while coding

#110

Post by siglesias » Sun, Jul 18, 2010, 4:46 PM UTC

I prefer music that you can "catch a ride on" because they have a lot of forward harmonic motion: Bach, Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven come to mind. For Bach go no further than Glenn Gould's performances.

Other than that it's occasionally nice to put on some 60's and 70's rock, the grungy kind of stuff (from Pink Floyd to Led Zeppelin to Metallica) that the forefathers of programming languages and personal computing listened to while they worked. There's got to be a relationship (either aesthetically or culturally) between the workflow that they created for us and the music they used to keep them going.