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Ask HN: Would you employ a developer who talks to himself during work?

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Re: Ask HN: Would you employ a developer who talks to himself during work?

#21

Post by retroafroman »

icefox wrote: post #18
retroafroman wrote: post #9

I wouldn't. At one job, the desks were arranged so that I sat at my computer with my back to my coworker (who talked to himself/no-one-in-particular/me throughout the day) and I could never tell when he was trying to talk to me or just vocalizing something. Also, I found it annoying. A small annoyance, sure, but if it bothers your other developer's, it's not a good idea.

Well if you were doing the hiring I am guessing you can also set the seating.

Good point, as long as it is possible to place the self-talker in a place where others aren't bothered, whether that's alone, or with people who aren't bothered, it wouldn't be too bad.

Re: Ask HN: Would you employ a developer who talks to himself during work?

#23

Post by jarek »

Do you accommodate other preferences of the developer? Do you let them adjust their chair or rearrange their desk? Do you let them come in at flex hours, as long as the work is done and they don't unduly inconvenience others (meetings, etc)? Do you let them wear headphones at work? Do you let them choose their preferred editor (again, as long as it doesn't inconvenience others) or perhaps even OS?

If so, why would you not accommodate someone who works slightly differently in this one way?

Re: Ask HN: Would you employ a developer who talks to himself during work?

#24

Post by cobralibre »

mattjung wrote: post #12
sofuture wrote: post #11

I wouldn't consider it a factor in an employment decision unless it was exceptional in some way (i.e. it was non-stop, extremely loud, disruptive).

In fact, I was wondering if someone who needs to talk out loud has a different approach of solving problems or if he has even has some shortcomings given that he is not able to keep things in his mind. When children learn reading at school, the first step is to read loud, then to understand what they read out loud. It takes considerably more efforts until a child is able to understand a text she is reading silently.

Silent reading is a historically contingent practice, and did not become typical until the early middle ages, when reading aloud began to be banned in Christian scriptoriums. Whether this was done for pragmatic or religious reasons, I don't know.

Re: Ask HN: Would you employ a developer who talks to himself during work?

#25

Post by jarek »

mattjung wrote: post #12
sofuture wrote: post #11

I wouldn't consider it a factor in an employment decision unless it was exceptional in some way (i.e. it was non-stop, extremely loud, disruptive).

In fact, I was wondering if someone who needs to talk out loud has a different approach of solving problems or if he has even has some shortcomings given that he is not able to keep things in his mind. When children learn reading at school, the first step is to read loud, then to understand what they read out loud. It takes considerably more efforts until a child is able to understand a text she is reading silently.

Do you also think someone who draws out diagrams on a whiteboard rather than visualizing everything in their head has a "shortcoming"?

Not everyone thinks the same way. This isn't a bug.

Re: Ask HN: Would you employ a developer who talks to himself during work?

#26

Post by wccrawford »

No. I worked with a guy who did this. I didn't have to sit at the desk next to him, but the guy who did... Well, he absolutely hated it.

It's also quite a bit different than 2 people talking, or even someone talking on the phone.

I think a quiet workplace is very important for proper thinking.

Re: Ask HN: Would you employ a developer who talks to himself during work?

#27

Post by abyssknight »

smutticus wrote: post #22

Talking to yourself is fine. It's when you start responding to yourself that you should be worried.

This is funny, but I respond to my own questions all the time. Often out of sync with the timeline of events, too. I'll remember an answer and answer my question from 10 minutes ago all while discussing it with myself. ;)

Re: Ask HN: Would you employ a developer who talks to himself during work?

#28

Post by asdfghjkjnmhb »

lee wrote: post #4

Is he doing some kind of rubber duck debugging? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_duck_debugging I don't talk to myself, but sometimes by simply talking aloud about my problems to my peers I can flesh out a solution to a hard problem. I have seen other programmers talk to themselves to find a solution when they're stuck, and it seems to work quite well.

>The process is to meticulously explain code to an inanimate object

Isn't that what students are for?

Re: Ask HN: Would you employ a developer who talks to himself during work?

#29

Post by zackattack »

Talking to yourself is a symptom of stress. Because your working memory is too populated by stressors in order to keep the entire "conversation" inside your head, you externalize it. Think of it as paging out. The only inconvenience is that it can bother people. Well, maybe there are other inconveniences, too, but I'm not aware of any studies that suggest externalized verbal problem solving creates worse results than internalized problem solving, though I suspect it actually might be the case.

Re: Ask HN: Would you employ a developer who talks to himself during work?

#30

Post by asdfghjkjnmhb »

abyssknight wrote: post #27
smutticus wrote: post #22

Talking to yourself is fine. It's when you start responding to yourself that you should be worried.

This is funny, but I respond to my own questions all the time. Often out of sync with the timeline of events, too. I'll remember an answer and answer my question from 10 minutes ago all while discussing it with myself. ;)

Self correcting - first you talk to yourself, then you start answering yourself, then you argue with yourself - then you sulk and stop talking to you.
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