what is wrong with the top comments in this thread? Fastest way to get me to find an alternative software is to have it start beeping and whistling at me.
Ask HN: Does anyone use sound effects in their dev environment?
91–100 of 336 posts
Re: Ask HN: Does anyone use sound effects in their dev environment?
#92This sounds like an idea borrowed from games or other media where doing certain actions results in an audible feedback. This is often done for the benefit of the audience, or to enhance the gaming experience, but I had an idea to implement this in my workspace to somehow influence my brain and make it more enticing to write code and somehow beat procrastination. I wrote a Python daemon which on startup loads small .w…
Definitely interested
Re: Ask HN: Does anyone use sound effects in their dev environment?
#93In around the year 2000, for career day I went to work with my uncle. He worked in IT for General Mills. Their office was very much a stereotypical poorly lit IT cave in the basement. All their computers were a constant barrage of custom pop culture sound effects for every action. Minimize a window and a computer would emit like a "Ooh baby" clip for instance. Place had the tone of a morning radio show. Seemingly eve…
Yes, this. Imagine an elevator, gas pump, vending machine, or laundromat emitting sound effects constantly. Quite the dystopian hellscape.
> gas pump
Most of them play advertisements while you fuel up. I hate it. The only thing that I like about New Jersey forbidding me from touching a gas pump is that I'm not subjected to ads for diarrhea medication or low-APR loans every time I fuel up.
Re: Ask HN: Does anyone use sound effects in their dev environment?
#94Absolutely fucking not. My computer should make no sound that I don't explicitly ask it to make.
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Re: Ask HN: Does anyone use sound effects in their dev environment?
#95Alam Turing used the "hoot" instruction on the Manchester computer in the 1940s to signal different things for debugging
https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-37507707
Re: Ask HN: Does anyone use sound effects in their dev environment?
#96Absolutely fucking not. My computer should make no sound that I don't explicitly ask it to make.
Well if you've configured your environment to use an audible alert for some condition, haven't you explicitly asked it to make the sound?
Re: Ask HN: Does anyone use sound effects in their dev environment?
#97Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, this. Imagine an elevator, gas pump, vending machine, or laundromat emitting sound effects constantly. Quite the dystopian hellscape.
> gas pump Most of them play advertisements while you fuel up. I hate it. The only thing that I like about New Jersey forbidding me from touching a gas pump is that I'm not subjected to ads for diarrhea medication or low-APR loans every time I fuel up.
Pro tip: on most pumps, the second button from the top on the right side mutes the volume.
Re: Ask HN: Does anyone use sound effects in their dev environment?
#98Earlier quoted context omitted.
Short answer: no. Was forced to move to a new place. Had to buy a secondhand fridge. Thermostat was out of whack. Instead of calling a technician, I decided to have fun, replaced the thermostat by an Arduino with a couple of thermometers (top shelf, bottom shelf), a relay driving a contactor, and a beeper. Firmware stayed in "beta version", never thought about publishing it. When I moved again to a new place I ditche…
Projects line Frankenfridge are a blast until you want a product that "just works".
Most of my longest lived and lowest maintenance things were frankenprojects and brazen hacks that somehow lasted years without me having to make any changes or fix anything.
Re: Ask HN: Does anyone use sound effects in their dev environment?
#99Absolutely fucking not. My computer should make no sound that I don't explicitly ask it to make.
Well if you've configured your environment to use an audible alert for some condition, haven't you explicitly asked it to make the sound?
If I don't explicitly control that condition, then I would say not.
Something like "./run-long-task.sh; say 'Task is done'" is fine.
An audible alert when an email arrives or a build fails is hell.
Re: Ask HN: Does anyone use sound effects in their dev environment?
#100I've used the same sound effects for decades now.
In Windows, open the Sound control panel page (type Alt-R then enter mmsys.cpl is the easiest way to get there) and on the sounds page there's a list you can scroll to see all the program events you can define sounds for.
I use Visual Studio and play a Homer Simpson "Doh!" clip for build failed and a Fred Flintstone "Yabba dabba doo!" clip for build succeeded.