I've come to conclude that I am alone in the world in this respect: I deliberately do not listen to music when coding (or studying) because I find it way too distracting. I end up listening to the music; enjoying it; analysing it. I would liken it to putting my favourite television show up on a jumbotron while playing tennis. It either is going to distract me terribly, or, if not, it is borderline pointless to have it playing.
Ask HN: Music while coding
151–160 of 179 posts
Re: Ask HN: Music while coding
#152I am a huge folk punk/anti-punk fan. Some I suggest are,,,
-(early) Against Me!
-Andrew Jackson Jihad
-Wingut Dishwashers Union
-This Bike is a Pipe Bomb
-Defiance, Ohio
Re: Ask HN: Music while coding
#153I'm often preferring silence these days, but when I do feel like tunes, I like stuff that's doesn't tear my attention away from what I'm doing. The Aphex Twin: Analogue Bubble Bath Analogue Bubble Bath 2 Analogue Bubble Bath 3 Analogue Bubble Bath 3.1 Analogue Bubble Bath 4 Analogue Bubble Bath 5 Selected Ambient Works Also, Trace Nico and Speedy J.
+1 for Speedy J haha, thought I was the only one. Old stuff like G-Spot especially
Yeah, you're not the only one, but we seem pretty few and far between.
Re: Ask HN: Music while coding
#154I'm often preferring silence these days, but when I do feel like tunes, I like stuff that's doesn't tear my attention away from what I'm doing. The Aphex Twin: Analogue Bubble Bath Analogue Bubble Bath 2 Analogue Bubble Bath 3 Analogue Bubble Bath 3.1 Analogue Bubble Bath 4 Analogue Bubble Bath 5 Selected Ambient Works Also, Trace Nico and Speedy J.
Try some Boards of Canada
Thanks, will do.
Re: Ask HN: Music while coding
#155Music gives a great motivation for coding, I'd say it is a must...
But you must know a balance and time when to turn it off.
Try Japanese traditional music for relaxation.
Re: Ask HN: Music while coding
#156I'm a big fan of Zoe Keating for coding music, and as a bonus she recently switched to bandcamp so there's quite a lot of it streaming: http://music.zoekeating.com/ Quite a lot of layers to concentrate on, but for some reason it also just works to get me in the zone.
awesome stuff. if I had to choose again, I would have learned the cello instead of the guitar. such a cool instrument!
Re: Ask HN: Music while coding
#157Try some post-rock: - Tortoise - Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Thee Silver Mt. Zion - This Will Destroy You - Do Make Say Think - Explosions in the Sky .. To name a few Very melodic, quiet, soothing, but also explosive at times.
Throwing in The Non from Oklahoma City: myspace.com/thenonband
Re: Ask HN: Music while coding
#158It depends on the language. Things like assembler demand Nine Inch Nails, Atari Teenage Riot, and other really fast things. This is possibly due to the fact that I have the attention span of a whippet, and I need to be kept up to speed. C++ lends itself to distorted acid noise in the manner of mu-Ziq, LFO, Squarepusher and Aphex Twin. Possibly because this music is good at dispelling C++ induced rage. Java is pleasan…
What would you listen to while writing lisp?
any porno backing will work
.. plaaaayaaaaa
Re: Ask HN: Music while coding
#159I've found that nothing helps me into the zone faster than white(or pink or brown)-noise type audio: waves at the seashore, rain falling in a forest-- that type of sound. It's intriguing to me how a little randomness can gel my mind. I certainly recommend trying it before going with the Provigil ( http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1524757 )
White noise or water in the background can work for me, but I've never been able to do anything complicated/thought-intensive with music playing -- it just saps some of my attention more than it seems to for many people.
Possibly related: Jonah Lehrer responded to the Provigil article; below is a comment posted by Joe Shelby on Lehrer's response post (http://scienceblogs.com/cortex/2008/05/the_hidden_cost_of_sm...):
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Not "drug" related, but a similar study I once read about (I think it was cited in Tom DeMarco and Timothy Lister's Peopleware) was about geeks and their listening to music while working. They were given a simple programming task, one easily done in "300 lines" using what we call brute force programming (follow the specified requirements to the letter).
The test was originally designed to see if listening to music while working affected accuracy, with the idea that musical distractions might lead to more bugs in code.
The programmers were allowed to work exactly as they would have worked in real life (this was back before easy internet connections made "cheating" more possible)), so some had headphones full of their favorite music, others worked in silence.
What they found was that both groups (those with music, those without) completed the task with equal accuracy - music didn't affect that precision.
However, they also discovered that some programmers found a secret in the proposed algorithm they were implementing. With a little cleverness, you could implement the algorithm in only 50 lines instead of the full 300, and be done in half the time. Of those that discovered the shorter implementation, most were from the programming in silence group.
Re: Ask HN: Music while coding
#160Can't believe no one has mentioned The Album Leaf. Also, Uyama Hiroto, Nujabes, The Dead Texan, Oceanlab, Antoine Dufour, BT, Dosh, Juno Reactor, Lusine and Lusine ICL, Pacific UV, RJD2, Shugo Tokumaru, The Cinematic Orchestra and The Six Parts Seven. Most of it has no lyrics, most of it is rhythmic and soothing to some degree.
Album Leaf rule. Now I have to check out the others in your list.
Let me know what you think!