I can confirm the experience of others in that I have no particular problem listening to music while coding, but music with distinguishable lyrics is more disruptive to concentration.
"Do you listen to music while coding?" An analysis.
81–90 of 96 posts
Re: "Do you listen to music while coding?" An analysis.
#82I don't listen to music with words. My brain's language processing unit goes into action, and disrupts my ability to code. Instrumentals, electronic music, or classical music are fine.
Yeah, I listen to music without words while coding or typing. I'm listening to the Tron Legacy soundtrack right now.
However, if I'm browsing/wasting time online/working out at the gym/running, I definitely prefer stuff like hiphop to keep me entertained. I think this is because these are more passive tasks.
Re: "Do you listen to music while coding?" An analysis.
#83When i studied traditional animation (drawing), I was always reminded not to listen to music while working... I picked up the habit even while coding and doing anything basically. I also had a problem of concentrating or being in the zone while listening to music while working... however, as of recently, I've tried experimenting with listening to music while working, again. I found that I have no problems with concentration anymore, and I find it quite enjoyable working along with music - BUT, I found out that I do less work while listening to music as opposed to sans music. Not by a large margin, but I think I'll listen to music from now on, since it's more enjoyable experience.
Re: "Do you listen to music while coding?" An analysis.
#84I'm surprised hip hop isn't on the chart at all. Am I the only one who listens to it while coding? I switch between that and hard rock. I've never really had any problems with words in music being a distraction. I read somewhere that singing and talking/writing are two completely separate parts of the brain, which is why some stroke or brain damage are able to sing before they can talk. Also, I prefer speakers to hea…
Lately I've been listening to a lot of The Roots while working. I can pop on the head phones and get into an instant flow to them.
Re: "Do you listen to music while coding?" An analysis.
#85I don't listen to music with words. My brain's language processing unit goes into action, and disrupts my ability to code. Instrumentals, electronic music, or classical music are fine.
Exactly, but I also throw in music from languages that I don't understand. I'm loving Korean and Japanese pop at the moment.
Damn it, now I wish I hadn't learnt japanese.
Re: "Do you listen to music while coding?" An analysis.
#86"During the 1960s, researchers at Cornell University conducted a series of tests on the effects of working with music. They polled a group of computer science students and divided the students into two groups, those who liked to have music in the background while they worked (studied) and those who did not. Then they put half of each group together in a silent room, and the other half of each group in a different roo…
Many of the everyday tasks performed by professional workers are done in the serial processing center of the left brain. Music will not interfere particularly with this work, since it's the brain's holistic right side that digests music.
Makes me wonder if one of the subconscious motives for encouraging people to listen to music in cubicleville is to subtly keep them cowed and contented with doing the repetitive tasks they are assigned without thinking too much about how the process might be improved, without asking too many questions, and so on.
Re: "Do you listen to music while coding?" An analysis.
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've tried having this conversation so many times at my current place! We don't just have an open plan office, we have a huge open plan office with a mix of developers, client facing staff, managers, secretaries, phones going off, people wandering through to the kitchen or toilets, small meetings going on around tables.... It's a terrible work environment for actually getting to focus on what you're doing, yet any su…
It's even worse if, like me, you're diagnosed with adult ADD. Something that would take me 5-20 minutes in a quiet environment can easily take me a half day in a distraction-prone open office environment.
I got evaluated for adult ADD because of similar productivity issues. It turns out I'm just really bored and unmotivated by the work I'm doing.
Re: "Do you listen to music while coding?" An analysis.
#88I don't listen to music with words. My brain's language processing unit goes into action, and disrupts my ability to code. Instrumentals, electronic music, or classical music are fine.
This. 100% this. Although, there are times, particularly when deep-diving into someone else's trainwreck, where you know that futility and defeat are the order of the day, when I'll put on Godspeed! You Black Emperor's "Dead Flag Blues": The car's on fire, there's no driver at the wheel and the sewers are all muddied with a thousand lonely suicides. Sorta sets the mood.
I've found when doing network pentesting there's a very different set of music that works well for me compared to web app pentesting. For network testing I tend to start with movie soundtracks before moving up to rock instrumentals like east Hastings then on to harder and harder rock/metal before hitting cradle of filth.
On web app tests I normally find plaid or other ambient electronica works better for me.
For coding I find that swing, jazz and blues works best. I've been listening to a lot of cab Calloway of late which is mostly instrumental or scat focused. If theres too much by way of lyrics or if it's too catchy it tends to disrupt my concentration though.
Re: "Do you listen to music while coding?" An analysis.
#89I don't listen to music with words. My brain's language processing unit goes into action, and disrupts my ability to code. Instrumentals, electronic music, or classical music are fine.
From talking to people over the years, I've been surprised how differently people interpret music. There's a big split between the lyric driven and the lyric deaf. People talk to me about the lyrics to songs I know and I have no idea what they're on about. I can listen to, and even sing, songs whose lyrics I've never verbally parsed. So I get on great with songs that sound good but have idiotic or nonsensical lyrics…
I find this interesting as well. It's a rare song that I like /because/ of the lyrics (or even despite the lyrics). For the most part they are just part of the music - another instrument adding complexity to the song.
Despite that, I can't really program while listening to songs with lyrics. Somewhere in my brain a thread is running parsing the lyrics and stealing cycles.
Re: "Do you listen to music while coding?" An analysis.
#90I have an office with a door that closes, but I usually leave it open and play Soma FM's Drone Zone quietly in the background. No vocals, little to no rhythm, and helps to put my mind in a slightly far-away place where it's just me and the problem I'm working on.