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The Price of (Dev) Happiness: Part One

blog.fogcreek.com

21–30 of 151 posts

Re: The Price of (Dev) Happiness: Part One

#21

Personally, I hate Aeron chairs with a passion. Obviously, the overall point here is to keep developers happy, so I'd presume FogCreek allows developers to opt for different/better chairs. I just don't understand why these are considered the pinnacle of comfort. Is it just me? Am I the only person who finds everything about them to hideously uncomfortable, from the jabby knife in the back lumbar support to the circul…

Jeff Atwood on chairs: http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2008/07/investing-in-a-qual...

Re: The Price of (Dev) Happiness: Part One

#22

Waiting for the next post: Next: the real cost of private offices. You should include the cost of effective insulation/sound-proofing. (I've seen/heard it done reasonably well with expanding foam during wall construction.) P.S. Hey, folks, the original author, Rich Armstrong (richarmstrong), actually replied in a response this comment, but you killed it off -- it's dead, now. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28687…

Sometimes I feel like I'm the only one who doesn't like private offices. It just seems like a separation between myself and the rest of the team. I actually like open seating arrangements. When I need some serious concentration and can tolerate no distractions, a solid pair of noise-canceling headphones does the trick.

Not for me. I'm not anti-social [1], but I have very limited ability to "filter" out surrounding noise and activity.

Actually, to some extent I think I'm simply more aware of the distraction. I recall a classmate's chemistry grades improving significantly after I convinced him to turn off his stereo while he was studying.

People always wonder how I see the things that they missed. (And I get that a lot.) Unfortunately, many seem completely unwilling to accept this aspect of the possible answer.

Nonetheless, if it works for you, it works. I just wish the current, open space dominant culture would be more accepting of my explanation of what works for me.

[1] To the contrary, I seem to be the one who ends up with connections throughout an organization, although they tend to focus on those who have a bit more depth. (I'm not much for the "schmoozing" crowd and superficial conversation -- I absolutely do not care about the latest Adam Sandler movie.)

Contrary to many around me, I'll end up knowing people across divisions, and from HQ down to the plant production floor. Those of us who "get stuff done" tend to find each other, and to rely on each other when the bureaucracy is demanding the impossible.

Re: The Price of (Dev) Happiness: Part One

#23

How many dev shops still give everyone workstations? Our company is entirely on laptops and I don't know a single person here that wants a workstation.

I can't do serious dev work on a laptop. Too underpowered. Everyone here gets a laptop, but it's for working in bed, or on the road, at your child's birth, etc... But for day to day dev work, a high-end workstation is a fair bit more productive. At least for the type of dev work we do.

Re: The Price of (Dev) Happiness: Part One

#24
I expressed similar thoughts in the past: http://programmingzen.com/2010/12/28/give-your-programmers-p... It just doesn't make sense to cheap out on these things. If you do because you can't afford it for every developer, then you don't have enough money to employ that many developers.

Re: The Price of (Dev) Happiness: Part One

#25

Waiting for the next post: Next: the real cost of private offices. You should include the cost of effective insulation/sound-proofing. (I've seen/heard it done reasonably well with expanding foam during wall construction.) P.S. Hey, folks, the original author, Rich Armstrong (richarmstrong), actually replied in a response this comment, but you killed it off -- it's dead, now. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28687…

Sometimes I feel like I'm the only one who doesn't like private offices. It just seems like a separation between myself and the rest of the team. I actually like open seating arrangements. When I need some serious concentration and can tolerate no distractions, a solid pair of noise-canceling headphones does the trick.

Definitely not just you - I like sharing an office, but it does depend completely on who you are sharing an office with.

Re: The Price of (Dev) Happiness: Part One

#26

Waiting for the next post: Next: the real cost of private offices. You should include the cost of effective insulation/sound-proofing. (I've seen/heard it done reasonably well with expanding foam during wall construction.) P.S. Hey, folks, the original author, Rich Armstrong (richarmstrong), actually replied in a response this comment, but you killed it off -- it's dead, now. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28687…

> You should include the cost of effective insulation/sound-proofing.

My cost was under $100: http://www.google.com/products/catalog?hl=en&q=sennheise...

Re: The Price of (Dev) Happiness: Part One

#27
post #3
post #2

I had no idea that some people like to code standing up; why is this? (Genuine curiosity, someone enlighten me please :))

Sitting for a very long time is bad for you. It causes increased chance of death, causes your back to hurt, makes you fatter, and lets your energy level go down after hours of doing it. It's not so much the "coding" part as the "sitting at a desk for 10+ hours a day" part that makes standing desks so attractive to programmers. http://pressroom.cancer.org/index.php?s=43&item=257 http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/article…

I know that sitting is bad for you, I just couldn't imagine people standing all day instead. TBH after running around at home after my toddler I enjoy going to work to sit on my butt, heh :)

Re: The Price of (Dev) Happiness: Part One

#28

Waiting for the next post: Next: the real cost of private offices. You should include the cost of effective insulation/sound-proofing. (I've seen/heard it done reasonably well with expanding foam during wall construction.) P.S. Hey, folks, the original author, Rich Armstrong (richarmstrong), actually replied in a response this comment, but you killed it off -- it's dead, now. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28687…

Sometimes I feel like I'm the only one who doesn't like private offices. It just seems like a separation between myself and the rest of the team. I actually like open seating arrangements. When I need some serious concentration and can tolerate no distractions, a solid pair of noise-canceling headphones does the trick.

For me, the sound isn't the problem. It's all the movement in the corner of my vision that distracts me. No amount of noise cancelling head phones will help that.

An office on the other hand means that no coworkers can distract me, unless it's intentional

Re: The Price of (Dev) Happiness: Part One

#29
post #5
post #2

I had no idea that some people like to code standing up; why is this? (Genuine curiosity, someone enlighten me please :))

There is a lot of discussions about this on Hacker News and generally people who work standing are happy about it. See eg http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2828948 For more http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/submissions&q=sta...

Aha, thank you! :)

Re: The Price of (Dev) Happiness: Part One

#30

How many dev shops still give everyone workstations? Our company is entirely on laptops and I don't know a single person here that wants a workstation.

I'm on a laptop with two monitors. I don't need a workstation, I need a place to put all this stuff down.

(I do also have a desktop. I don't know if the monitor is plugged in - I do everything on it via command line. It's handy for VMs, as other people mentioned, and other semi-work-related things.)

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