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Programmer interrupted: The cost of interruption and context switching (2022)

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Re: Programmer interrupted: The cost of interruption and context switching (2022)

#191

Post by mtrower »

rtpg wrote: post #161
dijit wrote: post #156

I don't remember where I read it, in a book or on HN or even if someone told it to me. But I learned that when requesting time or disruption: certain positions need specialised handling. An example: A receptionist does not necessarily need focus time, and is interrupt driven, so their work should not stretch to more than 5 minute intervals; if something takes more than 5 minutes it must be filed for someone else. A m…

I feel that this is extremely dismissive of the reality that other people do in fact have similar focus requirements, but simply have learned to take notes or otherwise deal with interruptions. There are more demand driven roles but probably every person you interface with on a day to day basis professionally has hard work to do. Sales copy? Focus. Figuring out some accounting discrepancy? Focus. Trying to actually p…

I feel in turn that this comment is the dismissive one, and in fact extremely so.

The issue is not that programmers need to focus, is that they need to focus on deep, complex work. At least a few of those other tasks you mention (don’t have much experience with sales copy, and in rather terrible with both sales and copy) do require focus but have smaller reasonable increments of progress.

Stop thinking about the workplace for a moment and think more broadly of tasks throughout the entire day. Some of those are more easily put down and returned to than others.

Some examples of tasks which require focus but interrupt well: formatting meeting notes into minutes, simple accounting (paying bills, reconciling a ledger). The main point with these are that the individual units of work are small, and don’t generally require a lot of mental preloading to begin/resume working on. So if I am interrupted it can be irritating but I don’t really lose much.

Programming generally involves a lot of mental state that needs to be preloaded, and the Subtask units are often not small. That’s all.

Regarding the insinuation that this “myth” is the result of coddling at the professional level: if this were true, then non-professionals would not discover this independently for themselves…

Re: Programmer interrupted: The cost of interruption and context switching (2022)

#192

Post by eitland »

watwut wrote: post #189
eitland wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If someone talking about weight loss suggested that people should just never eat breakfast to reduce the amount of eating they do in a given day, it would be relevant to offer a critique[...] Tangential, but might be interesting to some: sometime before the pandemic, after (I think) 30 years of always eating some kind of breakfast, I accidentally missed breakfast once and that day I felt I had significantly less br…

When I do not eat breakfast, I am unable to focus on work. It does not matter when I am in dysfunctional team (so I was actually not eating breakfast), but the moment I needed to produce, I had to eat.

Seems to be most common.

My comment is only pointing out that for me it is the opposite: I work better without breakfast.

Re: Programmer interrupted: The cost of interruption and context switching (2022)

#193

Post by eitland »

Xcelerate wrote: post #160
eitland wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If someone talking about weight loss suggested that people should just never eat breakfast to reduce the amount of eating they do in a given day, it would be relevant to offer a critique[...] Tangential, but might be interesting to some: sometime before the pandemic, after (I think) 30 years of always eating some kind of breakfast, I accidentally missed breakfast once and that day I felt I had significantly less br…

I noticed that too. I also started skipping lunch for the same reason. If I do eat lunch, it’s only on days with a lot of meetings in the afternoon. If I want focused work, I skip it.

Actually same here: I try to only take a couple of glasses of milk and a brisk walk for lunch.

Re: Programmer interrupted: The cost of interruption and context switching (2022)

#194

Post by klibertp »

wpietri wrote: post #97
asdff wrote: post #9

If I know I am going to have my day broken into sub 1hr chunks thanks to meetings and such, I pretty much write off the day entirely. It takes time to get into the flow state, some studies cite over 20 minutes, and once you are in it you want to stay in it for like four hours. No emails to follow up with, no slack, no zooms, no one tapping your shoulder, no conversations about the weekend distracting you on the perip…

> no slack, no zooms, no one tapping your shoulder, no conversations about the weekend distracting you on the periphery My teen jobs were in stores, restaurants, and manufacturing. In those contexts, everybody understands that when you're working, you're actually working. Even managers understand that even small discussions need to be fit neatly into the flow of the work, and actual meetings require careful planning…

And then you're finally fed up with all this and go full remote, if the company allows it. Congrats, now you lost access to 80% of what is going on and fell out of the loop for anything important, and you're now guaranteed to lose in any power struggle that could happen.

In one of the companies I worked for, it was comfortable in the beginning - there were offices, 2-3 programmers in each, not too crowded, but close enough to see when the coworkers were focusing on something and when it would be ok to do a quick "hey, do you know how to...". The company grew, moved to a bigger building, rooms became larger, now there were 4-5 programmers in each. It was still OK then. Calls and longer talks were done in separate rooms, and a quick chat with the guy next to you could be done like you'd do it in a cinema - quietly.

When I was leaving the company years later, it was after it moved to a place with one huge open space and a set of rooms that you needed to book days in advance to use. Some of them were permanently occupied by "important" people even though they had their own offices. That resulted in everybody and they're cat making calls and meetings and sometimes even plannings right in the middle of the open space or in the kitchen. Finally, a "hot desk" system was implemented, and you had to book your desk days in advance.

I asked the CTO who I've know for quite some time - WTF man? He said that he likes it, because he can see at a glance that everybody is working. I was reminded of storehouses with special elevated rooms that had a view on all that happens on the floor. Saying that I got disillusioned doesn't even begin to describe what I've felt then...

Re: Programmer interrupted: The cost of interruption and context switching (2022)

#195

Post by jwestbury »

chinabot wrote: post #112
wruza wrote: post #104

Not that I like to be interrupted, but if it’s inevitable, here is my method. I’m using it when interruptions are planned, when a task is complex by itself, at refactorings and on bad/lazy days. Log all your key thoughts, realizations, decisions and taken steps on paper. It shouldn’t be long or long-term clear, only clear to today’s you. Gibberish to a bystander. Text, bullets, arrows, acronyms, verbs, marks, anythin…

Here's my method, tell anyone who interrupts you to "FUCK OFF" because your busy.

This method is bound to get you trapped as a junior engineer who will never be as effective as you could.

Learn some people skills. Software exists for people.

Re: Programmer interrupted: The cost of interruption and context switching (2022)

#196

Post by magicloop »

It is the intensity of distraction that creates the gap for the serenity of concentration: -

One way to "survive" is to logically separate the work into two different workflows. The "interrupt" workflow is where you are constantly doing trivial things, odd bits of admin, forms, chatting, and interacting in meetings. The trick is to deliberately cram as much of your interrupt-related work into the same half-day segment. The other workflow, the "deep work" workflow is where you do the design and complex coding work. You allocate such periods in 3 hour segments.

For example you could do the morning in the interrupt workflow, the first part of the afternoon in the deep work workflow, and then end the day with interruptions.

Re: Programmer interrupted: The cost of interruption and context switching (2022)

#197

Post by gumby »

klibertp wrote: post #194
wpietri wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> no slack, no zooms, no one tapping your shoulder, no conversations about the weekend distracting you on the periphery My teen jobs were in stores, restaurants, and manufacturing. In those contexts, everybody understands that when you're working, you're actually working. Even managers understand that even small discussions need to be fit neatly into the flow of the work, and actual meetings require careful planning…

And then you're finally fed up with all this and go full remote, if the company allows it. Congrats, now you lost access to 80% of what is going on and fell out of the loop for anything important, and you're now guaranteed to lose in any power struggle that could happen. In one of the companies I worked for, it was comfortable in the beginning - there were offices, 2-3 programmers in each, not too crowded, but close…

> I asked the CTO who I've know for quite some time - WTF man? He said that he likes it, because he can see at a glance that everybody is working. I was reminded of storehouses with special elevated rooms that had a view on all that happens on the floor.

This kind of panopticon is how prisons are often organized.

I can be lying on a couch working hard. How does the CTO see that? The typing part is just the tip of the iceberg.

Re: Programmer interrupted: The cost of interruption and context switching (2022)

#198

Post by carolayni »

klibertp wrote: post #194
wpietri wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> no slack, no zooms, no one tapping your shoulder, no conversations about the weekend distracting you on the periphery My teen jobs were in stores, restaurants, and manufacturing. In those contexts, everybody understands that when you're working, you're actually working. Even managers understand that even small discussions need to be fit neatly into the flow of the work, and actual meetings require careful planning…

And then you're finally fed up with all this and go full remote, if the company allows it. Congrats, now you lost access to 80% of what is going on and fell out of the loop for anything important, and you're now guaranteed to lose in any power struggle that could happen. In one of the companies I worked for, it was comfortable in the beginning - there were offices, 2-3 programmers in each, not too crowded, but close…

A modern version of the Panopticon, so to say: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon

Re: Programmer interrupted: The cost of interruption and context switching (2022)

#199

Post by TexanFeller »

danwee wrote: post #184
fryry wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This would be a valid way of thinking about it, but programmers aren't generally judged on their meeting attendance but rather their code output. More meetings == less code == worse perceived performance == fewer opportunities for pay increases and promotions

> More meetings == less code == worse perceived performance == fewer opportunities for pay increases and promotions That's a rather junior mentality. When one is junior, yeah, usually the most one can do is moving Jira tickets to Done (which means merging code usually). But when one is senior, the pay increases and promotions come from other activities: mentoring, handling technical topics between teams (usually via…

What I'm hearing you say is that the incentives in our industry are broken.

Re: Programmer interrupted: The cost of interruption and context switching (2022)

#200

Post by gumby »

ashton314 wrote: post #111
wpietri wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> no slack, no zooms, no one tapping your shoulder, no conversations about the weekend distracting you on the periphery My teen jobs were in stores, restaurants, and manufacturing. In those contexts, everybody understands that when you're working, you're actually working. Even managers understand that even small discussions need to be fit neatly into the flow of the work, and actual meetings require careful planning…

> And sure, why don't you put me next to the salespeople making calls all day. I’ve worked next to people with zero volume control and who like to take calls on speakerphone. I decided there and then that cubicles has material benefits over open offices.

> I decided there and then that cubicles has material benefits over open offices.

The cubicle was invented in the 60s as a way to liberate people from the tyranny of the open plan office (just look at film from before then — say, “The Apartment” —- and you’ll see the open plan was the norm.

It’s a shame that the cubicle itself became a tool and exemplar of anomie.

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