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

Post by mtrower » Thu, Apr 06, 2023, 12:53 PM UTC

theshrike79 wrote: post #120

dmcq2 wrote: post #13

At a job I had they wanted me to install an instant messaging app on my compute! I refused point blank. I said they could email me and I'd look at he email every so often. If it was really important they could get up and walk to see me. If it wasn't important enough for others to walk then it definitely wasn't important enough to interrupt me. Before that I was at a place where they had tannoys. I moved the tannoys a…

"Instant messaging" is just as disruptive as email if you have notifications turned on. There is zero difference between your email program going ding ding ding on every incoming email vs slack/teams/whatever doing the same. My current company has _all_ of their communication on Slack, the only emails I get are meeting invitations and status emails from automated systems that haven't been integrated to Slack yet. I c…

Post by qikInNdOutReply » Thu, Apr 06, 2023, 12:53 PM UTC

bsenftner wrote: post #201

qikInNdOutReply wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The cause of all this is the grafted on management caste, that does not code. For them the whole endavour suspicously looks like not doing a thing, for to do a thing, there needs to be communication, information flowing up and down the hierarchy. Not some dude sitting there like a zen monk, reading, ocassionally typing. Slackers! Best load there calendars, to get them going..

I'd say the cause of this is the developers can't explain themselves, cannot defend why they need isolation, why they should not be interrupted, and more often than not can't explain what they do, what their jobs are and why they are required, in an understandable manner to the management caste. They act as they do because the developers are an opaque pool who talk nonsense when asked questions. Of course they/we get…

Post by Ialdaboth » Thu, Apr 06, 2023, 1:13 PM UTC

silisili wrote: post #163

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…

Similar raising. At one point I was ASE certified, at another I was a landscaper. The first thing I noticed about white collar work was how gossipy and lazy everyone was. We didn't have time for that in blue collar work. I had no idea how these people were useful to work or society. It seems so bizarre to me, even today, that most white collar jobs make more money. It's like they took the people who couldn't work phy…

Post by neogodless » Thu, Apr 06, 2023, 1:34 PM UTC

inciampati wrote: post #37

omnicognate wrote: post #23

I actively like being distracted when I'm programming. I tend to approach a problem from lots of different directions, each time fizzling out, hitting a block or having some sort of mental reset, until something unconsciously clicks and an overall structure, understanding or solution emerges. Continually leaving and returning to the problem is a part of that process, so I tend to find someone walking up with a questi…

Indeed, this seems unusual in programmer land. As evidence we have a thread like the current one reaching the front page several times a day. But your way is also my way. I am active in a very wide array of topics, and happy to flit between them. Sometimes I dive deep, but it's usually in a critical moment of synthesis when ideas developed over months or years come to clarity and I put them to action. This is working…

Post by barbariangrunge » Thu, Apr 06, 2023, 1:40 PM UTC

mtrower wrote: post #191

rtpg wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 work…