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Why do programmers need private offices with doors?

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Re: Why do programmers need private offices with doors?

#501

Post by erik_seaberg »

that_guy_iain wrote: post #379
ath3nd wrote: post #37

People like you are the reason I personally don't want to be in an office. > asking quick questions and getting an instant answer. vs chat where I may not get an answer for hours. Basically like having a toddler around. Sorry for the negative take here but how it's written it feels like you don't necessarily realize that some people do need deep work, and prioritize your quick satisfaction to other's focus. Or I migh…

> Sorry for the negative take here but how it's written it feels like you don't necessarily realize that some people do need deep work, and prioritize your quick satisfaction to other's focus. I'm always confused by people who struggle so much with being able to quickly answer a question and get back to what they were doing. Also, here you're prioritising your work over someone else's. > I simply can't stand incessan…

If you make me think about some technical problem other than the one I have halfway solved in my head, anything I didn’t write in code is gone and I need to reinvent it almost from scratch.

When management evaluates my performance, delivering my projects carries much more weight than helping yours (which they might not even be able to measure).

Re: Why do programmers need private offices with doors?

#502

Post by biztos »

IKantRead wrote: post #316
esskay wrote: post #106

It has to be said, if you're employing programmers and making them sit in an openplan office you're willingly and knowingly making their job significantly harder, and their day worse. Open plan might work great for some types of work, but for highly technical and mentally taxing work it's quite litterally the worst possible working environment you could be providing. There's a reason that many programmers prefer to w…

Recent experience at a fairly young startup has shown me that open office culture has also started to breed a very different type of programmer. People will often be pairing nearly all day long, any claim that you need a moment to focus and think about a problem is met with perplexity, every idea should be shipped to prod asap, while tests exist the idea of performing basic QA/manual testing on your own work is only…

Is anyone trying to hire only introverted, spectrumy, possibly older developers for their startup? Seems like it could be a big competitive advantage if you have smart managers and don’t do foot-guns like open-plan and pairing.

Re: Why do programmers need private offices with doors?

#503

Post by kragen »

otteromkram wrote: post #214
ddol wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Airbnb was open plan (it still is, I’m just not there anymore). They also have an amazing Food team who would occasionally, randomly, bake treats for us (this is relevant, I promise). There was no sales bell, but there was an outage gong. Any time we had an outage affecting the “Book It” flow and revenue stopped flowing that gong rang out. Hearing the gong meant engineers would abruptly leave meetings or lunch to com…

[flagged]

this kind of content-free hate has no place on hacker news

Re: Why do programmers need private offices with doors?

#504

Post by rpmisms »

ducharmdev wrote: post #416
rpmisms wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was raised by the focused type of programmer, and modern startup culture is horrifying to me (and him). I have left that world and now am solo engineer in a non-profit where I'm responsible for a list of results, not a pile of Jira tickets someone made up to look busy.

That sounds like my ideal job. The longer I've been a developer, the more I've come to dislike work that doesn't address problems faced by end-users/the org.

I couldn't be happier. I am the in-house expert in my field, I replaced an agency that was far more expensive and incompetent, and I have great hours (9-4:30!) and benefits. Oh, and I'm fully remote in an org that's been remote since 2013.

Re: Why do programmers need private offices with doors?

#505

Post by 13rac1 »

2devnull wrote: post #298
neilwilson wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The work was done by IBM in 1975. You need lots of space to keep the noise down and you need offices with doors that close. Why are we still having this discussion fifty years later?

Because we work in different ways now than we did in 1975? The work people do is also different. And, the people themselves have also changed. A person born in 1980s may be more used to 24/7 noise from tv and devices. A 30 year old worker in 1975 grew up in a quieter home.

You may not recognize the difference, but our brains haven't evolved (nature) much in the last couple decades or probably centuries. There's little to no chance we have truly adapted (nurture) to this 24/7 noise, even plants have problems with it: https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/plants-are-... -> https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S143917912...

> Plants in the traffic noise treatment group were exposed to 16 h of road traffic noise each day for a total of 15 days, while the control group was kept under complete silence. Traffic noise exposure led to significant decrease in growth indices of both plant species.

Re: Why do programmers need private offices with doors?

#506

Post by biztos »

xyzzy_plugh wrote: post #313
danaris wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cube farms aren't really much better for programming work than true open-plan offices. The article is about the split between "office with door" and "not that", not specifically open-plan offices, so talking about cube farms is absolutely valid.

What on earth are you talking about. No one is debating true offices are superior but a full height cube is about infinitely better than open office. Cubes are sound insulating, they're quiet, they're more spacious than open office. You have storage and three to three and a half walls. The only physical distraction is caused by people walking past the opening. It's not just possible, but quite likely to eliminate out…

I worked for a few years in the full-height kind, and a few years in the lipstick kind. The full-height cube was awesome, I had as much privacy as I really needed but the barrier to interruption was just low enough that people weren’t afraid to come ask a question.

Re: Why do programmers need private offices with doors?

#507

Post by bluGill »

shikon7 wrote: post #394
bluGill wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "What you see as vibrant is really your employees shooting the shit and not getting any actual work done." That is better than getting work on the wrong thing done. People who sit in their office and never interact with others tend to work on projects the company thought was canceled months ago.

If that happens, that’s rather the fault of the company and the managers of not communicating the current affairs clearly enough. You shouldn’t need to rely on informal channels to find out what the company considers canceled.

While you are not wrong, making those formal channels is expensive in itself. If the informal channels work they can be a lot cheaper. Well maybe, I don't think anyone has really studied this including all the subtle issues.

Re: Why do programmers need private offices with doors?

#508

Post by JAlexoid »

bitzun wrote: post #318
robertlagrant wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it feels like you don't necessarily realize that some people do need deep work, and prioritize your quick satisfaction to other's focus. This is very one-sided. If you can unblock someone now so they don't spend 3 hours searching through the local intranet for some information, then that makes your team faster. There's a balance to be had, of course, but your team's overall delivery is what's important. > I view it…

But it's not a dichotomy between 3 hours or instantaneous. It's a dichotomy between instantaneous and when someone has a break in flow to peek at messages, which IME is more like 15-30 minutes (and i think it's probably fair to ask people to peek around that frequently if they normally wouldn't)

There's a very clear benefit of asking someone for help, when you're blocked.

WFH comes with a lot of issues, when it comes to a timely response from people.

I had many of colleagues in the WfH world, that just ignored me for a month...

The idea that all engineering is highly focused and non-social just feeds the rockstar developer culture. And most of us aren't even close to rockstar status.

There is always a balance between collaborative discussions and focus time. I thought that we learned it 20 years ago, that devs should not hide away in cubicles?

Re: Why do programmers need private offices with doors?

#509

Post by andrei_says_ »

yousif_123123 wrote: post #407

Just want to add that I only became (at least in my opinion) a good programmer by sitting next to a very good and passionate one that I was able to question from time to time and may have interrupted his work some days. I also probably helped him brainstorm ideas with me and debugging, since he would just say what's on his mind while doing it, and I'd do the same, and sometimes this kind of ping pong debugging/brains…

> I am convinced that you get more in a collaborative environment having a few devs sitting next to each other in pairs/small groups that they enjoy being with than anything else.

Like an open zoom meeting where people unmute themselves only they need to ask something?

With the additional focus-aiding utility provided by services like focusmate?

Similar to people gaming online with audio chat but more disciplined.

Combining home office with virtual open floor communication on demand.

Re: Why do programmers need private offices with doors?

#510

Post by JAlexoid »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #449
yousif_123123 wrote: post #407

Just want to add that I only became (at least in my opinion) a good programmer by sitting next to a very good and passionate one that I was able to question from time to time and may have interrupted his work some days. I also probably helped him brainstorm ideas with me and debugging, since he would just say what's on his mind while doing it, and I'd do the same, and sometimes this kind of ping pong debugging/brains…

I am a huge fan of mentorship; I benefited from it early in my career, and I strive to offer it to others now. I don't think that requires an open office at all, though. I think mentorship works even better if you're in a quiet environment where you can talk comfortably and not worry about bothering the people around you. That said, I can attribute one positive effect in my career to having worked in an open office.…

Well... I have a counter example of a failure in FOSS, because of remoteness of the responsible department:

At IBM working in a satellite office, I wanted to contribute to Jenkins. The fact that any person with the authority to allow me to do that was "behind an office door". Multiple emails back and forth - I ended up ditching the idea of getting the approval and quit IBM.

Closed doors should be for focus time, which should not be "all the time". Having small team offices and quiet rooms - can contribute to people's ability to focus. But personal offices is just another door that stops people from collaborating will inevitably stop a lot of valuable collaboration.

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