What music is good for being productive while coding?
Also, do you think that listening to the same album a lot puts you in the same state of mind and makes it difficult to think outside the square?
Ask HN: What music makes you a productive programmer?
1–10 of 23 posts
Re: Ask HN: What music makes you a productive programmer?
#2I tend to listen to the radio, that way I don't have to make a concious decision about what to listen to other than the channel.
I don't mind the adverts and the channels I listen to have no-repeat workday playlists.
Services like spotify or wimp are interesting but for me, they require to much focus whilst I'm coding whereas the radio is simpler.
Re: Ask HN: What music makes you a productive programmer?
#3Trance. Put on a 5 hour set, and youre good to go.
Re: Ask HN: What music makes you a productive programmer?
#4Trance. Put on a 5 hour set, and youre good to go.
btw, this set by Gareth Emery is amazing
http://www.dropbeatsnotbombs.com/2011/11/tatw-400-live-sets-...
Re: Ask HN: What music makes you a productive programmer?
#5A Turntable.fm room that won't kick me for inactivity. Usually one of the house/trance/electro rooms.
Re: Ask HN: What music makes you a productive programmer?
#6Internet radio, typically DI (Digitally Imported). Minimal adverts, and the various trance stations play looooong sets.
Can't say that listening to the same album has ever made it difficult to think outside of a square. In fact, I used to listen to albums that I knew I was productive on whenever I needed to be productive, regardless of what I was busy with.
I find though, that music generally helps to get me through the mechanical motions of doing something that I know what/how to do - coding, documentation, etc. If I need to think about what to do or how to do it first, pure silence (circumaural Sennheisers) works best.
Re: Ask HN: What music makes you a productive programmer?
#7Probably not the answer you're looking for but I work best in silence (or rather, the sound of tapping keyboards). I know others strongly prefer music but I zone out anyway so eventually I don't even hear music (or am cognitively aware of it rather). I like the computer lab scenario where its just a bunch of background tapping keyboards at most.
Re: Ask HN: What music makes you a productive programmer?
#8Trance. Put on a 5 hour set, and youre good to go.
btw, this set by Gareth Emery is amazing http://www.dropbeatsnotbombs.com/2011/11/tatw-400-live-sets-...
+1 for Gareth Emery. I couldn't help leave a comment since I'm literally listening to his latest podcast at the moment. :)
(For those unfamiliar: http://www.garethemery.com/podcast/podcast_182/)
Re: Ask HN: What music makes you a productive programmer?
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
btw, this set by Gareth Emery is amazing http://www.dropbeatsnotbombs.com/2011/11/tatw-400-live-sets-...
+1 for Gareth Emery. I couldn't help leave a comment since I'm literally listening to his latest podcast at the moment. :) (For those unfamiliar: http://www.garethemery.com/podcast/podcast_182/ )
No link available, but if you like Gareth Emery, you should really look into Protoculture. He features quite often on Armin's ASOT sets :)
Re: Ask HN: What music makes you a productive programmer?
#10Most consistently, I find that light classical (Bach, Brahms, etc.) helps me to focus on my work.
But more interestingly, many days it's as if there is some particular "song of the day" that my mind wants to hear, and if I can determine an adequate song of the day, I can get very focused listening to that one song over and over all day. There doesn't seem to be any particular rhyme or reason to selecting such a song, and I'll poke around in my music library until I find something that works.
Does listening to the same thing over and over hinder creative thinking? For me, I think it enhances it.
It doesn't help me every day, but ever since I first heard it circa 1998, Electric Light Orchestra's "Mr. Blue Sky" has helped me to focus on many occasions. Some of my best work has been done while listening to that song...
Bizarrely, a couple of years ago I was required to do some overnight systems testing, and as I struggled to stay awake, I found myself listening repeatedly to the "Snow Miser" song from the old Rankin & Bass stop-motion Christmas special. I am at a loss to explain why that helped me to focus, or why I even thought to listen to that song in the first place...