261–270 of 409 posts
We have an open floor plan, and it works like this: * Desk area is for getting work done. Everyone agrees on this. * We have "phone rooms" for small discussions. But we limit those usually to 1:1s or discussing office politics. * Try to limit all discussions at the desk area to 5 people or less. * If someone sighs loudly as they put on their headphones when you're having a discussion right behind them, then that is t…
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Just like the cargo cult Agile pandemic peaked a few years ago, I suspect we're reaching peak open floor plans right now. The overall negative effects of an open floor plan for a significant fraction of engineers (though not all) is self-evident and backed up by reams of data stretching back nearly 40 years: http://iansommerville.com/software-engineering-book/web/work... TLDR: 100 square feet of personal space is opt…
Using a study of programmers in the 1970s (where not punching the wrong hole in punch cards was a critical skill) for programmers in 2017 may not give you the most useful data.
We have an open floor plan, and it works like this: * Desk area is for getting work done. Everyone agrees on this. * We have "phone rooms" for small discussions. But we limit those usually to 1:1s or discussing office politics. * Try to limit all discussions at the desk area to 5 people or less. * If someone sighs loudly as they put on their headphones when you're having a discussion right behind them, then that is t…
Noise canceling headphones don't really work that way in my experience. They're good at canceling out droning background sounds to make the overall sound quieter, but they can't "predict" and cancel out less repetitive/droning sounds sounds like conversations and those godawful clacky keyboards some people insist on. In effect, noise canceling headphones make those sounds louder , relatively speaking, because they qu…
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Definitely part of it. Businesses are afraid developers will come to regard themselves, and to be regarded, as real professionals, like doctors, lawyers, some categories of engineer (god forbid they stop cowering around the MBAs or start questioning the ethics of... well, anything, really!) Systemically keeping their tastes and station "lower" than that is probably part of what's going on, especially with the bigger…
Cry me a river. I know a lot of nurses and teachers that feel really bad for the poor software engineer class.
I'm not crying, just observing. There's a risk of a new honest-to-god high-status profession emerging, and desire to avoid that is probably behind some of the "culture" filtering down from the big tech companies. It's barely-upper-middle-class-culturally-if-you-squint-a-little management not wanting to have subordinates who match or outrank them, socially. The smaller companies aren't in on it—they're just cargo-culting, of course. Investors and potential larger, acquiring companies sure do seem to expect those conditions when they get their tours, though, so there's that.
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I don't think it is a cargo cult. My guess is that the focus is to make these engineers replaceable. And "quiet, introverted, methodical folks" are difficult to replace. Dumbed down open office workers and brogrammers are easily replaceable with another recent graduate some place cheaper.
Get yer cargo cult out of my bandwagon.
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I am distracted by your loud keyboard. Frequently, I find myself wishing that you had a quiet keyboard like everyone else in the office. I am particularly irritated by the noise of your keyboard each morning when you write long emails or posts. When you are coding and there are frequent long breaks when you are thinking, it is not quite as distracting, but I still don't like it. I agree with you that open office plan…
I was using a Model M when working in an open office in China. No one really cared, because the guy in the cubicle next to me had a sunflower/watermelon seed habit. Damn, no one should be de-shelling seeds in an open office! Or in the afternoon we would have fruit, and pear day everyone would be smacking and slurping (Chinese pears are much more watery than western pears, I hate pear day!), or everyone talking/arguin…
But typing on a model M is pure sex.
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Have you tried the sculpt? I was having wrist pain that was preventing me from working up until about a week after mine arrived.
Its predecessors, yes, many times. The brand new shiny $100 Sculpt? No.
I haven't found a larger traditional mouse yet.
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They are like Accelerationists, bringing about the end of an undesirable system by increasing the damage it causes until it cannot be ignored.
Drifting rather off-topic here, but why credit the "heighten the contradictions" strategy to a weird modern academic cult? Rebranding Leninist ideas about sabotage, I guess, makes it seem fresh to the rubes. Never mind that attempting to time social and political systems doesn't work much better than timing the market, and if you get it wrong, you're just being a horrible person. (Assuming your underlying goals are g…
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I was using a Model M when working in an open office in China. No one really cared, because the guy in the cubicle next to me had a sunflower/watermelon seed habit. Damn, no one should be de-shelling seeds in an open office! Or in the afternoon we would have fruit, and pear day everyone would be smacking and slurping (Chinese pears are much more watery than western pears, I hate pear day!), or everyone talking/arguin…
I won't even use my model M and I have a personal office (that I usually leave the door open to). It's loud as hell. I'm skeptical nobody cared. But typing on a model M is pure sex.
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In the academia, where good communication and idea sharing are essential, there are no open offices. Said communication happens where it ought to be: in rec room or cafeteria.
Whaaaat? We had eight PhD students crammed into a tiny open space. It was pretty stinky.