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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?

#431

Post by ath3nd »

sodapopcan wrote: post #326
definitelyauser wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've often run into the "just wear headphones" argument and never been a fan of it. Do you code with noise cancellation in a sort of sensory deprivation mode? Or do you listen to music? Listening to music while coding severely reduces my concentration, and I find it in no way to be a substitute for silence.

> Listening to music while coding severely reduces my concentration, and I find it in no way to be a substitute for silence. Me too. I can't work with music in headphones as I inevitably start listening to it. It's weird that many people don't even consider this a possibility when recommending headphones. Well, I guess it's not weird as they just aren't affected by it the same way, but still.

We are all to "suck it up" because, for some reason, being constantly interrupted is something that we supposedly have to be okay with. I say no, let the busybodies and loudmouths adapt to us for a change.

Re: Why do programmers need private offices with doors?

#432

Post by fritzo »

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…

In the past I've participated in weekly pair coding sessions or group coding sessions, say 2-4 hours on a Friday afternoon. That was with an open source project. The meetings included both maintainers and newer contributors.

Maybe look around for an active open source project you'd like to contribute to, and ask around its community and propose a regular pair/group coding session?

Edit: Crucially, we all took turns "driving", even during a single meeting. Sometimes someone wanted help on a branch, and they started driving and then someone else "took the wheel" for a few minutes then passed it back.

I found our interactions were similar to session-style sports, like skateboarding or bouldering. We all attempted a challenge together and could see how each other approached the problem. As in sports, sometimes even knowing something is possible is all you need.

Re: Why do programmers need private offices with doors?

#433

Post by kridsdale1 »

e12e wrote: post #382
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #236

I worked for a Japanese corporation. The Tokyo offices had enormous rooms, with long rows of desks, arranged by section/department. The section manager's desk was at the end of each row. VPs, with billion-dollar budgets, had small, schoolteacher-style desks, in the corner of the room. These enormous rooms, with hundreds of engineers, were quiet as a library. They had carpeting, people wore "office slippers," and ther…

I did a year as an exchange student in secondary school/senior high school in Japan. We were close to 50 pupils per class room - yet it was much more quiet than my Norwegian classroom with half as many pupils. Not a praise of the outdated Prussian high school system in Japan - but another illustration that the culture is different.

Is it outdated? How do the results compare?

Re: Why do programmers need private offices with doors?

#434

Post by psunavy03 »

bunderbunder wrote: post #424
IKantRead wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The awesome thing about modern programming culture is that rework due to the initial thing you shipped being rushed and shoddy actually looks really good on Tableau. Because you can assign more story points to fixing all the mistakes you made during the last 1-2 days of every sprint.

There's a circle of hell for anyone who uses story points as a productivity measure and not a work-in-progress limit internal to the team.

Re: Why do programmers need private offices with doors?

#435

Post by mablopoule »

contrarian1234 wrote: post #415
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 think the interruptions in a group setting have huge disastrous effects as nobody really ever gets into a good flow state. I'm sure it's useful for training and mentorship, but that's frankly not your employer's problem these days. People switch jobs every year, and if you train up staff only their next company is really going to reap the benefits. If learning on the job raises retention then it's only marginal. If…

Too much interruption is bad, I agree, but there are some type of skills / mindset that are 100x times simpler to gain by contact with colleagues than by training on your own (even when looking at forums). Especially on the things that you wouldn't not think about improving.

I had the luck of working with a dude who was extremely good at analyzing data, simply by loading json files in sublime text, doing a mix of pretty-printing, multi-cursors changes (with usually 1000+ cursors), regex-foo, playing with buffers and other linux commands. It was a weird set of skills that was truly magic to behold, and not amount of Youtube conference or code review could have replaced that.

There are some coding livestream that can help with that, but it's not as efficient as being in the room as talented peoples.

Re: Why do programmers need private offices with doors?

#436

Post by lbriner »

And so the can of worms opens again!

No. Not everyone wants or needs a private office with a door. It doesn't always make us more productive. It is not always better to work from home. Open plan offices are not always bad. Most of my day is not spent working on something so complicated or advanced that interuption will screw me over. I am spending most of my day building block towers because I can split most of my work into small pieces.

On the other hand, if distraction is a problem, as someone else said, it isn't the open plan office which is at fault. It is planning your time; setting DnD when you are actually doing something difficult; it is making sure that people don't randomnly call your best engineers on the phone whenever they have problem but they instead use chat or email as an async method instead.

Re: Why do programmers need private offices with doors?

#437

Post by ajb »

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…

Mentorship doesn't have to be interactive. My first boss mainly mentored me over email. In fact, my first job largely worked over email and it was a bit of a culture shock when the next one was largely instant message based and also had daily meetings as well. I felt a bit like I had gone back to infant school.

It may be a bit harder now because as programming became more high level, the cadence of development went up. However I think the skill set that you gain when you are force to work at a lower cadence (and spend more time "sharpening the axe") is still valuable.

Re: Why do programmers need private offices with doors?

#438

Post by tehnub »

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…

When I onboarded a junior engineer in 2021 I had a one hour scheduled Zoom call every morning for the first three or four months, and we'd Zoom usually at least another hour ad-hoc in the afternoon. He would screen share, I would screen share, and we got a lot of learning and programming done that way. You have to have a culture of people dropping Zoom links at any time and being ready to respond within say, five minutes most of the time. Or at least that's what worked for me.

Re: Why do programmers need private offices with doors?

#439

Post by harwoodjp »

lnxg33k1 wrote: post #47
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…

This shit about being connected is killing me, people goes to work as part of their social life and are ruining everyone else existence, if people doesn’t have connections therapist is where they should go not coworkers

I agree that this is the case, though the causes are pathological to the system, not the individual. You have to spend all your time at work, so you depend on it for social stimulus.

Re: Why do programmers need private offices with doors?

#440

Post by dogleash »

definitelyauser wrote: post #232
gorgoiler wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Open plan worked for me when there was a very clear contract between every stakeholder. Firstly, everyone had free, good quality, sound blocking headphones. Not just free as in standard equipment on your first day free. There were buckets of the things lying around and if you needed a new set you just grabbed some, no questions asked. VC funded opulence, yay! Secondly, there was an understanding amongst everyone on t…

I've often run into the "just wear headphones" argument and never been a fan of it. Do you code with noise cancellation in a sort of sensory deprivation mode? Or do you listen to music? Listening to music while coding severely reduces my concentration, and I find it in no way to be a substitute for silence.

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