Earlier quoted context omitted.
Mostly everything that is not creative: creativity needs focus. Take any job that isn't creating something, anything related to customer, operations, support, ... and one can do it in almost any conditions.
Creativity doesn't require solitude. Is pair programming not at all creative?
Why do programmers need private offices with doors?
531–540 of 593 posts
Re: Why do programmers need private offices with doors?
#532Earlier quoted context omitted.
Skilled labor isn't cheap. The buildings were put there to serve the people, not the other way around. Even if you pay $1k per office per programmer that's still less than 5-10% of the cost of their salary, and would likely yield a performance improvement of greater than 5-10%. You say you can't afford to, I say you can't afford not to!
> Even if you pay $1k per office per programmer You mean per year? Private office costs are much higher than that. If you mean per month, then you are assuming salary to be average of $100k-200k.
Yes, that is indeed the average salary for a programmer in my area, that's the low end.
Re: Why do programmers need private offices with doors?
#533Earlier quoted context omitted.
I feel like that's exactly what email or pinging someone in a group chat is for, or at least that's how I prefer it. If I'm deeply focused on something else, I'll just ignore the notification, if I'm available I'll respond. Bonus points for just posting it to a team group chat or CC-ing everyone involved so someone else might be able to handle it.
That's no different from being in an office though. If someone taps me on the shoulder and says they need a few minutes of my time looking over problematic code or whatever, I can say "sure just give me about 15 minutes to finish off this X/Y/Z" When someone is relegated to doing this over Slack/Teams/whatever, the other person might have their notifications muted and rarely check for new ones. So it could end up bei…
The latter is a full context switch to me. It will often leave me having to try to remind myself what I was just thinking and having to rebuild that thought.
Re: Why do programmers need private offices with doors?
#534Just 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. Co…
Re: Why do programmers need private offices with doors?
#535Re: Why do programmers need private offices with doors?
#536Earlier 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.
Contra-opinion: music significantly improves my concentration, but it has to be instrumental or classical otherwise brain gets distracted processing the lyrics.
Re: Why do programmers need private offices with doors?
#537Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree communication is better when everyone is present. If a remote team was required to be available that would solve most of the problems. It’s about the culture of WFH which currently assumes slow async responses.
That's a cultural thing. All my remote colleagues are present and responsive. I certainly do not think it's a healthy assumption. WFH does not imply async. Timezones do.
Re: Why do programmers need private offices with doors?
#538Earlier quoted context omitted.
>no social awareness decides to eat at their desk instead of taking lunch elsewhere What? How is eating your lunch at your desk a social awareness thing? If it doesn't smell and isn't loud, what's the problem?
> If it doesn't smell I guess that's exactly the problem. The only food which doesn't smell is cold food.
Re: Why do programmers need private offices with doors?
#539Earlier quoted context omitted.
> A room full of engineers is tolerable, and if they're on your team this is even desirable. Until one of the engineers who has no social awareness decides to eat at their desk instead of taking lunch elsewhere, or you just need some silent time and there's just no option for it. I'm very reluctantly pursuing on-site or hybrid positions as a last ditch (desperate) effort to find some work, and I'm not the slightest b…
>no social awareness decides to eat at their desk instead of taking lunch elsewhere What? How is eating your lunch at your desk a social awareness thing? If it doesn't smell and isn't loud, what's the problem?
In one case, an adjacent developer was bringing in hard-boiled eggs and cracking them against the edge of his desk while wearing headphones and chewing with his mouth open, while the smell of the eggs wafted over the 3ft to mine, and then he'd get started on the apples. He'd do this 3-5 times a day, so needless to say I'm not enthusiastic about open offices. I did also awkwardly bring this up directly with him, but it's tricky to navigate a situation in which it's not just the food, but also the mouth sounds and occasional burps. If I did get a break from this specific person, it would just allow the sounds from everyone else eating chips or having conversations to be more prominent. By the time covid roled around, I was already burnt out from trying to compensate from all those things, and the respite I could have got from working at home just arrived too late to save me.
Re: Why do programmers need private offices with doors?
#540Earlier quoted context omitted.
Rakuten was the first and only bigger corp I've worked at (my life has been startups and boutique shops) and so I have had a hard time understanding why people don't like open office floorplans. Thank you for making me realize why I enjoyed it and might not, at another org.
Was it a Japanese office or a foreign office following Japanese customs?
It is interesting to note that they can integrate the best and worst elements of both aforementioned work cultures.