seems like this idea of external distraction is a self-fulfilling prophecy. just be better and keeping your mind where you want it.
Programmer interrupted: The cost of interruption and context switching (2022)
81–90 of 271 posts
Re: Programmer interrupted: The cost of interruption and context switching (2022)
#82If I know I am going to have my day broken into sub 1hr chunks thanks to meetings and such, I pretty much write off the day entirely. It takes time to get into the flow state, some studies cite over 20 minutes, and once you are in it you want to stay in it for like four hours. No emails to follow up with, no slack, no zooms, no one tapping your shoulder, no conversations about the weekend distracting you on the perip…
> It's pretty ironic, because this is how a lot of people study in the library at college,show up and stay all night grinding in the flow state with your phone shut off. Yet when you graduate to the work place, you seldom have the opportunity to work like how you've been training to work for all your advanced schooling ever again.
To be fair, I think staying up all night trying to be productive instead of getting a good night's sleep also makes it hard for most people during the day. As someone who consistently got 6-8 hours of sleep every night in college before a day with classes, I've always been mildly horrified by the fact that "staying up all night studying" is somehow considered a good thing.
Re: Programmer interrupted: The cost of interruption and context switching (2022)
#83If I know I am going to have my day broken into sub 1hr chunks thanks to meetings and such, I pretty much write off the day entirely. It takes time to get into the flow state, some studies cite over 20 minutes, and once you are in it you want to stay in it for like four hours. No emails to follow up with, no slack, no zooms, no one tapping your shoulder, no conversations about the weekend distracting you on the perip…
Having tmux sessions for each open task is a life-saver, especially in an environment where I do all my work on a remote server. Now I can close the laptop lid and never lose work. Simply reopen the ssh connection and keep going.
What was that stateless ssh alternative? Using that you don’t even have to reopen the connection, it just works again right away.
Re: Programmer interrupted: The cost of interruption and context switching (2022)
#84If I know I am going to have my day broken into sub 1hr chunks thanks to meetings and such, I pretty much write off the day entirely. It takes time to get into the flow state, some studies cite over 20 minutes, and once you are in it you want to stay in it for like four hours. No emails to follow up with, no slack, no zooms, no one tapping your shoulder, no conversations about the weekend distracting you on the perip…
I have the unfortunate privilege to work at a firm where the senior engineering leaders believe context switching is a requirement. They judge people on whether they can do it. I find that this leads everyone to constantly do multiple concurrent tasks. After a long day I often have a headache from having to concentrate on both my coding task, an operations task, a meeting, and a new request at the same time. Ultimate…
Heh. The same at my workplace, except that build times suck, tests take a long time to run (and are not dependable), and you're expected to be on an electronic leash -- namely, one of the worst possible instant messengers.
Re: Programmer interrupted: The cost of interruption and context switching (2022)
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
Having tmux sessions for each open task is a life-saver, especially in an environment where I do all my work on a remote server. Now I can close the laptop lid and never lose work. Simply reopen the ssh connection and keep going.
What was that stateless ssh alternative? Using that you don’t even have to reopen the connection, it just works again right away.
mosh?
Re: Programmer interrupted: The cost of interruption and context switching (2022)
#86If I know I am going to have my day broken into sub 1hr chunks thanks to meetings and such, I pretty much write off the day entirely. It takes time to get into the flow state, some studies cite over 20 minutes, and once you are in it you want to stay in it for like four hours. No emails to follow up with, no slack, no zooms, no one tapping your shoulder, no conversations about the weekend distracting you on the perip…
> It's pretty ironic, because this is how a lot of people study in the library at college,show up and stay all night grinding in the flow state with your phone shut off. Yet when you graduate to the work place, you seldom have the opportunity to work like how you've been training to work for all your advanced schooling ever again. To be fair, I think staying up all night trying to be productive instead of getting a g…
I think you're still missing the point. It isn't that you need to stay up all night, but rather the flow state. In college you typically have classes during the day so you aren't going to get it then. That doesn't make it a great thing but it also isn't exactly relevant to this conversation.
Re: Programmer interrupted: The cost of interruption and context switching (2022)
#87The problem is not that some managers think that it’s OK for software engineers to be interrupted frequently. The problem is that some managers think that frequently interrupting software engineers is a feature of startup culture. I once worked for a startup where I was interrupted frequently. My boss often worked remotely, while I was in the office every day. If I tried to carve out periods to write code where I ignored slack and text messages, my boss would call people in the office to interrupt me. If I put on headphones to isolate from the sound, people would come wave their hands in my face or tap me on the shoulder. When I explained that I needed periods where I was not interrupted, I was told by the director of software that I “didn’t understand how startups work” and that I was “acting like a girl”. I quit, and shortly after I quit the company went out of business.
Re: Programmer interrupted: The cost of interruption and context switching (2022)
#88I thought this was going to be about program performance and how to reduce the impact of interrupts and context switching on performance in your software. How disappointing.
Re: Programmer interrupted: The cost of interruption and context switching (2022)
#89Non programmers won't get it. I am trying to explain it to my wife (using the cartoon on the article) but she says I am always busy. Which is probably true, but somehow she manages to interrupt my thoughts right when I was holding the whole heap in one hand, reaching for the duct tape with the other and pushing the keyboard with the nose. Never when I just started vscode :)
"Non programmers won't get it"
Complete ignorance for what other jobs do.
Writing code is not so different from writing long reports. When I am writing a long report, I need to focus as well and do not want to be interrupted.
Programming is not the only job that requires deep thought and concentration.
Re: Programmer interrupted: The cost of interruption and context switching (2022)
#90If I know I am going to have my day broken into sub 1hr chunks thanks to meetings and such, I pretty much write off the day entirely. It takes time to get into the flow state, some studies cite over 20 minutes, and once you are in it you want to stay in it for like four hours. No emails to follow up with, no slack, no zooms, no one tapping your shoulder, no conversations about the weekend distracting you on the perip…
> It's pretty ironic, because this is how a lot of people study in the library at college,show up and stay all night grinding in the flow state with your phone shut off. Yet when you graduate to the work place, you seldom have the opportunity to work like how you've been training to work for all your advanced schooling ever again. To be fair, I think staying up all night trying to be productive instead of getting a g…
There is a general accepted "healthy pattern", but I think there more to it:
- not everyone has the same sleep patterns, and while it can usually be coherced, for some that doesn't work or has too many downsides.
- some people have straight sleep issues and, sleeping in 6-8h blocks doesn't help. "then fix the issues" could be the basic advice, but again, that's usually easier said than done, or has worse side effects.
In that respect I agree with parent that it would be nice if "weirs" work patterns were more accepted