Programming

We talked about this in my software engineering course back in 2001. Surely we can start acting on these finding a quarter century later right? Right?? Joking (I guess?) aside, this really should be taken more seriously.

For the most part it is just soul crushing to constantly be interrupted but people legit die because of software errors due to these kinds of things. You think someone who has 30 minutes free a day to do code reviews for a whole team is going to do a good job, regardless of their intention?

Software is driving cars, flying planes, scheduling trains, pretty much everything in modern life. Yet we are fragmenting our codebases, micromanaging to the point of focus and productivity loss, and to make up for that we are trying to leverage ai tools that were rushed to market. Buckle up folks, we are in for a bumpy ride.

Good article, but it goes so much further than this. This is why a lot of passionate devs are nocturnal. Why the venn diagram overlap between devs and expensive noise cancelling headphones is massive. It is why lots of (voluntary) programming is procrastinated on, and ultimately simply kills a lot of software that could have been. Not to mention the software that is, could have a higher quality, leading to less frustrated users and less dead beat jobs in support.

So go on over and ask Derrek or Sheryl if they have that PDF that was sent to everyone.

Most devs have known this for decades, so let’s wait another 20 years before we get a study to confirm all that too.

11 years ago there was an article in Russian LiveJournal, talking about the same. It compares programmer's work with falling asleep and about how hard it is to get back to that "sleep-like" state if you're interrupted.

My friend had a t-shirt that says "fuck off I'm coding" on the back across the shoulders. If anyone interrupted him he'd pack up for the day and go home.

Perfectly fine to interrupt an hour-long train of thought to ask me if we're out of milk.

Just peachy.

If I ever start my own dev agency this will be our secret weapon. Every developer gets an office with a door.

What kind of barbaric inhumane researchers tested this

As a developer, I don't believe in multitasking for this very reason.

https://www.paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html

Guard your "maker" time slots.

Part of the reason I strongly prefer to wfh.

Do not Interrupt Developers, Study Says

----> couldn't agree more!

best decision I ever made years and years ago was to stop being a regular employee and instead do freelance/consulting work. No more interruptions. Emails can be ignored when need be, same with calls and texts, I don't use whatsapp or any of that. My Jira is PURELY for bug tracking and if anyone that has been invited into it goes off rails on it for something OTHER than bug tracking they get removed.

If I go into an office I leave whenever I want. If someone starts bothering me I pack up and go.

No shit!

This is common sense.
If you see me in that middle of a productive task like sleeping, munching on cheese, drinking bourbon from the bottle or manhandling my Johnson, please refrain from acting on your urge to show me the right path.
I know that path, that's why I'm not on it.

Yee

This study emphasizes to me that I'm not a dev, I'm the library's designated techie (aka a systems librarian). I do write scripts, but mostly I maintain servers, help coworkers with CSS, and figure out what obscure setting is assigning unwanted overdue book fines (under Configuration Menu > Fulfillment > Physical Fulfillment > Advanced Policy Configuration, naturally).

I enjoy interruptions because they help me prioritize my day.