From owner-freebsd-chat Sun May 23 6:30:57 1999 Delivered-To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Received: from smtp03.primenet.com (smtp03.primenet.com [206.165.6.133]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2AEAF14D18 for ; Sun, 23 May 1999 06:30:54 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from tlambert@usr01.primenet.com) Received: (from daemon@localhost) by smtp03.primenet.com (8.8.8/8.8.8) id GAA11857; Sun, 23 May 1999 06:30:23 -0700 (MST) Received: from usr01.primenet.com(206.165.6.201) via SMTP by smtp03.primenet.com, id smtpd011841; Sun May 23 06:30:17 1999 Received: (from tlambert@localhost) by usr01.primenet.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) id GAA10021; Sun, 23 May 1999 06:30:06 -0700 (MST) From: Terry Lambert Message-Id: <199905231330.GAA10021@usr01.primenet.com> Subject: Re: Music to code by To: crb@ChrisBowman.com (Christopher R. Bowman) Date: Sun, 23 May 1999 13:30:05 +0000 (GMT) Cc: tlambert@primenet.com, unknown@riverstyx.net, bright@rush.net, hodeleri@seattleu.edu, freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG In-Reply-To: <199905212309.TAA07729@quark.ChrisBowman.com> from "Christopher R. Bowman" at May 21, 99 07:08:30 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL25] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org > >Is it just that other people don't concentrate very deeply when > >coding, or is it that they just don't code very deeply? > > Why do you assume that your inability to concentrate in the face of music or > other distractions means that every body else has the same problem? Because interruption is interruption. People can demand your attention, regardless of what you will. > >All of the best coders I have known throughout my career go into > >semi-autistic funks -- pacing, rocking backward and forward in their > >chairs, etc. -- while producing their best code. > > Ok, your empirical evidence isn't a horrible basis for judgement, but > come on do you really think it is unbiased? I don't find music > distracting at all, but the two guys that used to site behind my > cubicle at GE and talk about golf all day, well lets just say I have > a real hard time screening out human voices having a conversation. Coding is inherently mathematical, as is music. Using the same part of your brain for two activities results in half (or less) of the effort applied to the activity than if you were using it for one. Maybe the people who code to music don't recognize coding as a mathematical activity? Or maybe they don't recognize music as being mathematical? Either way, it's a division of effort. I don't think that Twisted Sister is algorithmically biased toward coding hashing functions... maybe I'm just a different species of fish? Terry Lambert terry@lambert.org --- Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present or previous employers. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message