

Forced Coding - edw519
http://webr3.org/blog/general/forced-coding/

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wheaties
"Why not? as nike say “just do it”, if the code has 10 bugs but is finished in
half the time then you’ve done good, that gives you loads of time to fix the
bugs, and more importantly you get to those moments where you realise x,y&z
need to be changed much quicker. Not only that, but would you rather have a
week to go and have a list of 80 bugs, or a week to go and 2 major
deliverables a week overdue.."

What!? Has he never read Code Complete? I'd rather be 2 weeks overdue with no
bugs than on time with 80 bugs. 80 bugs means I'm really overdue by a month...

~~~
avigesaa
Details, details. All middle-management cares about is whether or not the task
is done. And the associated costs of your shitty code are, at least partially,
shifted on to your co-workers. This gives you an even better comparative
velocity! Bonus season will be good this year.

~~~
thwarted
What's great about "done" is that there are so many interpretations of it.

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kakooljay
Great tips - reminded me of a post on beating writer’s block:
<http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/8864>

Note: It's a FUN post, not really practical for coders [eg: "Graham Greene
wrote exactly 500 words per day, even stopping mid-sentence if necessary"] but
a nice distraction.. just what you need when you're battling procrastination..
:)

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jongraehl
Supposedly listening to music while problem solving or coding results in
similar productivity, but more errors.

On the other hand, <http://pom.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/33/2/173.pdf> claims
that music listeners (with practice) produce similar quality results in
similar real time, but 1) have less actual time working (the music does
distract) and 2) feel better.

I often listen to (mostly classical) music while programming, but I'll pause
it if I feel memory-impaired, or need to make an important decision.

~~~
cubedice
I'd buy that. For me, listening to music while coding is an engineering
problem: how to minimize the tendency to let the mind wander without
overwhelming it with new input.

For me that means using music that is ambient enough without verging on
elevator muzak style irritation. I ended up with instrumental hip-hop (dj
shadow, etc).

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edw519
_Pick the smallest task, whether complex or not, and just do it!...Doesn’t
matter what it is, so long as it’s coding...It could be adding an extra field
to an object or table, popping in some validation, anything small and simple.
It really doesn’t matter if you do it right or wrong; you’re not doing it to
sign off a task, you’re doing it to re-aquaint yourself with your system, by
the time you’ve been through X lines of code you’ll be back in work mode and
firing on all cylinders, well on your way to getting zoned._

This is excellent advice!

Whenever I'm frozen, this is what I do, and before you know it, I'm doing
something else.

~~~
varaon
Yes. When I'm studying math, I work best if I just dive right into the
practice problems, then go back and review the notes as needed. Once I find a
challenge and get hooked on a problem that I can't quite answer, I'm fully
focused.

I focus best when I have an immediate challenge or a problem to solve. Same
for coding - diving right in to stimulate myself, and then I can start
thinking of solutions/designs as I tinker with the small stuff and
(re)acquaint myself with the structure/API.

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aaa
The music part would never work for me... whenever I put some music to play I
get completely absorbed, and all studying, or coding, for that matter, comes
to a full stop.

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maudineormsby
Strange how this is different for everyone. I'm the opposite, for example.

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hughprime
Works great for me, but only if the music in question has no lyrics. Baroque,
bebop or pretentious Philip Glass-y stuff seems to work best.

~~~
hypermatt
I can do it with any music, from crazy hip hop to smooth jazz ;) I get massive
energy from the music and sometimes my coworkers catch me singing while i code
lol !

