
Just shut up and let your devs concentrate, advises Joel Spolsky - rmason
http://www.geekwire.com/2016/just-shut-let-devs-concentrate-programming-expert-advises/
======
duncanawoods
Just as a different counter point, I have coded in lots of environments
including factory floors full of thundering industrial equipment and in the
Gobi desert using a noisy smelly diesel generator as a power source etc.

I think I did some of my best work when assigned a desk essentially in a
corridor. A constant stream of people behind me, no privacy, noise etc. There
was no half-concentration which privacy can encourage e.g. flicking to
email/web every 5 mins. It was either get 100% wired in or don't bother
trying. Concentration is partly a learned skill and being an environment of
disruption is a training ground. Concentration begets concentration - if you
have deep focus on a piece of work and made great progress, its much easier to
get back to that state than if you have been farting around at the surface. If
you have allowed yourself to indulge in "semi-work" then you are not like a
rested athlete but an unfit one - you will have to train yourself back up to
high-productivity.

The really tough environments have been temperature extremes (your mind/body
just stops functioning), noise at the truly headache inducing level (sitting
10m away from a drive-train rig the size of an Olympic swimming pool) but the
worst of all for me is emotional noise e.g. people bickering. Trapped in a
small office with unpleasant people is where I say "never again".

~~~
exceptione
For the managers reading this thread: just because some people can stand the
noise and the distractions shouldn't mean it's safe to opt for a henhouse
floorplan. There is a significant number of people (probably even more so in
software development) whose noise filtering is broken on a hardware level.
They CANNOT learn to filter better.

If you have a noisy environment, you probably shouldn't hire people with
ASD/AD(H)D for example.

~~~
tzakrajs
The reason managers want this is because they dont know how to tell their
employees are actually working so if they see the employee in the office, then
they feel better. Sad but true.

~~~
closeparen
This has "truthiness" but I doubt it. Engineering managers at big tech
companies (which are so fond of open office spaces) tend to be former
engineers.

Pointy-haired bosses who can't tell what their reports are doing are more of a
hallmark of cube farms than open offices.

~~~
tzakrajs
I think it comes down more to them not knowing exactly when the sausage is
made. They can agree if the sausage is good or not when it comes out of the
factory, but what happens in the middle is less clear. The thinking goes,
"code gets output typically when this person sits at this desk, and so when I
don't see them sitting at this desk, they probably aren't outputting code."

------
sotojuan
If you search for "open office" on HN there's a thread with a ton of comments
in which one person described his ideal office setup as one that has an
open/communal area in the middle and individual offices surrounding it in all
sides. The commenter said they tried this in real life and it worked well.

I'm curious as to why this isn't as popular—it seems so obvious. I'm actually
in a program with a similar layout (except there's only individual rooms on
two sides) and it works great.

I'm skeptical of "serendipity" arguments... Bell Labs had private offices and
they did fine.

~~~
biot
On Bell Labs and open offices, Richard Hamming (retired Bell Labs scientist)
said:

"Another trait, it took me a while to notice. I noticed the following facts
about people who work with the door open or the door closed. I notice that if
you have the door to your office closed, you get more work done today and
tomorrow, and you are more productive than most. But 10 years later somehow
you don't know quite know what problems are worth working on; all the hard
work you do is sort of tangential in importance. He who works with the door
open gets all kinds of interruptions, but he also occasionally gets clues as
to what the world is and what might be important. Now I cannot prove the cause
and effect sequence because you might say, ``The closed door is symbolic of a
closed mind.'' I don't know. But I can say there is a pretty good correlation
between those who work with the doors open and those who ultimately do
important things, although people who work with doors closed often work
harder. Somehow they seem to work on slightly the wrong thing - not much, but
enough that they miss fame."

From
[http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/YouAndYourResearch.html](http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/YouAndYourResearch.html)

~~~
dredmorbius
John Seeley Brown, in _The Social Life of Information_ , has a pair of
anecdotes from Xerox's repair staff and either Xerox or Kodak (I think)
customer service.

The support techs used to have a morning coffee session before heading out
into the field on their calls. These turned out to be hugely useful tech
transfer opportunities as repairmen would share both their unsolvable problems
(machines which had broken and couldn't be fixed) and "This One Weird Trick"
solutions.

The second anecdote involved customer service operators, who had previously,
if I'm remembering this correctly, shared floor space with techs, but had been
moved to their own space. Following the move, there were two specific
operators who were able to help out customers by _not_ following the specific
scripts they'd been provided, but rather by supplying actual useful questions,
diagnostics, and suggestions. When studied by management, it it turned out
that one was a veteran of the former seating arrangement. The other, however,
was a more recent hire. She did, however, sit next to the more senior rep, and
had picked up tips listening and talking to the other employee.

The lesson I'm drawing is that you don't need people to be interrupted _all_
the time. But you _do_ need them to have _some_ opportunities for a free-
wheeling exchange. Finding the right balance point between heads-down work
(the Xerox techs, for example, were mostly on the road and at customer sites,
so they wouldn't have had input from other techs), and exhange opportunities.

In academia, there's the teaching vs. studying/research balance. A few days of
lecture and sessions, with other time devoted to actual research, gives that
balance of peturbing your own thinking and exposure to new ideas, and focusing
on your own work. E.O. Wilson addresses that in his recent book, _Letters to a
Young Scientist_ (along with advice to avoid as much teaching and
administrative responsibilities as possible).

~~~
taneq
A company I used to work for had expanded past its available office space, and
so they had to rent another office nearby. They moved all the upper
management, project managers, and engineers (basically the 'cool kids' /
'important people') over to the new office, leaving some admin staff behind at
the main office with the workshop.

The resulting loss of communication between workshop and everyone else caused
havoc and a bunch of things went wrong.

~~~
dredmorbius
There's a well known international company who "rationalises" (or did a decade
or so back) its office space by putting _all_ contractors, regardless of
assignment, on a single floor.

I found myself wedged between a contingent working COBOL and a very chatty
(and pleasant) graphic designer, with the sole other contractor in my unit
located at the extreme opposite side of the building, and my direct reports a
half dozen floors up.

I suppose it made sense at some level....

~~~
taneq
That seems about as logical as putting desks in alphabetical order.

~~~
dredmorbius
I plan on organising my future business by weight. With daily weigh-ins.

------
jonaf
I really don't understand the sentiment against open floor plans. A little
over 4 years ago, I switched from private offices and cubicles to an open
floor plan. It's... Just so much better.

I'm an introvert. I don't really enjoy small talk. But I really appreciate
being informed of what's going on when someone enters my area or someone wants
to open up a discussion. Is t an interruption? Possibly. But I consider
learning from and teaching others to be part of my job, a career goal, and
developing soft skills. It seems like there's a tremendous and dangerous
undervaluing of soft skills. I have learned so much and become so much more
skilled technically by having these discussions. I'm able to remain in-tune
with current project status, etc. this way without having to schedule meetings
or get large groups of people together at the same time. I would spend so much
more time in meetings if I were in a private office. I'm also completely at
liberty to work in kitchenettes, common areas, patios and other places without
any resistance. There's plenty of room because everyone's out in the open. We
have occasional dividers between teams or different functional groups. But
nothing is glued down.

Is it really that hard to focus in on some work? If you require complete
silence and isolation, I'm afraid you are suffering from the development of
certain technical skills at the cost of many other, equally valuable skills.
For example, if you ever intend to pursue entrepreneurship or aspire to CTO
rank, you can expect to be interrupted often. You will still have to do your
work. What will you do then?

I see private offices and cubicles as a recipe for limiting your effectiveness
outside of a narrow role. I think it hinders a person's career as they are
unable to obtain new skills. If you are deliberately avoiding developing these
skills, it is your choice, but if management is trying to get you to work in a
dark basement, slide a pizza and a deadline under the door from time to time,
and expects you to be happy, just remember that they are getting more out of
you than you're getting out of your job.

~~~
jplahn
I've become a Cal Newport fan and I'd recommend you read at least some of his
blog ([http://calnewport.com/blog/](http://calnewport.com/blog/)) or his book
(Deep Work) since he'll be able to explain things much better than I can.

In knowledge work, it's important (for most people) to get into deep focus to
solve hard problems. Anecdotally I've seen huge gains by setting aside an 1:30
in the morning to WFH completely disconnected and then another 1:30 in the
afternoon to hide away from my open work area. It's incorrect to claim that
development of soft skills is at odds with the ability to get into a state of
deep work with offices and / or working from home.

As for your question about being hard to focus on some work, yes it definitely
is. I'd recommend you look into attention residue. In addition, I'm afraid
your perception of your own possible output is probably much less than what
you're actually capable of because you've learned to live with constant
distraction. If you can't go more than an hour without checking
email/texts/talking to coworkers/being interrupted, I'd argue that (as a
knowledge worker), you're operating well below your capabilities.

~~~
jonaf
Thanks for your comment and advice! It gives me the idea that I should perform
a self-study. I can take two weeks "off" and work in complete isolation
(during actual engineering time) and compare my productivity to the norm. I
expect the difference to be negligible but I am prepared to eat my words if I
am wrong.

If anyone else is interested, I can write about this experiment and its
results in a few weeks once I'm done with it. Replies here or emailing me will
work.

------
ereyes01
I've never worked at Microsoft, and I know little about their work environment
for developers. Can others here elaborate on why Joel Spolsky has such high
praise for them beyond the 12/12 Joel Test score? What lessons can other teams
take from Microsoft's mastery of developer work environments?

EDIT: I would add that I strongly agree with the need for quiet and
concentration as a developer. The worst place I ever worked at had a constant
barrage of meetings throughout the workday and a very noisy distraction-heavy
open floor plan.

~~~
labrador
I wasn't an employee, but I worked there for weeks at a time as a contractor.
You get your own office and people don't bother you if your door is shut. You
are expected to communicate by email or chat. The building is very quiet, and
if it's raining outside, which it does often in that area, you can get hours
of glorious uninterrupted time to concentrate.

~~~
tempodox
That does sound good as a working environment. Strangely, I still hate most of
the software they produce and find it a PITA to use.

~~~
labrador
That's the fault of product managers and focus group specialists. Programmers
don't get much input into the design, at least when I was there. It can be
good if you just like to code.

------
jmking
I have mixed feelings about open concept floor plans. I think they can work -
especially if the office is organized such that the work area is separate from
areas that could be loud.

People who visit our offices are often surprised at how quiet the engineering
floor is. There might be the odd conversation, but the tone is kept low, and
everyone is issued a pair of noise cancelling headphones.

People generally respect the headphone rule and will ping you on Slack instead
of shoulder tapping.

Basically open concept floor plans can work as long as everyone respects the
etiquette that makes it work.

~~~
Camillo
I don't want to have to wear noise cancelling headphones all day long. If you
give them out to everyone, it becomes an excuse to be loud. "Just put on your
headphones!" No, you go fucking chitchat somewhere else.

~~~
jmking
That's what I mean about etiquette. The headphones aren't an excuse to be
loud.

Good quality headphones also mean that your neighbour's shitty music isn't
leaking noise into the workspace.

~~~
semi-extrinsic
> Good quality headphones also mean that your neighbour's shitty music isn't
> leaking noise into the workspace.

You don't need anything expensive for that, I have a pair of Sennheiser HD-202
($25) at work that do it just fine. In fact, they also block most noise from
the outside, to the point that I can't hear the person 6ft away who's calling
my name.

------
pan69
I would prefer to work in a private office as well rather than working from
home since I like to go into work and hang out with my collages every once in
a while. A private office will allow me, as a developer, to choose when "I"
want to concentrate, not when the environment just happen to allow me to do my
work. Trust me, I will be more productive this way.

However, I can also understand that not every business can afford private
offices for their developers. But then again, how difficult is it to create a
"quiet" and "busy" area? Any company that has the ability to afford more than
2 or 3 devs should be able to do this right?

~~~
alasdair_
A reasonable solution is to both have private offices and daily communal
things like everyone in the team doing something like eating lunch together.

Perhaps one day per week where the tam grab laptops and work communaly/ close
to each other and the rest of the time, have offices whose doors can be closed
would be optimal. I do think you need _some_ communal time or people stop
ebing able to properly learn about what is going on among other groups.

~~~
pan69
Oh, sure. I'm not saying you shouldn't communicate and I don't think
developers having private offices will stop them from doing that.
Communication will depend on the culture.

What a private office (or quiet space) does allow for is that, as a developer
it's now "your choice" whether or not you can focus on your work rather then
that this is decided by your environment.

------
tluyben2
I have not worked in open offices for a long time but today at our Chinese
partner I was in one; I for one get nothing but meetings done there. I am far
more productive in my hotel room. Which is why I only go to the office when
there is a relevant meeting.

------
leksak
I agree with Joel, I've worked in an open floor- plan, individual offices,
shared offices, and even one open floor-plan where part of it was an actual
store front.

For me, happiness and subsequently long-term productivity has been directly
correlated to privacy.

While I'd never do anything casually I'm an open floor-plan I got successively
drained over the week to the detriment of my nights and my weekends, so in the
short run I was more productive but I also left those places.

------
partycoder
The most annoying:

\- finger drummer, tap dancer.

\- tell me everything about your last and next weekend.

\- i visited a foreign office and hanged out with all the important people.

\- i know so much about cars, wines, travel, outdoors.

\- last night in narcos, game of thrones...

S H U T

U P

~~~
kelvin0
True Story: I worked a few months programming in an open floor plan (all
hardwood floors).

My commute from an to work was 3 hours each day.

The prog next to me was a Finger drummer + song hummer.

There was construction for a new building 20-30 feet from me (next building),
and they were driving pillars into the ground for foundations (Booom Boom all
day).

There was no AC during summer.

The washrooms/water would regularly be out of order for several hours ever 1-3
days.

All this happened simultaneously over the course of several months. I did
finally quit, and I would not wish these conditions on my worse enemy.

~~~
partycoder
I sent one of them this link: [http://www.somethingawful.com/news/finger-
drumming/](http://www.somethingawful.com/news/finger-drumming/) (NOTE: vulgar
language)

------
Bobblebobble
I work in an open plan office and find potentially relevant discussions to be
the most distracting, so I'm glad that most of these now take place
asynchronously over instant messaging. If you've even managed to focus in an
airport lounge, or a coffee shop then you know your brain can deal with sounds
which are completely irrelevant. Similarly, if it just so happens that people
are talking about something directly relevant to your problem, you can join
in. The potentially relevant discussions are the most insidious though,
because the work of deciding whether they are relevant is sufficient to
prevent deep focus.

------
kyriakos
Anecdotal but when I was working at a company where I had a private office I
was still getting interrupted by phone calls. Calls that would last 10-20
seconds, that type of conversations in an open space wouldn't be as
distracting. The fact that I had to hear the ring pick up the phone to talk
made it worse. Oh and the phones had no mute setting you could only set them
to a low volume.

So even private offices can be a problem. What I'm trying to say is that the
issue is the office culture and communication policy that makes the difference
and not the office layout.

~~~
ams6110
Unplug the phone when you want to focus.

~~~
kyriakos
That really didn't make the bosses happy. I quit for other reasons but looking
back to it this could have also been one of them.

------
FollowSteph3
Personally I think offices of 2-3 people who are working together on the same
thing is ideal. You want some level of communication for immediate stuff but a
barrier big enough for non-immediate stuff that others need to actually get up
and go to you rather just pop their heads up. As well it allows conversations
between interested parties while keeping it quiet for the other groups. I've
found this to be the best setup for me personally.

------
jrs235
"Facebook is paying 40-50 percent more than other places, which is usually a
sign developers don’t want to work there." Shots fired! It's an interesting
viewpoint. Most say it's because they want and hire the best of the best who
command and are worth more but is that true?

~~~
jonaf
I found this statement intriguing as well. I work at a company where
compensation is deliberately above market, if slightly, as a matter of
business. It's also an incredible place to work. I don't think it is
unilaterally factual that places offering higher salaries than market are
horrible work environments; however, it's also not clearly unilaterally false.
As such, I'm curious if there's some other factor or set of factors that, in
addition to higher salaries, suggests the work environment is poor.

~~~
jrs235
I would assume high salaries coupled with high turn over would be a strong
indicator of a poor environment. But I suppose high turn over regardless of
compensation would indicate that. Perhaps when coupled with high salaries it
suggests worse conditions than in lower paying places merely because the added
pay isn't enough to offset the BS.

------
a_imho
Slightly related

Why work doesn't happen at work | Jason Fried - 2010
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XD2kNopsUs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XD2kNopsUs)

tldw; M&Ms are bad

------
pasbesoin
I did very good work. Work people would repeatedly be amazed at.

So, I proved myself, in that regard.

Yet, when I would ask for a quiet, distraction-free workplace, I would receive
incredulity. Impossibility. Lack of regard.

The resources were readily available. But the disconnect between what I was
doing, and the control of those resources, was apparently too great to bridge.

And sometimes -- not infrequently -- the direct reports I was so helping out,
were not willing to go to bat on this.

Rock the boat -- me, or them on behalf of me -- and you're out.

For me, human noise is the worst. I can tune out a storm, or a significant
degree of mechanical noise if it is regular, not too extreme, and not
indicative of risk. But nature or nurture has left me highly sensitive to the
human activity around me.

Headphones don't help; music is as distracting as the rest.

All I asked for, was that my circumstances be acknowledged and respected and
that a reasonable amount of readily available resources be devoted to matching
them.

You either trust and believe your employees, or you don't. My output was
already exceptional; further, my employer could have measured whether that
continued or improved after choosing to "believe me".

Unfortunately, my environmental needs were discounted and I was coerced and
semi-brainwashed to try to make "open", "collaborative" spaces work, from the
time I was a kid. To my great distress.

For a time, youth and cortisol and all that carried me through. But I
eventually built into and hit a severe level of burn-out, including physical.

These days, I'm not even that sharp, any more. You can, indeed, really get
"used up".

So... I don't care HOW MANY words, slogans, nor how much rhetoric is thrown at
this topic.

You either respect the people you work with. Believe them. Give them what they
ask for, and see whether it works.

Or you don't.

Most of the people talking, don't.

Look for actions, not words.

P.S. Likewise for people who say they like different environments. If open-
space works for you, fine. Or whatever else.

I'll respect that. As long as your performance matches.

Just, respect me. Don't force your noise on me.

You like what I create and contribute? Then give me the tools I ask for, to
better do so.

------
bfrog
Yeah, Joel isn't wrong. Quiet distraction free environments are hard to come
by. I do my best work personally when no one is bothering me for about 6 hours
at a time.

I worked the cube farm before, it was ok when it was quiet. Open spaces are
horrendous. You may as well try working at a bar with your friends. It just
ain't gonna happen. A private office seems like an unheard of thing these
days.

------
tempodox
There is another HN post, about a seemingly different topic, that has
interesting and disturbingly fitting words about the open-plan office:

[http://laphamsquarterly.org/flesh/sodom-
llc](http://laphamsquarterly.org/flesh/sodom-llc)

------
combatentropy
> “Microsoft figured out a way to create software with a high degree of
> sanity,” he said.

I stopped reading.

~~~
WayneBro
Pffft. OK. So, I take it that you think Microsoft doesn't make high quality
software then?

I'd love to hear what piece of shit software you think could possibly replace
Windows, SQL Server, Exchange and Office in 90% of the world's businesses
(small, medium and large).

~~~
ChoHag
Didn't we agree that 2016 was the year of the Linux Desktop?

------
markbnj
>> But Spolsky played down those surveys, saying programmers have “a desire to
use the latest, cool new thing” and tend to move on from programming quickly,
so that their ranks are filled by “new kids showing up with newfangled things
they just invented, usually reinventing the wheel.”

Odd and sad, and I think mostly true. As a 55 year-old working engineer I
consider software my trade, and it's given me a life most people around the
world would envy. I think how strange it would be to say "most carpenters
quickly move on from woodworking," or "most architects quickly give up
designing structures."

------
sztwiorok
there are pros and cons in every solution.

with openoffice barriers between team members are torn down, but it is harder
to concentrate, as Joel said.

when you work from home it is easier to concentrate (one condition: you are
alone in home), but there are much bigger problems in communication beetween
project members.

I have the impression that the approach to this subject comes full circle.

I think you can not find the best solution for all.

------
GroSacASacs
Clickbait title with little content in the end. You can read more about Joel
and his opinion on how software development should be here:

[http://joelonsoftware.com/](http://joelonsoftware.com/)

------
bladecatcher
Hacking on noisy trading floors is great fun

------
hiou
Programming is the same as working on an assembly line floor. You are not some
fancy white collar worker. Not much difference in type of work(and pay) than
an automobile plant. They don't get private offices either.

~~~
walshemj
Why do you say that? do you have poor self esteem or are you just trolling.

~~~
hiou
Because that's essentially what we do. Assembly and ultimately build products
based off a list of specifications. You could say it's more difficult but
beyond the fact that more people have degrees I'm not sure how different it
really is. An open floor plan doesn't seem all that different than a room full
of sewing machines etc. Certainly this doesn't apply to all software
development. But for the majority portion the analogy isn't too far off.

~~~
walshemj
Spefications LOL yes I recall when I was a developer on the management system
for SMDS (ake the countrys internet back bone) for the UK the tech was so new
we had to keep going back the guys that developed the underlying tech and ITU
standards - and this was after 9 months of planning before staring development
(which we did in 12 weeks using RAD Agaile paradime)

------
abalone
Interesting that he cited Microsoft as the canonical example 16 years ago.
That example hasn't aged well. In the ensuing years, Microsoft has lost its
edge in software innovation. It's not exactly proof positive that everyone
working alone in their office or at home is the best way to run a company.

I think in those 16 years we have learned that there is personal productivity
and there is team productivity. The former is critical for shipping, but the
latter is also critical for developing ideas and collaboration. You can't just
talk about maximizing one without thinking about the impact on the other.

~~~
tracker1
I think the work done in VS Code, .Net Core, F#, TypeScript, azure tooling,
container support, sql server enhancements etc would counter your assumptions
on a lack of innovation... Windows may have stagnated, but ms is still pretty
relevant.

While I don't do much these days in the MS sphere (other than using VS Code),
I think they're far more in touch than most large software companies.

