

HackerMusic - bkudria
http://hackermusic.com/

======
RiderOfGiraffes
I'm pretty sure this is related in Peopleware (if you haven't read it, you
should), but I'm not sure. My copy is in the office.

A group of programmers were asked whether they preferred music or not as they
were programming. They were then separated into two groups, each group having
roughly equal numbers of those who did prefer music while programming, and
those who didn't.

Group A was then played acceptable music as they solved a programming problem,
and gropup B was left in silence.

As I recall, the only programmers that performed badly were those who
preferred silence, but were played music. That's pretty reasonable. If you
prefer music but get silence, apparently it doesn't matter too much. If you
prefer silence but get given music, apparently it damages your productivity.

But there was a twist. The programming task given was a series of
transformations to a set of data, and was designed so that the net effect was
to return the data to its original form.

The only programmers who noticed this were in the group without music.

OK, so the conclusions are clear. Based on this story, half-remembered from a
book, without references, and without detailed data about the experiment, we
can conclude that if you're happy with music then it won't hurt your
productivity, but ...

The suggestion is that there is some part of your creativity that is inhibited
by having music on, whether you prefer music or not.

This doesn't, of course, address the issue of using music to mask background
noise and distractions, and there are many, many points to make, but it's
interesting.

Some references on the net:

Slides 16 and 17 from
<http://www.ecst.csuchico.edu/~tyson/classes/630.s07/11.pdf>

Search for the reference to Peopleware on:

[http://discuss.fogcreek.com/joelonsoftware1/default.asp?cmd=...](http://discuss.fogcreek.com/joelonsoftware1/default.asp?cmd=show&ixPost=12313&ixReplies=29)

[http://discuss.joelonsoftware.com/default.asp?biz.5.593799.3...](http://discuss.joelonsoftware.com/default.asp?biz.5.593799.37)

~~~
throw_away
it would be interesting to see if there was a difference between music with
words and music without-- whether the words themselves occupied a part of the
brain that could otherwise be used toward the task at hand. I listen to music
when I code, but only fast-paced instrumental-only music.

the music I like is not especially popular (or listenable, some might say), so
I don't think I would like a communal music system regardless of the content.

~~~
bkudria
In our office, most of the engineers vote for electronic or techno, (with the
occasional rock/metal song), so that seems like it might be significant.

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arch_hunter
This seems to me like something that could completely ruin productivity.

Just let everybody use headphones, that way they can put songs they like on
their computer and only listen to those. The way this seems to be set up, all
that everybody is going to end up doing is voting for songs that they like so
that those songs will be played next, and they will be paying more attention
to getting votes in than the work they should be doing.

~~~
bkudria
Ok, so, we did the headphone thing for a while, but we like to all talk to
each other, and waving vigorously to catch someone's attention gets old fast.
Likewise, chatting in our IRC channel is not quite the same as talking
directly.

Concentration-wise, we all seem to do OK - if someone needs to zone out for a
while, they still _can_ put on headphones, or possibly just use all 5 votes to
queue up 5 long classical pieces.

Of course, every team is different, and interacts differently, so your milage
may vary.

------
eli
Neat, I've always wanted to code something like this.

~~~
bkudria
Yeah, same here :)

Patches welcome!

------
RiderOfGiraffes
Cross reference to other interesting items:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=716219>

------
bigjust
I hardly ever listen to music while _really_ coding. If i'm doing the same ole
boilerplate stuff, then yeah, but if i'm doing data transforms or trying to
decipher bug reports, its not a good idea to have music on while trying to
comprehend. But since I only code 10% of the time, the rest is perfect for
music listening, especially trying to drown out the insanity that is my
office. Or signaling for people to walk away.

~~~
pasbesoin
I recall someone's suggestion to wear ear buds, even if your are not playing
anything. The social norm is to avoid interrupting such a person -- keeps at
least some of the interruptions at bay.

I've found some CD's of "white noise" and I intend to try playing this. In the
past, I've used a fan to take the edge off of background noise. One of the
CD's is for "fan noise"; maybe this will help.

I'm cautious of playing anything too loud for too long. Even lower level noise
can be damaging when heard for extended periods of time.

EDIT: Unmunge word choice.

