
The Coding Zone - tortilla
http://paulstamatiou.com/coding-zone
======
pg
"I must have a seemingly endless block of time at my disposal."

For me this is the most critical part. It's not enough just not to be
interrupted. I have to feel like I _couldn't be_ interrupted.

That's the great thing about programming at night. If everyone else is asleep
(except other people who don't want to be interrupted) they won't even think
of interrupting you.

~~~
dustinupdyke
For some reason, I always find Friday afternoons the most productive "office
hours" time; I suspect because people are too busy thinking about their
weekends, too busy wrapping things up, or some other reason I'm not aware of.

Sometimes, I wind up working late on those days because I lose track of time
and I actually don't mind. I find zone time related to my personal happiness,
if I don't get into the zone, I become short fused and frustrated.

~~~
crag
My most productive time is after midnight. The streets are quite, the house is
asleep. Besides me, only my dog is awake, and she's only half awake, doing her
job watching me.

Lucky for me, I'm one of the principals of the company. So I can work till 4am
and stroll into the office at noon.

By the way, the music I zone out too is classical. I have playlist of
symphonies and after each one I stretch out. when Strauss' "Also sprach
Zarathustra, Tod und Verklärung" are (is) over I know it's time to stand up.

~~~
dredmorbius
Why don't you make that policy for the rest of your company?

Or look at your workspace and figure out why the fuck people need to stay up
until 4am to be productive, rather than being able to, you know, work, at
work?

~~~
crag
I'm a night person. Always have been.

As for the 2 programmers who work for me (the rest of the staff have to be
there 9 to 5) they can work anywhere anytime. I care about results; meet your
schedule- you can work from the beach if you want (I live in South Florida).

------
greenyoda
Almost any programmer can be super-productive under such ideal conditions as
"no chance of interruption". The challenging thing is to be productive under
less optimal conditions. For example, how would you get programming done if
you actually get to the point of having paying customers, and you can't just
tell them "leave me alone, I'm in the zone, call me back in 8 hours or maybe
tomorrow, and we can talk about that bug that's keeping you from logging on"?

~~~
dredmorbius
I can see both sides of this.

Yes, the superstars are productive _despite_ interruptions.

Most programmers, however, aren't superstars, or are vastly more productive
superstars when they can work without interruption than even those who can
tolerate a highly non-optimal environment.

Some level of task-switching is necessary, but as the other respondent said:
this is what a PM or support triage role is for -- figuring out how to
schedule stuff for your limited attention without breaking the conditions that
contribute to your productivity.

The research behind uninterrupted periods of work is hardly new or novel: The
Mythical Man Month, The Psychology of Computer Programming, Peopleware, Flow,
and other books span a few decades.

------
FuzzyDunlop
I always felt in the zone with a beer, late at night. Bit of Justice or
something on Spotify (or otherwise set to some sort of chilled out dubstep
playlist), lights dimmed, and off I go.

Now being actually employed, I don't often do much at home (and don't even
have a desk any more). There's not much concept of a zone there and I've
become more collaborative and less engorged by my work. So it's more about
throwing ideas out there, engaging in discussions, and talking through
benefits and implications.

So in that sense my coding zone is less about blanking out the rest of the
world and getting shit done like it used to be. It's mainly about being on top
form with new ideas and creativity.

Aside from all that, I don't understand the caffeine thing. It's almost a
stereotype. A good cup of tea or glass of water does me better.

~~~
pyre

      > I don't understand the caffeine thing
    
      > A good cup of tea [...] does me better.
    

But tea has caffeine in it. Did you mean decaf tea or herbal tea (aka an
infusion, since there are no tea tree leaves)?

~~~
FuzzyDunlop
My wording was bad but I meant that I don't drink stuff _just_ for a caffeine
boost. Espresso and Rocket Fuel and Red Bull/Relentless don't even register
when it comes to needing a good drink.

If anything, I feel the come-down more than the pick-up.

------
MatthewPhillips
I'm one of those weird people that finds music distracting.

He didn't mention his computer set up very much, even though he has a pretty
good one. Personally I'm going to be 100% more productive if I have a second
monitor so I can code in monitor 1 and have documentation opened in the other.

~~~
baddox
I'm the same way. I never listen to music "casually" or in the background. All
music is either something I'm really into, in which case I listen very
actively, or something I don't care for, in which case I'd rather not be
listening to it.

One potential exception that I've experimented with is classical music, but
the high dynamic range (which is awesome) makes it difficult to listen to on
headphones because parts are too loud and parts are too quiet.

~~~
pg
I can listen to music when I'm doing easy work, but not hard work. I can
listen to it while tracking down a bug (most bugs, anyway) but not while
making something new.

~~~
re_todd
I'm kind of the same way, but it depends if there is someone singing in the
music. I find vocals distracting when I need to concentrate. Also, listening
to my favorite music is distracting. To concentrate when working on something
difficult, it helps if I choose music according to these criteria: 1) no
singing in the music, just instruments 2) listen to music I don't love, but
moderately like, such as jazz, classical, or trance. (I love vocal trance, but
if I want to stay in the zone, I listen to instrumental trance).

------
fleitz
As far as coffee goes one of the things that works well for me is what I call
"rocket fuel", get a quad shot of espresso and dump honey in to taste.

~~~
pyrhho
I find green tea or oolong. Basically the only prep is adding hot water so it
is easy to refill and keeps me in the zone (and with a warm drink) longer.

~~~
pg
You raise an interesting point. I drink tea too, and I discovered surprisingly
recently how much of the work is done by the heat rather than the tea.
Sometimes now I just drink hot water.

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icebraining
No mention of the chair? Heresy. I'd say it was easily the most important
thing I bought (after the laptop). I can live with cheap headphones.

~~~
jQueryIsAwesome
Very true, my PC and my chair are really expensive in comparison to everything
else in my room.

------
sarp
I find it easier to get into the zone after morning exercise.

~~~
dredmorbius
Doesn't have to be after exercise, but if I haven't gotten sweaty in a day or
two, productivity lags.

------
divvlr
As far as what my coding zone looks like, ours are very similar.

I have found working at night is the best for me.

When I'm coding I find that interruptions don't bother me, because I usually
become hyper focused and I block out everything around me.

Strangely enough, I like to watch movies while coding. Preferably ones that
motivate me like Limitless, or V for Vendetta, or the Social Network.

Turns out, if I have music or tv playing in the background that works just as
well.

I try to eat health and, I don't drink pop or coffee (they make me crash hard
once I break out of the zone.)

Finally, once I start coding I must finish what I sat down to start. That way
each time I code, when I'm done I feel like I have accomplished something.
Which in turn makes me want to do it again.

------
SurfScore
I think headphones might be the single most important business purchase you
can make. I splurged and bought the Bose QC15s, and no matter where I am, I
can put them on and simply zone out the rest of the world. Sometimes I'll put
them on, and when I come up for air the entire place will be full of people
that I didn't even notice sit down next to me!

Also, like he said, have some "work music." I have 80s radio on Pandora that
I've fine tuned with many a thumbs-down. I can be lethargic and unmotivated
but once I sit down, put on the headphones, and play some Pandora, I can get
into work zone quickly.

------
Caballera
I'm wondering what chair people suggest, I use a rather generic chair from
Office Depot, that was only about 100 bucks. It's ok, but not great, also
getting a bit old. Mind you this is while working at home.

~~~
ecaron
Our whole team got the insanely expensive Aeron Embody chair (which are on bi-
yearly sale in November for $1050.) At first I sat in it with guilt and
thinking it wasn't worth it.

Now I am about to buy one for my home office. The posture becomes comfortable
and provides a wonderful break from standing at our new GeekDesk 2.0.

~~~
rodh257
Do you mean Herman Miller Embody? Or Herman Miller Aeron? They're separate
products I believe.

------
rokhayakebe
"Music"

You need a company Anthem, even if the company is just you. That one song that
makes you feel like TODAY IS WHEN I KNEW I WAS GOING TO MAKE IT. When you are
ready to start working, blast it before any other song.

------
bemmu
Perhaps obvious but for Spotify usage, just discovered today that you can
change the track to next one without actually going to Spotify by just
pressing the >> key (F9) on a Mac.

------
sneak
My UsesThis:

    
    
        Club Mate
        Aeron
        MacBook Pro with an SSD (you never know how much time you wait for seeks until one day you don't)
        Dell U3011 @ 2560x1600
        Divvy
        F.lux
        Vim
        M-Audio FastTrak Pro
        AIAIAI TMA-1
        Apple corded keyboard
        A mouse with extra buttons mapped to switch desktops in Lion
    

I like to keep things simple.

------
rs
I like the coffee mug and more importantly the glass of water: always keep
hydrated during coding runs!

------
augustl
Can anyone suggest particular USB DACs? Preferrably ones that work on Linux.

~~~
andrewcooke
any usb dac should work on linux; they appear as standard audio devices (and
this doesn't depend on the make much - there are bunch of standard chips that
everyone uses as usb interfaces). certainly the musical fidelity v-dac does,
but that doesn't include a headphone socket (they make a separate headphone
amp). if you just want something simple, i'd suggest a nu-force icon. if you
want something obscure and boutique, have a look at audio-gd... if you want
the latest technology check whether it supports "asynchronous mode" (audio-gd
don't, generally; music fidelity v-dac ii (just released) does; icon doesn't;
you can also buy "digital interfaces" that do async-to-digital, like the mf
v-link) - they are supposed to reduce jitter (timing errors).

i am not guaranteeing you will hear any difference between any of the above
;o) i own the v-dac (i), which i feel improved the sound of my logitech duet
(less abrasive), but that is feeding an amp and speakers, not headphones.

also, on music while programming:

\- i find that if i need to concentrate, the music just disappears into the
background. it's not like i need to switch it off, it just becomes irrelevant.

\- i wrote some code that uses last-fm data to construct playlists of related
music. if you have a lot of mp3s and want to listen to "random but related"
music, this works great. it's not packaged nicely, but if you're used to
hacking python you should be able to get it working -
<http://code.google.com/p/uykfe/> (as well as generating standalone playlists
it talks directly to logitech's squeezecenter to dynamically select music).

\- i may be showing my age, but fleetwood mac's rumors or nirvana's nevermind
are my go-to albums for difficult bugs.

~~~
minikomi
If you're interested I knocked up this to make some playlists to listen to ...
pretty crude but works. <http://fmix.heroku.com> Enter artist or artist &
track name.

------
orenmazor
music is definitely key. I find sometimes I need something with a good beat to
act like a metronome. the beatles is a good one these days.

------
Axsuul
+1 on Trance Around the World!

------
foobarkid
Surprised to find no mention of Caffeine !!

~~~
tristanperry
"Honorable mentions: A depth charge or cappuccino on my desk"?

