I've found I'm markedly better at two specific types of programming activities while mildly drunk (the "mildly" part being quite crucial, for me this means two beers or a couple of slowly sipped glasses of whiskey). One is getting a large amount of boring mindless boilerplate out of the way quickly because the alcohol helps me not get too distracted from sheer boredom. The other is re-architecting high level design after getting stuck on a flawed approach - it seems easier to devise and consider more "out there" ideas without getting too bogged down in implementation details prematurely.
Obviously, that's just my personal experience and while I'm quite confident in my sample size, I wouldn't generalize it to anyone else. YMMV.
Obviously, that's just my personal experience and while I'm quite confident in my sample size, I wouldn't generalize it to anyone else. YMMV.