Coding with Music

[englebart]

I can write boring, repetitive code if I listen to music. If I am tackling a difficult problem, the music seems to sap my creativity. I usually end up finding a better solution a few days later. If the cubicle area I work in is too rowdy, sometimes I listen to a noise loop with the volume just loud enough to "hiss" out the background noise.

[BunnyFaber]

My answer is... it depends. My office is extremely quiet so I don't feel the need to drown anything out. I usually don't like the distraction of music in the headphones, but ambient music is nice. But when I'm testing in the lab I am fully plugged into my iPod. Nothing helps you through a 600 step test better than the Ramones Anthology!!!!

[Lieutenant Frost]

Nah, it's considered "unprofessional" here...because we work in a cube farm, we might disrupt the angry finance people if we play music too loud. On top of that, management is afraid we won't answer the phone when it starts ringing if we have headphones on. I find this slightly ironic, because I don't answer my phone anyway - I prefer to let the calls go to voice mail if it's important. This saves me a lot of time on phone support. :cool:

“Acer, Gateway, and eMachines are the same company now. Great! Now we just need a really big toilet, and we can get rid of all three at once.”

[TheFez6255]

I switch between podcasts and music through out the day. It's pretty much the only way that I'll stay on task, otherwise I get bored and surf CNN or something else. Also I can't listen to instrumentals, there actually needs to be lyrics (or in the case of podcasts, someone talking obviously). As soon as there is silence I stop typing for whatever reason.

[P0110X]

yeah man, I do that too, symphonic and goth metal really improve creativity xD

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[Terence Wallace]

About 10% of the time and it works to keep me motivated, focused and productive. Listening to http://www.pandora.com[^] Should listen more often.

"If you think it's expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur." - Red Adair

[Battlehammer]

I agree with you, and of course I am a musician as well. Rock and Heavy Metal most of the time, it sure sounds better then the chit chat of people discussing "Reality" TV shows.

[User 4158608]

AmazingMo wrote:

Rodrigo/Concerto de Aranjuez

Good taste my friend. :-)

[T800G]

My recommendations: Above & Beyond presents OceanLab - Sirens Of The Sea or Arch Enemy - Tyrants of the Rising Sun Live in Japan depending on your taste ;)

[kungFuCrab]

I find coding with music puts me into my zone. I find that I'm less distracted by noises coming from the office. Who says that you can't be productive while listening to heavy metal. :cool:

[fboule]

'°' \o/

In case you wonder what that means...[^]

[SweeTToxic]

i doo listen yup it's

[dpminusa]

The upbeat sounds of Bluegrass do it for me. If you haven't listened to Bluegrass lately try it. There are lots of streams going. Without out it the sounds of silence are too distracting.

"Coding for fun and profit ... mostly fun"

[kmoorevs]

Excellent taste Harvey! I just saw that theater is releasing a new one this month. Can't wait!

[Harvey Saayman]

kmoorevs wrote:

I just saw that theater is releasing a new one this month. Can't wait!

If this is true then I share in your enthusiasm :D

Harvey Saayman - South Africa Software Developer .Net, C#, SQL you.suck = (you.Passion != Programming & you.Occupation == jobTitles.Programmer) 1000100 1101111 1100101 1110011 100000 1110100 1101000 1101001 1110011 100000 1101101 1100101 1100001 1101110 100000 1101001 1101101 100000 1100001 100000 1100111 1100101 1100101 1101011 111111

[Battlehammer]

Never heard of them, but music is music, it's all good. (Except hip hop of course)

[sketch2002]

I find that it varies. Some times when I code I need the music to keep from overhearing other noises in the office or to keep from being bored. However I usually don't actively listen to it, once I do then I focus more on that than my code. If the coding is pretty repetitive stuff then you don't need to concentrate as much so you listen more closely to the music. I usually start the day listening to music and then when I find it lowering my productivity I turn it off until I find the office noises doing the same, then I turn it back on. I don't listen to instrumental stuff, maybe if I did then I'd listen all day, but that gets too boring for me. Might give it a try though. I have a feeling if I listened to a Bach or something of the sort I'd pay that even more attention than the songs I've heard hundreds of times because classical music usually has some sort of a story to it and if you don't listen to it, you get lost and wonder what's going on (purely assumption since, as I stated, I don't listen to it).

[Lilith C]

It depends on how it's being delivered. I can't stand to have headphones or earplugs in that block out anything else. I can listen to music from a speaker at low volume and sometimes bear the set of small speakers that are held near my ears with hooks. I can listen to TV in the background but not on my WinTV without distraction. As for productivity, no one has ever accused me of being productive.

I'm not a programmer but I play one at the office

[Old Ed]

Same for me. I'm a musician as well and end up focusing on the music more than the coding. But for simple tasks that don't require too much brain power I can listen to music.

[Bob1763b]

When I used to be able to listen to music while at work, it would mainly be classical or something along those lines. Just enough to semi-tune out the chatter of the surrounding cube farm where people think nothing of yelling to someone 60 feet away. Now, all forms of electronics (flash drives, IPods, cell phones...etc) are now prohibited. So, I try to resort to ear plugs, but have to keep pulling them out every time someone walks up...which is about every 10 minutes or so. When talking to management about noise issues, I might as well be addressing a sack of hammers. :doh: Bob