Where's Your Coding Happy Place?

jammag writes "Cranking out code — your very best code — requires being in the optimal environment, muses developer Eric Spiegel. He explores the pitfalls and joys of the usual locales, cubicle, home, the beach. He claims he's done his best coding on an airplane. In the end, though, he suggests that the best environment is a matter of the environment inside yourself, your internal mood — and to hell with the cubicle or wherever. You have to be focused on quality, regardless of the idiot clients. It's all inside your mind. Where's your coding happy place?"

Comments

A matter of the environment?

[James Skarzinskas]

Lightly sweetened breakfast tea, rainy weather outside, window cracked with a brisk morning breeze.

Oh, yeah, and vim. Emacs can suck it.

In my head while driving.

[bigredradio]

Sadly, by the time I get to a computer I often lose some great coding ideas.

For me, it's music, not place.

[Dr. Manhattan]

I need music with no vocals - mostly classical and techno. I have a special playlist called "coding" for those times when I really need to be focused.

Silence

[tritonman]

Anywhere there is silence. I hate trying to think while listening to people blabbing on the phone or BSing with each other across their cubes.

Not on topic, but...

[Weaselmancer]

at work I'm not allowed to listen to music at all.

Your employers are douchebags.

What the crap could it possibly matter if you have an MP3 player stuck in your ears? I'd love to hear somebody actually make a good case for it. If you're a doctor and you have to listen for pages, or a jet pilot who needs to hear audio alarms - fine. But a coder? Give me a break.

This sort of micro managing "you're still in kindergarten" crap always pisses me right off. It insures an unhappy workplace, and that insures poor results. Who wants to do their very best for someone who treats them like a freaking toddler?