Finding a Personal Coding Trifecta

jammag writes "For Seinfeld's George Constanza, his dream of the ideal moment was having sex while watching TV and eating a pastrami sandwich. He called this Nirvana state 'The Trifecta.' Developer Eric Spiegel adapts this concept of Nirvana to the act of writing your best possible code. He examines all (or most) of the possible things that might contribute to the 'The Trifecta' for developers — food, beverages, time of day. Spiegel also describes his personal Trifecta."

Comments

My Trifecta: No Boss, No Boss, No Boss

[reporter]

My trifecta is the following.

1. Absence of a boss whose primary concern is his own promotion.
2. Absence of a boss who threatens you with loss of employment if you refuse to work more than 40 hours per week.
3. Absence of a boss who demands that you echo the party line. You are expected to say, "Yes. The API implementation that I received from department XYZ is wonderful." just because the department is managed by the girlfriend of the CEO.

three for me

[dmomo]

1) A clear notion of the task at hand (very rare in most work places)
2) An interesting problem to solve (even more rare)
3) The ability to focus. No interruptions or noise.

The third one, however is so damn rare, that if I were granted it.. I'd be most reticent to push my luck by asking for the first two. The laughter of upper management alone will certainly be loud enough to wake me from the day dream.

Here's mine:

[Anonymous Coward]

1. 11 pm.
2. Good headphones.
3. Good music.

My Three

[SirLurksAlot]

1. Caffeine
2. Groove Salad
3. Headphones
4. Bonus: A deadline

The first is best in low to medium doses, anything more than that and I'm too wired to really focus. Best served green and carbonated or with equal amounts of milk and sugar. The second falls under the category of "repetitive music with few to no lyrics." The third can actually stand apart from the second because I've found that even if I'm not actually listening to anything at the time people see the headphones and (usually) give a second thought to bothering me, especially at work. Finally the deadline is a big factor because like many people I seem to produce my best code under pressure.

Of course it also helps to have tools that I don't have to fight against to get things done, time away from my coworkers (who are usually great fun, which is actually the problem), and no constant email interruptions.

My 3

[Daimanta]

1. night
2. near total silence
3. no other people awake in the vicinity

I have found that these three help me to focus on my task and nothing else. No distractions, no obligations to anyone and the silent hum of my pc help me to focus on my goal, whatever it might be.

This is fully personal however and other people may find this the most displeasent way to be productive. This might not be the ideal situation for me but I feel very comfortable and it can be reached quite easily once a day.

If these conditions are fulfilled and I am devoted to my task I can get some good work done. My problem is that I need to reach a certain waypoint in my work or else I can have a sleepless night thinking about how to finish it.

Re:hmm

[i_ate_god]

>

The biggest "zone breakers" are interruptions of any kind or duration. Having to stop for even one minute to take a call or acknowledge a communication can break your flow completely and it can take time to get back into gear. I think there have even been studies showing it takes some 15 minutes average to get back.

While I agree 90% of what you just said, I always find that a zone break is something I want after a few hours, without realizing I want it. Zone breaks, mind is distracted by something else, I go back a little refreshed. Yeah, it takes me a bit of time to get into that trance like state of mind, but I get there by checking what I just did in the previous trance. Sometimes when you hit that trance like state, mistakes creep in, or you forget to comment something. That little break helps me get through those smaller tedious tasks WHILE coding, rather than spend a day doing it when I'm done the feature I'm working on.

Why are you encouraging Spiegel ?

[billcopc]

For those of you just tuning in, while I do not personally know Eric Spiegel, I have been exposed to a number of his articles and it's pretty damned obvious that this kid's not a "Real Programmer (tm)". He comes off like every other brown-nosing no-talent assclown, always quick to criticize the people and things his boxed mind cannot encompass. Maybe he's jealous, as he consistently advocates the use of "corporate discipline" to combat "dangerous elements" in the workplace, with dangerous meaning "smarter/geekier than me" in his vocabulary.

My favorite tidbit is this:

"There were times when they were the only ones who could solve a problem that could have cost the company millions of dollars. Of course, most of those times were the result of code they designed or influenced in the first place"

Am I reading this wrong, or is he basically accusing genius programming of planting bugs in their code, to be fixed later with great fanfare ? We all know someone who does that, and to any coder worth his salt, those posers stick out like a sore thumb. HR may be blind to their charades, but anyone with a brain can see right through them. I'll posit that if Mr. Spiegel cannot distinguish brilliance from fraud, he probably isn't qualified to make bold statements about programmers in the first place, and we here at Slashdot should refrain from distributing his libelous monologues.

My "trifecta"

[Anonymous Coward]

For me, it has to be around night time, raining outside, moderately windy, moon shining.

Listening to some classical music.

Some nice cool water.

And as strange as it seems, with a little pain... (sore head as an example)

I'm 2/4 there just now. (yes, 1/2, blah)
I have a nice cold drink, and sore head.
My code at the moment is pretty decent, been writing a gridmaker for generating 2D maps.
Was thinking of porting it to JavaScript since it would be so much easier to work with. (since it does involve it massively in the end)

I'd put it up to 3/4 with the music, but i am watching the end of Lost. (running away before someone spoils it)

Re:hmm

[linzeal]

People that interrupt you repeatability in a creative industry are fishing for ideas. Do not withhold your ideas from the group at large, merely feed the psychic vampires disinfo. I treat any corp office job like a mini-series 1984 and I try to get my idiot co-workers led away by the thought police holding all their belongings in a cardboard box.

Why trifecta?

[xkillyourfacex]

I'll play along, but I don't get it. "vitamin r" + a 40oz, posicore/youth crew hxc on the stereo, and programming = coding trifecta. Can't do that every night obviously but if I can do it, I absolutely will do it, it's the best way to program... or to do anything, really. Of course, I'm failing to mention the half-dozen other conditions equally critical to the "coding zone".

I don't think any programmer can narrow down only two factors (plus coding) that comprise the nexus of programming. that number is unrealistically low and suspiciously arbitrary -- what, just cause the word "Trifecta" is a fashionable internet meme you think there ought to be a coding Trifecta? Admit it, you just like saying the word and you like being heard saying it. Some kind of nerd ego thing? You just want to fit in? You want to announce to others that you're in the know? "Hey, look here... I said Trifecta. That's THREE things... Yea, I got the 411 on that. I can count all kinds of things to THREE, for example coding focusizers, so what's up?"

Come on, people. This is why jocks think nerds deserve a fist to the face.

Mine

[thatskinnyguy]

1. Whole pot of coffee. If said coffee pot is empty there will be a break while coffee is being brewed.
2. Two packs of Marlboro Menthols. That is in case one pack runs out. If I can't smoke at my desk, the work is going to be shit because my concentration will be broken by a jonesin for a fix and a trip outside.
3. My desk chair that was fashioned from the driver's seat of my last car. It's made to be sat in for hours unlike normal assless desk chairs.

Re:Some folks don't need a zone

[$0.02]

Only the mediocre are always at their best. (Jean Giraudoux)