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Ask Slashdot: What Music do you Code By?
Silas writes "I value music as an important part of the coding/debugging/designing process, and choosing what music to listen to while working on a given piece of code can be as subtle and interesting a process as choosing what data structure or regular expression to use. My personal selection varies from Mozart to Happy Rave, Dave Matthews Band to Enigma, but I'm interested to know what members of the larger coding community listen to when they're doing their thing, getting in the zone. What music do you code by?" Ah. I like nothing less than coding to a good progressive Drum 'N Bass song. What about you all?
the only music that matters.
That about says it all for me, I think.
if my wife asks a question, and I'm not paying attention, and then I answer wrong does it still count
Anything really .. but favorites include:
.. depends on the mood I'm in ...
Iron Maiden, Pantera, Type O Negative, Dark Tranquillity, Nine Inch Nails, Sisters of Mercy, Project Pitchfork, Nitzer Ebb, Bauhaus, Fear Factory, KMFDM and the Matrix Soundtrack
Very occasionally, I will listen to some Wagner, Grieg or Mussorgsky
--
Ignorance is no excuse
Ministry!
Or sometime, for variation, some Xorcist or Sisters of Mercy...
Ce n'est pas une signature automatique.
I like to code to the soothing sounds of "A Momentary Lapse of Reason" and debug to the more insane "Dark Side of the Moon"...
Posted from the wireless couch.
Cradle of Filth
java(bleah!): NWA or EazyE .....
c : misfits/black flag/ fear
forth: mozart
thats about that
dronf!
I deffinately enjoy a lot of their stuff. Why not make your own music too? A great place to get a lot of samples (and windoze resources too) is Maz-sound.
happy music all the way!
Any music as long as I've heard it many many times before. Don't code and listen to stuff ya don't know. Next question, what format is all that music played from? Hmm... let me think....
Tchaikovsky, Chopin or Stravinsky are by far the best selection of music to listen to while coding. The satisfying crash of Strauss is good for a core dump or kernel panic, and Beethoven's 9th symphony is good when debugging never ending while loops.
OFTC: By the community, for the community
It all depends on the deadline. For development projects that are due now, yesterday or before I then to listen to the loudest industrial to drown out the office noise and people who want to bother me. If I actually have to develop it before its due, I go with drum and bass or goa. ice/shoutcast is great at the office cuz I dont need to bring in my CDs.
In particular the 1998 Jayse Knipe tour of Australia. Great stuff.
Ben Tindale
Its hard to have an insightful comment about this topic, as music taste usually comes down to, well taste, and everybody has one. I also think its a bit of situation and mood thing.
Call me a moron, but for those 5 in the morning sessions, when one has had so much sugar, caffiene, etc that the body is about the crystalize and the brain is working on sheer impulse rather than thought: nothing beats some really shallow happy girl pop like Britney Spears or Spice Girls.
I wouldn't be caught dead listening to that in the day (unless its on MTV of course), but when my brain is soft and mushy, pop seems closer to its resonant frequency. No one gives motivation as the sun climbs over the horizon after a sleepless night like my lovely Britney..
Otherwise I like music with a more character and maturity, even when I'm concentrating. Preferably some of the 70s Pink Floyd or David Bowie albums, whose effect is the opposite: allowing me to calm down and concentrate on solving a problem.
-
My favorite band of all time! Can't get enough of that Frank Black.
Also like some Autechre or Aphex Twin if I'm feeling really adventurous.
Ben
I like Classical for the long coding sessions, especially those that last all day. Vivaldi, James Galway and Rimski-Korsakov are very nice.
.sig, it would go here.
For short, intense sessions, I tend to prefer Jazz. Wynton Marsalis, Vince Guaraldi, Thelonious Monk and Alien Fashion Show work pretty well.
Mixed in between, I'll listen to Blondie, Talking Heads, Peter Gabriel and such for a little contrast. Something to shake me up and keep from "zoning out".
Overall, anything except country will do the job, though I will listen to Junior Brown on occasion. (Surf music from a country artist, go figure)
If I had a
Yeah! The Beerbarrel polka, "Bubbles in the
Wine" (not really a polka exactly), Weird Al's
polka medleys, and a few others.
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
Energetic, yet sufficiently complex to stay interesting.
For me coding music *has* to be loud and slightly heavy. It's like I need to plug the audio channel so I won't be distracted by the real world.
Bartok, the name says it all. The hungarian piano virtuoso, genius composer, and musicologist, what more could one need? well perhaps some Charlie Parker or maybe a little John Zorn.
Effective coding requires intense concentration.
Silence, thanks.
I can program and debug to any music that does not have words. I believe that it helps me concentrate better by shutting out distracting noises.
I was going to use the old 'it depends on my mood' anwser then I realsied that would be wrong..
All major sessions have been accompanied by Enigma, KLF and things in that sort of ambian/ light dance theme.
hink long CD's help as well (or ones that work on cont random play).
Jink (off to buy some more CD's
I just stick the MP3 playlist on "random" and start coding. Although, sometimes slow music will increase the effect of Java's slow compile time... so I just avoid Java at all costs.
"You spoony bard!" -Tellah
The music I listen to depends upon the mood that I am in. (Gee, that's helpful...) Thankfully, I have a large CD collection. I also don't recommend listening to one CD over and over again on the same day. It'll get on your nerves WAY too quickly. Get a CD changer, or use MP3s and burn compilation CDs (fit 6 or 7 CDs onto one CD-R - wee!). However, legal issues probably dictate that you should only make MP3s out of CDs that you own (even that is a bit shaky)...
However, I have found that upbeat music does work really well when you are trying to code something up quickly. Softer music (i.e. '50s style Jazz) can put me in a bit of a trance, so that I find myself approaching the problem from a different perspective. It is really a balancing act that you must follow. However, there is also a time when you do need to have peace and quiet to approach a problem. But, not all of the time though!
Anyway, my web site (see above) has specific comments on artists that I usually find myself listening to. But, that does not exclude any other group...
Justin
Mu. P.S. The address you see is real. =)
It all depends on what kind of mood I'm in.
I'm surprised noone has mentioned Depeche Mode yet. Preferrably the old material.
This, of course, differs from my "normal" music -- right now, the MP3 playlist has some Frank Zappa, some Korn, 2Pac, a little bit of everything.
Interesting side-discussion (maybe): I mean, a little bit of everything. My CD collection ranges from all of the above, through Johnny Cash, and back around to The Cure. How many c0derZ have similarly wide-ranging tastes (i.e. not just listening to one style of music)?
I've got a collection of MP3 files (ripped and encoded from my CDs) and I usually listen in random order, skipping a track if it doesn't match the currently desired mood.
The collection includes: Alice In Chains, Ani DiFranco (including more than one album involving Utah Phillips), Annie Lennox, Metallica (and Apocalyptica doing Metallica), a little Beethoven, some Cherry Poppin' Daddies, "Cry Cry Cry", Dar Williams, Dead Can Dance, Deep Forest, Depeche Mode, Eric Clapton, some Eurythmics, Fields Of The Nephilim, Fiona Apple, Front Line Assembly, Garbage, Heather Nova, Hole, Information Society, Joan Osborne, KMFDM, Live, Madonna's latest album, Massive Attack, Ministry, a little Mozart, NIN, PJ Harvey (she's great!), a little Primus, a little REM, Rage Against The Machine, Richard Shindell, Rob Zombie, a little Sade, Sarah McLachlan, Skinny Puppy, Squirrel Nut Zippers, Sting, a small amount of The Cardigans, a couple Toni Braxton songs, Tricky, Tool, and a rather thorough collection of Tori Amos.
In other words, I listen to Industrial, "Rock", Folk, Metal, "Pop", Techno, Swing, some R&B, a little classical (there's also some Wagner that I haven't been listening to much recently, so hasn't made it into the archive yet) with a strong dose of female vocals in there... When I'm busy coding, I'm more likely to stick with the "heavier" or more "active" stuff (Ani DiFranco, Garbage, Hole, Information Society, KMFDM, Massive Attack, Tricky, Metallica, Ministry, NIN, White Zombie, some Tori Amos, etc...)
For me, it's got to be some Bjorn "Dr Awesome" Lynne. I grew up listening to his .mod music, and have progressed onto his space / fantasy music CDs. Definitely a must for ex-Amiga users who used to like Crusaders demos. Check out www.lynnemusic.com
Gotta be these guys, plus a little Armik and Ottmar Leibert...
Mostly electronic music, otherwise I get distracted. Think Goa trance, techno, drum-n-base. Keeps me focused. It's great!
The Official Steve Ballmer Webpage
Anything 80's...... I have a large collection of music that I ripped off of cd's on my rack to make one HUGE cd of all of my 80's music in mp3 format. Any time I have to code I break out my 80's cd.
To simplify the selection process, I ripped a bunch of my CDs to MP3 (one style per CD) and burned them to a data CD with an m3u playlist in the root, but without the drive letter coded in the m3u. This way, it's totally portable and not tied to any drive letter, and opening a single m3u file cues a day's worth of music.
For coding that requires problem-solving and deep concentration, I've found Tangerine Dream to be the most relaxing and quick to put me in "the zone" when coding. The same can be said of moderate classical, romantic, baroque, classic japanese, and some pop like 'til Tuesday or The Bangles. Grunt coding works with just about anything; I prefer Rush, Yes, Living Color, and a few others, but it doesn't really matter when the coding doesn't require much creativity.
i find it *much* easier to concentrate when listening to songs with very few if any vocal parts versus things like popular/alternative/rock/whatever-you-call-it. therefore, i typically listen to techno/trance/electronica or classical.
:)
although, if i forget to take my meds in the morning, even techno can get distracting! but thats just me
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jazz: miles, trane, tain, tony williams, wynton..etc
Rock: Dave Matthews, Jamiroquai, Steely Dan..etc
Other: Tori Amos, Ani Difranco, Sarah McLachlan..etc
Yesterday, debugging somebody elses Java code, Mobb Deep set the note for the entire day. Gave me that kind of vengeful, murderous, relentless power necessary to pull together an application written by somebody who didn't quite know what they were doing, into a position where I could *start* to get it ready to be shipped by November.
Argh.
The camels are coming. I'm in love.
Alright, peoples. I'm talkin' boug a little bit o' that James Brown. Or some Tower of Power, or some Sly and the Family Stone! Keep it off beat. To keep you away. It doesn't mean you'll be thinking straight, but at least you'll be thinking. If pull up some of that Pop ____, you're just turning your brain to jelly. and at 5am, when you've run out of cigarettes, jolt cola, and you have a test tomorrow, you gotta code to tha FUNK. don't crest the weasel.
Wow, I was just thinking the other day about how there should be an Ask Slashdot about coding music. And here it is, cool!
My personal favorites while banging out code include:
- NIN (The Fragile (great!!!) and Downward Spiral)
- Offspring (Americana)
- Metallica (Metallica (the black album))
- Chumbawamba (Tubthumper)
- Red Hot Chili Peppers (random MP3s)
- Random techno (Digital Empire 1, Orbital (In Sides), Crystal Method)
And some other stuff for more relaxed, contemplative coding sessions:
- Dave Matthews Band (Luther College, Red Rocks, Before These...)
- Louis Prima (Capitol Collectors Series)
- Eric Clapton (Unplugged)
- Bare Naked Ladies (Stunt)
I've been known to listen to Yanni as well when I'm in a really weird mood.
http://www.hornet.org
There isn't much need to say more. You want fast code? You have to listen to music that has some tempo too it. Anything less than 160 bpm is too slow to code too.
'course, i'm all prissy about it. while i do like tekno, mostly i prefer some form of trance.
for hard core, one with the computer, nerdvana type coding, good hard psy-trance or goa is PERFECT. for those who havn't heard it, try astral projection, growling mad scientists, x-dream, hallucinogen, noosphere.. an the list goes on and on.
harder trance is wonderful, too.
'course, i tend to just listen to what i want to hear. which usually is one of the above, but it doesn't keep me from throwing in a melodic trance mix and getting distracted by ecsatic builds every once in while ;) or just listening to something completely different, and forgetting about electronic music for a little while
i feel obligated to insert "Talking about music is like dancing about architechture" here, cause i don't feel like i can even begin to express my thoughts about most of that music. It's another state of mind. . .
Autechre is best for those last (er... latest) tricky bugs; Squarepusher fits the bill when I have to work real fast and my eyes tell me I'd better be in bed...
Jazz or 70's rock for the queter moments.
-- Colin
Any number of things - its been many years of coding to music. The first that I really remember was Neil Young, "Everyone Knows This is Nowhere" - because at the time it was a great tape to just play over and over and over and over.....
Recently, its been Joy Division (Substance, the "Ideal for living" tracks,) Husker Du, Spot 1019, Cake, Rube Waddell, the Mermen, Corduroy, the Meices, the Jesus and Mary Chain, Me First and the Gimme gimmies, The Fall (early stuff, Perverted By Language, Dragnet, Live at the Witch Trials, Grotesque) The Gang of Four, BIG BLACK (without whon NIN would not exist), the Butthole Surfers, the Sinister Six, Nirvana, the Spacemen 3, Beck, The Minutemen!!!!!... Oh shit, I could really go on for a long time here, but I have to stop.
Cheers
Eric
You can't beat a good bit of Tori to code by. If you need to code in a hurry, Megadeth does the trick. For designing code and data structures etc. Smashing Pumpkins provide the inspiration. Pink Floyd soothes the brain if it's been trying to understand some obscure algorithm, and of course debugging requres some heavyweight funk. Parliament obliges. The Mothership Connection, 500 000kW of P-Funk power...
I'm out of my tree just now but please feel free to leave a banana.
Whenever I'm coding, I queue up a bunch of goa trance and dive in. You don't have to pay attention to the music, and it has a beat which keeps me going through the long haul coding sessions. I can think more clearly with goa going in the background than with other music with harsher beats (ie. metal, rap, industrial) or music with lyrics.
I find coding (and especially fixes) also requires keeping up a pace, so I don't just start staring confusedly at my monitor until dawn.
For serious brain-work, sometimes I put on a record, and forget all about it. At best I forget to turn it over when side A is finished, sometimes I even turn it off, because even nice music becomes noise when I'm concentrating.
For simple routine work, I may play something silly and old, like the misfits or the cure.
Basically I listen to whatever new tunes I have at the moment. However, I feel pressured to give some kinda list of albums that I have grooved on hardest while coding:
[0] "Off Ramp" - Pat Metheney
[1] "2112" - Rush
[2] "Ride The Lightning" - Metallica
[3] "Angst" - KMFDM
[4] "Amused To Death" - Roger Waters
Of course, there are plenty more, but those 5 come to mind immediately. Off Ramp and other old Metheney albums are clear winners for me.
I've always kept a strict morning playlist followed by a flexible afternoon playlist.
Mornings consist of The Wall, Darkside of the Moon, Zeppelin Box Set, Steve Miller Greatest Hits, some CCR, and some Rolling Stones.
This gets me halfway through the afternoon, at which time I need some motivation. So then comes NIN (The Fragile), KoRn, Limp Biskit, Kid Rock, and some new stuff.
Then it's off to home for baseball/hockey/football tv.
no other possibility! ..up ghost prairie mountains of sunset and space..
Definately PanterA and other hard stuff, like Ministry and Rammstein (not sure thats spelt wright)
geremy
http://www10.software.ibm.com/developerworks/opens ource/jikes/project/
Any music that can be kind of ambient, but also upbeat is good. I've noticed music with words tends to be more distracting, but music with lyrics in other languages aren't.
:)
Nirvanna counts in this respect, too. Can YOU understand their lyrics? I sure can't.
My personal selections are:
Marduk
Dark Tranquillity
In Flames
Children Of Bodom
Opera IX
Dismal Euphony
Dimmu Borgir
Gehenna
Limbonic Art
Elend
Styles range from jazz, to synthpop, to chart pop, to classical music.
Current music (no laughing please):
- Pat Metheny Group: very good background "supermarket music" for coding. Doesn't get too distracting, and always very uplifting.
- Jacques Loussier Trio: Damn good jazz versions of classical music such as Ravel's Bolero et al. Does great versions of Satie's Gymnopaedie (is that the plural?) as well.
- Bis: Great to bounce to on a late-night coding binge.
- The Cardiacs: Not for the faint hearted. Mayhem, can be very distracting if it's "not your thing". Recommend getting a sampler CD or something before you splash out on albums and stuff. But also fires something in me which makes it (a) impossible to sing along to, and (b) highly creative in the ideas department. Drives my wife mad.
- Pink Floyd: "Dark Side Of The Moon", "Wish You Were Here", and "Meddle" being favourites - but mostly "Wish you..." mainly because I keep on forgetting to take it home from work
;) - Chumbawamba: NOT "Tubthumping", but the earlier stuff like "Anarchy" and "Sssh!".
- Shit Pop: stuff like S Club 7, B*Witched, Steps and suchlike. Sing-along happy-go-lucky tunes which annoy the f*ck out of the rest of the office.
- Other little bits in no particular order: Shania Twain; Bernstein (especially "Rhapsody in Blue" and "Overture from Girl Crazy"); Jamiroquai; some Elvis Costello; Andy Williams; Burt Bacharach; Cardigans; Levellers; Pet Shop Boys...
That's it basically. I guess it depends on your point of view and what makes you creative. About the only things which don't make me happy music-wise are leaky earphones from the bloke next to me wearing the Walkman, and hardcore happy house and all that crap. OK, call me old. I'm not, I'm 25.BR
Joel.
(Happily going through the CD collection now!)
Smegma.
The only companion to doing good work.
Seriously, I can't do anything (as well) with music in the background. It tends to distract you even without you noticing it.
Check yourselves for these signs :
- tqpping with your feet to the beat
- humming
- singing along quietly (or even out loud)
Anyone claiming this doesn't take processing cycles away from your brain's capacity is an outright fool.
The problem is people are brought up to always hear music in the background, everywhere you walk there's almost always some sort of music coming out of the walls. And when we enter a quiet zone we are shocked by the soundvoid. We get scared because we don't hear anything, and we put on music to sooth ourselves. But still, it IS distracting.
I love a variety of music. When coding, "heavy" music prevents me from getting any work done. Doesn't matter the genre. Maybe its coz I'm a mental flyweight. Whatever. I put on country, classical, rap, 60's rock and rythm'n'blues, and enjoy them all, but it has to not be too demanding. I find classical is overal best though. Haydn, Mozart, Bach, Beethoven. They turbocharge my braincells in a way that lets me work. The others get me worked up, but wound into such a not I can't do any work. SirDibos
I find that a mix of nothing more than Tool, Primus, Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, and Cake makes for excellent programming music... All of these groups have heavy basslines, but their styles are different enough so that I don't get bored.
Sister Machine Gun (smg.org), Nine Inch Nails, Die Warzau, Live, KMFDM, Pig, etc. etc. are all good Perl coding bands/groups.
Nothing like a little SMG '[R]evolution' to get you in the mood to debug.
- Darchmare
- Axis Mutatis, http://www.axismutatis.net
- Jeff
You could widen the question to "What do you listen to?", instead of focusing on music. At my recent cubicle job, I used to listen to NPR just about constantly, because their programs are just so good. (see npr.org ). This has two advantages:
1) NPR programs are very in-depth and geeky, focusing on everything from sociology to interviews with Nobel winners (don't forget Science Friday, with its delightful coverage that perfectly caps the last weekday at work).
2) It drowns out the cubicle chatter of your co-workers. Mine were pretty inane, and keeping the headphones on served a dual purpose....
I think NPR is pretty much the only quality station around on FM.
A couple of other points - normally I've found FM reception in cubicles to be really bad, probably due to electromagnetic interference. Any way around this? AM sucks even more, I think.
Also, while driving around, my pref. choice is still NPR, but I sometimes tune in to AM stations to listen to the chatter. For some reason, a lot of AM stations tend to air sensational right wing stuff, but it's amusing to listen to (not to mention giving an insight into the Rush Limbaugh fans at work).
I also like it that NPR's web site archives stuff on Real Audio, which makes it really fun for searching and listening to whatever you feel like. I guess it's the precursor to video-on-demand, and though I like what I hear, for some reason, it still doesn't have the appeal of fresh live broadcast.
L.
This reminds me that I wish I had more 80's Techno. You know, stuff that sounds like the music in those demos and stuff. Preferably the stuff that sounds as European as possible. :)
Anyway, can anyone recommend any bands? I mean, all I can find on CDNow and stuff are the 90's electronica/techno stuff. I have no clue what techno bands were around and good bain the, say, early-mid (or even late) 80's. I'd love for someone to help me find some.
Thanks!
I don't know, it works for me. *shrugs*
Sarah McLachlan is nice too....but that's more 'read slashdot' music... :-P
http://gabrielcain.com/
Primus is good creative music to code by, though of course Coal Chamber, Korn, Straight Faced, Union 13, Rage Against the Machine, Deftones and Bjork are not bad choices either.
Granted I'm not much of a coder but this stuff always makes me want to move around.. and the more im hyper the longer im gonna stay up doing whatever it is that im doing.. wether that is trying to unravel some code or trying to learn how to code.. which is what im doing anyway.. :)
:)
by the way.. i have dish network so euro style is the name.. and its anything from house to techno and some stops inbetween with trance and the like.. its good stuff..
achates
-sig goes here
----
DJ Tiesto's spinning (and certain other things) have changed my life and my coding.... I have access to both emotional/sensual spheres and logical thought better when I'm listening to progressive tranc-e type music. As an added bonus, logical thought has helped me drop beats better too...
just my thoughts.
I just cat my source to the sound card!
/dev/audio
cat somelameproject/*.c >
***bzzt*crackle***
It doesnt last very long tho'
-Yarn - Rio Karma: Excellent
The Who.
Beatles.
Led Zeppelin.
King Crimson.
Pink Floyd.
Artists and albums that discourage the swapping of CDs because it would feel nearly criminal to disrupt the story/mood the album develops as a whole.
Particularly Dark Side, The Wall, and Wish you were Here.
Man that's great music
Negativland!
the music scene rules:
there's no greetings order
don't forget the very good individuals, they are too many too list... check ftp.scene.org/pub/music/artists/
get active...
. . . . . . .
may u!sh 2 sm!le at dz!z bad nn.!m!tat!ion
Mmmm, Matrix Soundtrack is pretty good. In fact most of your selections look really good. I've also taking to listening to Propellerheads, Disposable Heroes of HipHoprisy, and some Einsturzende Neubauten. Basically anything the wife detests seems to be good coding music...
Mostly techno and house stuff, a lot of it early 90's stuff from my days as a purple-haired, multiply-pierced, chain smoking, French grad student. Yes, I code while listening to the kind of Eurotrash any self respecting geek ought to be embarassed by. Snap, Captain Hollywood Project, Amber, La Bouche, KLF, Technotronics... it's awful I know. It just works, what can I say?
Otherwise, a lot of 80's dance stuff - Bananarama, Corey Hart, Men without Hats, Berlin (anybody here besides me remember Berlin's "The Metro"?), Blondie, Prince (before you needed Unicode to write his name), among others.
I do listen to other kinds of music - French bands, classics, old punk, mushy 80's stuff that makes me all nostalgic, even some grunge. And some contemporary pop. But it does me no good when I code. If it doesn't have a beat, it does me no good at work.
Some favorite examples include Frank Zappa, Phish, Metallica, Rush. Although some of the more vocal-oriented Zappa is overly distracting.
-- $SIGNATURE
Sonny Phillips creates a wonderful evening coding mood for our team, Trip Hop drives me on when the memory gets corrupted, it's nice to start the morning with Finnish pop like Eppu Normaali etc...
Nowadays, when I'm coding I love listening to "trance", club or house mixes, or just plain old techno. I just feel that Rock and Pop have pretty much outlived its welcome and has gotten very, very stale. After listening to the same thing over and over again, you really do need a break.
Another thing about techno or trance music is that since its rooted in raving (15+ hour long dances), it does in a way help you keep up and wanting to move in some manner. OTOH, I may have just popped too much E ; )
Anyway, if anybody wants to go give this genre a try, I suggest:
Paul Van Dyk (almost everything)
Amokk (especially "666")
The Crystal Method
ATB (if "9pm" doesn't get you going, nothing will)
Fatboy Slim House Mixes
Ian Ossia
Da Klubb Kings
John Debo
John Wink
and of couse, then Vengaboys ; )
As a quick note, try to listen to the originals before the listening to the remixes, IMHO there are some horrible remixes out there.
also check out: news://alt.binaries.sounds.mp3.dance
Enjoy !
If you have never tried listening to Opera, give it a go. Wagner's Ring Cycle, normally written off because of its extreme length, is perfect for long coding sessions.
If you have not met Napster, give it a try at http://www.napster.com. They are working on a _nix port, but at the moment it requires Windows. They claim to have had 13 Terabytes of searchable MP3s available at one point. This kind of self-aggregating searchable democracy is the future for all media forms. Hooray!
Napster also has a feature where you can list the directory of another user's MP3s; this is really powerful if you find a user with a song you like, you can find out what else he or she likes and try that out.
That guy who listened to NPR, it is very good (although a pale imitation of the BBC's Radio 4); but I find it impossible to concentrate on speech while writing or designing code. Trying to split my attention like that sets my teeth on edge and makes purple veins come out on my head.
-Andy
My CD collection at work tends to consists of
:)
Nine Inch Nails
Marilyn Manson
Rage Against The Machine
Stabbing Westward
Also appearing:
Violent Femmes
Revrend Horton Heat
Chemical Brothers
Vast
Local H
And of course: "Space Ghost's Musical BBQ" and "Space Ghost's Surf and Turf"
Classical, Enya, Enigma, etc. If it is harder and/or faster (especially with words), I can't concentrate. I believe I'm correct when I say that studies have been done relating the listening of classical music while working to enhanced creativity. Makes sense. It always helped me while studying in school.
----------------
"Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds." - Albert Einstein
Co-founder and designer at Music Nearby: http://musicnearby.com
We have a huge 80Gb mp3 file storage at work. It's a box with a big RAID array running NFS and Samba. Unofficial, of course. :)
:-)
:-)
When I'm writing Perl all day, I like to crank up my Sublime bootlegs (all mp3) in my headphones. My favorite coding music is the version of "40oz to Freedom" off the "Contact Buzz" cd. That, and "I Love My Dog" off of the same disc. You can't beat the reggae groove bassline for coding. Sometimes I even kinda dance a little bit in my chair while I'm listening to it.
Other favorites while working are:
The Samples (check out my The Samples mp3 archive! ftp.blueaspen.com )
1960s and 1970s country music. ("Foggy Mountain Breakdown" by Lester Flatt and Earl Skruggs, "Coal Miner's Daughter" by Loretta Lynn, and, of course, "East Bound and Down" which is the theme to Smokey and the Bandit. I forget the guys name...)
Dwight Yoakam (the "LIVE" cd or anything off of "Just Looking For a Hit")
Ben Harper (any of his cds)
Robert Earl Keen (each and everyone one of his CDs!)
Spearhead ("Home")
2pac
Jimi Hendrix
Too $hort
Snoop Doggy Dogg
The Ziggens
Afro Cuban All-Stars
BR5-49
Lots of rare Dave Matthews
Guy Clark
Jimmy Buffett
Toots and the Maytals
Rusted Root
Frank Sinatra (my current musical "kick")
and of course, Elvis
Nope, I'm not eclectic at all.
Examples:
Racing to meet a deadline:
Pantera
NIN
Machinehead
Front 242
(other fast, aggressive metal/industrial.)
Low octane hacking:
Lagwagon
Vandals
Cake
No Use For A Name
Live
80's hair metal
Playing with code:
Jimmy Buffet
Garth Brooks
Orbital
Pietasters
Classical-type-stuff
The Orb
This is by no means absolute.
=-=-=-=-=-=
Mostly minimal 4/4 monotonic techno banging. Word.
Curse at mp3.com
Christian Bloch at mp3.com
The top being Kraftwerk.
These guys are old school synth. With songs like Home Computer, and Pocket Calculator, you help but feel this music was designed to code by.
Their website is super sweet too. Kraftwerk being an late 70s, early 80s band, has excellent green screen hi-res graphics all over their site. The graphics are kind of stuff that reminds me of the plot function of BASIC, running on an Apple IIe.
IMHO, they are the greatest and most influential band since the beatles, rolling stones era. Today's artists are still sampling their beats.
I'm sure they're not to hard to find on MP3. Remember that these guys predate the IBM XT and Mac. They are the grandfathers of electronic music.
-kyri
For coding or heavy analytical writing (law), I think that nothing beats Bach. In particular, I like the Art of the Fugue (Contrapunctus). I have a Canadian Brass CD that really captures the emotional and harmonic impact of the music. The solo 'cello suites are good, too. The reason I think that this music is good for coding is because the music is both intricately complex and stunningly elegant. Kind of like a lot of (good) code (or a good argument) can be.
OT: Hey, is anyone else surprised that an article posted ~4:00 AM EDT should get 90 comments in an hour? Or am I being too US-centric?
Snoop Doggy Dogg is my fav for coding too
My first paid coding job (an audio file editor for a now long dead format) was written entirely to Kraftwerk's Autobahn. I had a stereo WAV file of it and just let it run for two straight weeks.
I coudn't listen to it for years afterwards, but at the time it worked really well.
I dont know about the rest of you but i code best to chilli peppers. I also code best drunk.. But maybe thats just me...
-chain
Music is real important for me as well, when I'm coding, so this is a good point. The main thing for me is that the music should not contain any lyrics at all, or I will have a hard time concentrating on the matter at hand. If I for just one second lose touch and listen to the song, then that's a failure.
I've found that soundtracks (as in the real soundtracks, not the collections of songs made by famous artists that so many movies sport) and classical music works best for me. Here are some of my favorites:
Anyone else got some good soundtracks to recommend?
Strangely the music i code best to is Nirvana's In Utero. Don't know why. Whenever i put on that cd i go twice as fast as with other music, with less bugs. ;) Others that work for me are The Velvet Underground (Nothing can beat Sister Ray on maximal volume!), REM, Front242, Bjork, Lou Reed, or when i'm not in the mood for lyrics dance music, like Hardsequencer or Westbam.
The Chemical Brothers "dig your own hole" works just as well as caffeine for me...
--
Donate food with your index finger!
ZZ
--
rickf@transpect.SPAM-B-GONE.net (remove the SPAM-B-GONE bit)
"People will pay big bucks for the luxury of ignorance."
Then for Debugging, thinking, design or documentation:
It helps if I can watch the Geiss winamp plugin, but I usually only get the chance when thinking or designing...
----- Documentation is worth it just to be able to answer all your mail with 'RTFM' - Alan Cox.
They're here
Anyway, it's true - the best coding sessions are with music that let's the thoughts fly through the abstraction levels and the fingers over the keyboard. I personally prefer fast and often relatively hard stuff. Some of my current favourites are
- Carter USM
- garbage
- Trainspotting soundtrack
- Strange Days soundtrack
- Deine Lakaien (that's on at the moment
:-) - Yellow Monkey (a Japanese band with great lyrics)
- Pulp
Techno can also be cool.Chilli
-=- Just a random lambda hacker
Totally off coment, but did anyone here in Santa Barbara California just feel an earthquake?
Blah. Bob Marley and a big fat joint. Nothing beats that. Jammin'...
Well lets see... I got all sorts of stuff, and it depends on the mood I am in at the time and what I am working on... God Lives Underwater, Prodigy, Depeche Mode, Kraftwerk, Joy Division, Cure, Type O Negative, Skinny Puppy, Shaman, Switchblade Symphony, Dead Can Dance, Orb, New Order, Lords Of Acid, Nine Inch Nails, Korn, Sousie And The Banshees, Art Of Noise, Doors, Danzig's Black Aria, Texas, Violent Femmes, C-Tek, Underworld, Erasure, Psychic TV, Clapton, Counting Crows, Eno, David Bowie, Pink Floyd... yada yada yada... pax00@hotmail.com [shameless plug] BTW Looking for any CDs? Contact me at the above address and I will see what I can do... Can find most anything that has ever been in print... /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/rip\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/
sitting in the sun with folkish thoughful Ani Difranco, dan bern (the namedropper), mobile stud unit.
Metally some nz shihad [2, loves ugly children, or overseas Deftones are mighty tasty (though what was with that drive video?).
Educators say how baroque music sets the mind into the right wave patterns, it's conducive to learning and recalling, but really, it just pissed me off.
....
remove pointy from the email to spam me
-Docvert converts MSWord to OpenDocument, clean HTML
I code by Butthole Surfers, PWOG, Crash Worship and just about anything similar that gets me in a semi-euphoric mood.
the subject line pretty well covers it. ive got some meat beat manifesto, and thats great stuff, so im really curious about what else is out there along those lines. lessee... my to-obtain list right now (i know about and plan to obtain more stuff by these bands) has some delerium, crystal method, sneakerpimps, massive attack, portishead, tool, rage against the machine, deftones, nin, frontline assembly, skinny puppy, squarepusher, aphex twin, and meat beat manifesto...
;) but im very curious about what else is out there in the way of good drum n bass stuff...
so thats what i know about so far; recommending any of the above wouldnt help me much
DOWN WITH KID ROCK!!!
sayke, v2.3.05
-- sayke, v2.3.05
Really fast and really loud. Some of the old faves: Dead Kennedys, Fear, Sex Pistols, Stranglers, Generation X and some of the new faves: Dwarves, Voodooo Glow Skulls, The Humpers. Other than that, MeatBeatManifesto, B-Boys, Negativland and all Command and Conquer soundtracks.
Something with a fast pace, mp3 format of course.. Lagoona and Nine Inch Nails (the fragile is awesome) top my list. All played using Sonique or xmms depending on my operating system in use. Hmm, do people prefer headphones or normal speakers? I think normal speakers work best for this type of thing.
Thanks,
David Gorman
http://gorman.modblog.com
In no particular order
Pavement (currently)
Moxy Fruvous
Mr. Bungle
The Dentists
The Monks
Frank Zappa
They Might Be Giants
Drums and Tuba
Beth Orton
The Dead Milkmen
Midnight Oil
The Tragically Hip
Ned's Atomic Dustbin
Bjork
Frank Black
The Pixies
Mac Swanky Trio
and anything on Aztech Eccentrica (http://mp3.aztech-cs.com:8000).
---------------
---------------
Do not discount the fact that you have free will.
Is that a colloquialism in German these days?
BTW, I do code a lot to the Strange Days soundtrack, esp. the Deep Forest songs. That film did have an AMAZING soundtrack. I'm beginning to develop a taste for Japanese pop, I'll have to check out Yellow Monkay, thanks.
I have basicly two sub-modes to my hack-mode; the speed-of-light-feeling, and the sensitive, romantic mode. In the first mode (Mostly when I've got some really crazy hack idea and is just realizing how really coool and sick it is), I like to listen to NIN, DM, Spock and some strange under-ground synth, trance and techno. In the latter one (mostly when I'm debugging some strange, randomly appearing bug), I like to listen to Vivaldi and other classic music.
Do anyone else has this two-part divided hack-mode?
And besides this, I of course do listen to other things too, but not when I'm coding...
--The knowledge that you are an idiot, is what distinguishes you from one.
There was just nice one that so far as been felt in CA and AZ. I'm in Phoenix, and it was scary.
Looks like a 7.0 in Joshua Tree Park.
sepultura johnny.cash pixies wierd.al test.dept. prototype.909 aphex.twin and on and on and on but for debugging nothing comes even close to merzbow
My current playlist
Only 170 hours 10 minutes 23 seconds to go...
hole-live through this, babes in toyland-fontanelle, sisters of mercy-first and last and always, skinny puppy-too dark park or bites, moby-everything is wrong, type o negative-slow deep and hard or bloody kisses, download-anything, das ich-anything, rx-bedside toxicology, front line assembly-flavour of the weak or monument, toy tolls, hanzel und greyl, atari teenage riot, curve, garbage, random techno compilations (history of the world rules), opeth, blink182, eazy e, fear factory, delirium-stone tower or karma, red delicious, marine research, leonard cohen, tom waites, lords of acid, mentallo and the fixer, eqinox-holon, manesthai, meat beat manifesto, nick cave, project pitchfork, orbital, thd, wumpscut, x marks the pedwalk, weezer (geek music at its best), carcass, massive attack, portishead, save ferris.
cure-disintegration is good when you're stuck at the box pulling your hair out.
Seems to give the right amount of drive. I only wish that I was a good enoug coder to be able to compose alongside the likes of Bach and the like.
Seems to give the right amount of drive. I only wish that I was a good enough coder to be able to compose alongside the likes of Bach and the like.
Anything by John Williams... (except the ewok song)
i think merzbow would drive me nuts during debugging, seeing as i'm already halfway there by that time. :)
Nothing beats it.
:)
I use to have a funny sig, but slash cut it off, and I forgot what the punchline was.
My name is Troll.
That gets you coding... Nitzer Ebb, Meat Beat Manifesto, NIN, Ministry... Listening to music somehow tops the energy, anyone know why?
--exa--
I listen to Paul Oakenfold no matter what I am doing. I find the set he did in england nice to code to. Of course, any Paul Oakenfold is good to code to. >:) I also like to listen to Chris Avery when I am coding.
-- filgy
USGS page
6.6 preliminary mag at 02:46:45 PDT
Looks like it was just south of I-40 near Ludlow, CA.
Location via Mapbast
I agree with Brian: Bach is definitely best suited for coding. I suggest the ``Art of the Fugue'' or the ``Musical Offering'' for writing difficult bits that require a lot of thinking. For more easy and repetitive stuff (mainly ``coding by M-w''), the ``Well-Tempered Clavier'' is fine. When debugging, use the ``Goldberg Variations''. Händel can be an acceptable substitute if you get bored of Bach.
For more romantic stuff, try Bruckner (or possibly Mendelssohn or Schumann - say the ``Children Scenes''). By all means avoid Wagner and Tchaikovsky: very beautiful, but it will distract you from your code. Some pieces by Brahms (variations on a theme by Haydn for example) can be fine, too.
and mabee some ska, i love skanking while writing proggies! it rules!
chicks dig nerds!
My favorite coding music:
Nine Inch Nails (The Fragile is excellent)
Propellerheads
Chemical Brothers
Ben Folds Five
Garbage
Jim's Big Ego
Cibo Matto
Led Zeppelin
Fluke
Oddly enough, I've found that listening to NIN while I do my math homework actually makes me work faster and more accurately. Strange, strange, strange.
As far as sound setups go, I prefer speakers + sub to headphones, although a good set of headphones with nice bass will do when I'm at work or something and don't want to bother people. I like it a lot better when my sub shakes the paint off my wall though.
Also, I do the best code when I'm dead tired. Which means that I generally stay up all night coding, because I don't tend to get tired until around 4am. Once I get tired, I dip into my endless supply of Mountain Dew and keep right on coding until I feel satisfied that I've gotten something done. Then I sleep for an hour and go to school...
"Computerweld" is probably the best "standard" music by which to code.
Of course, I'll listen to other stuff depending on my mood. I will listen to Morrissey/Smiths when I need a good, belt-out melody. I'll listen to Buzzcocks when I want a giddy, spastic sing-along. And in the most meditative moments, I'll put on some intense piano music, preferably Rachmaninov (the best music, ever) or Chopin.
-Seth
www.pdamusic.com
Pink Floyd ("The final cat", "Wish you were here", ...)
Dead Can Dance
Aquarium
Linda
Auction
ELO
Crematory
Doors
Enigma
Jean Michele Jarro
Bjork
King Crimson
Yeah, a few of those are actually good too. I prefer a wider variety like KMFDM, Fear Factory, Sonic Youth, NOFX, Depeche Mode, Art of Noise, Bob Marley, Ottmar Liebert, Primus, The Misfits, David Bowie, Cannibal Corpse, Napalm Death, Garbage, Mechwarrior 2 soundtrack, Shogo soundtrack and the Akira soundtrack.
it lets me code more efficiently
even if something goes really wrong, the right music often prevents me from turning mad
Madonna, Lauper, etc. The music you wish never existed! Muhahahaha!!!!!
St Etienne -Casino Classics
Nick Cave - more or less anything
Suede - suede
Pulp, radiohead... and so on.
But mostly St Etienne.
It's called new wave but it's just the same.
Examples include:
Prodigy-Experience
Moby-Moby and the Next is the E remixes
808 State-Gorgeous or ex:el
Lords of Acid-Lust
Altern8-anything (has anyone but me ever heard of these guys?)
Messiah-21st Century Jesus
The compilations _Rave til Dawn_ and _Aural Ecstasy_ are good too. There's surely stuff that I've forgotten over the years...
Nuff said.
I don't code much though.
My favorites for coding would be: Slayer, Ministry, Black Sabbath, Anthrax, Konkrah, Metallica, Mercyfull fate, Iron Maiden, Deep purple, Dire Straits, Vivaldi & Mozart
I also listen to Muddy Waters... it's funny that you mentioned it... Sometimes my code reflects what i'm listening to... Now i gotta go back and look at what I've written and think about the musical influences...
:)
It's funny... I looked at Sam Ockman's code once and there were Beastie Boys lyrics deep in the code, commented out of course!
Anything that's in my mp3 directory (Lots of ambient), Pink Floyd, hell sometimes Dead Kennedys. But I gotta say tha best music I've coded by is the Pi soundtrack. I spent the last money in my checking account to buy it andloved it. Two days after I bought it, it was stolen. I'm gonna punch someone, I just gotta find out who.
If you think you know what the hell is really going on you're probably full of shit.
If you think you know what the hell is really going on you're probably full of shit.
jdube is who I am.
I like to listen to Jazz, Techno, Trance-Ambient, Opera, Classical. I find that if I try to code (or do anything that requires a lot of concentration) listening to music with words that I understand, I get distracted.
Whatever it is, I have to play it really loud. I have these completely-cover-your-ear headphones that I use when I'm hard at work. It serves a double purpose of letting everyone know that I am not to be disturbed, as well. Big-ass headphones are somewhat intimidating. Just make sure your phone has a blinky light... or voicemail...
by Mike Buddha -- Someday the mountain might get him, but the law never will.
Yep, Duranies rule...
Other Goodies:
- NIN
- Tori Amos
- Mozart
- Tom Waits
- The Beatles
Lots of other stuff, as well--
Immanuel Kant but Kublai Khan
... the industrial pioneers!
When I really need to concentrate, I put on Dire Strait's Greatest Hits. However, when I'm coding something fun, or really need to stay awake, I toss on the Greatest Hits of George Clinton and Pariliament. YMMV.
Well, if I'm coding some runofthemill trash, anything will do. Might as well jam out to some kickin' rock. But, if I want to code some ART, I'm got to be listening to art. If it's a Grand Idea that I'm implementing, then that most likely means Beethoven, or perhaps Dvorak. But if it's a subtle sollution to complex problem, then I need some Miles Davis, Louis Armstrong or John Coltrane.
Fast-paced, upbeat music works best for me when debugging. But while the codes take shape, silence gets the best results. Others said "Momentary Lapse of Reason", "Enigma" - those solemn stuff will probably do too.
a looped sample of dripping tap water in 3d surround
Theres nothing that makes my objects work like Blümchen does! :)
Tangerine Dream (older stuff)
Jewel
Metallica
Blind Melon
Stone Temple Pilots
any reggae
Phish
grateful dead
Hearts of Space (internet) radio show
echoes (internet) radio show
"In short: just say NO TO DRUGS, and maybe you won't end up like the Hurd people." --Linus Torvalds
All fantastic to code by!
I've been thinking about this a lot. I believe it isn't a great idea to code to music that is new to you, because it distracts from the thinking process. You want music that relaxes and focuses you, but is engaging too. In my experience, that means music that you are familiar with (ie have listened to on many occasions) that isn't too in-your-face.
Having said that, my best coding recently has been done with:
Those artists really stand out, but of course they change over time.
I find changing music depending on what im doing very time consuming, but like others here appropriate music helps what im doing... How about some sort of app to watch what processes you are using, how fast you are typing etc, and change the music appropriately.
Maybe it could be based on a neural net, trained by a feedback system whereby you rate the current music based on how much you like it given your current mood and tasks etc...
If it comes from man, it will fail.
If it comes from god, It will succeed.
Detachment 3 Media
Exposed, Exploited, Exploded
Enya, Lorenna McKennett, Eric Clapton, The Band, Willie Nelson, The Outlaws, The Beatles, Pink Floyd, Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, The Traveling Wilburys, Bob Dylan, etc.
All on MP3 CD's of course.
Oh, forgot an important one: Louis "Sachmo" Armstrong.
--- Never hold a dustbuster and a cat at the same time ---
Setting his threshold to 5, Sparky eliminated most of the trolls on /.
Hmmm... seems alot of people work well to NIN...
Maybe I should take a laptop to their concert here in the UK on Dec 1st and actually get some work done...
- Damnit, I'm dead Jim
you can read about them at http://maclabbet.orebro.se/andreasn/jr/
Juno Reactor is the best trance in the world. They will own you....
Manson is good as well, and Garbage tunes seem to hold up, same with white zombie. And dont forget the mother of all cool music, black sabbath.
Depending on my mood, the current deadline, and the caffeine level in my blood.
Clutch (A must) Doors Nin Manson Machine head type o Fear factory all you really need
Well, I am into hard stuff...Usually, while doing ;-) ;-) ...if you can ... ;-)
something that requires a lot of thinking, I put
on Rammstein or Metallica...Although in most
times I play a random one from my MP3's...I've
got lot's of fun staff (around 4Gbs of MP3's)
By the way, I am sharing them
catch me on-line, try ftp://leonid.yi.org
no ratio, nothing...although I love it when people are sharing, so e-mail me to leonid@leonid.maks.net
Leonid Mamtchenkov
Tree my ass in front of me and my cash money!
--
Interested in XFMail? New XFMail home page
Dream Theater rules!!! Only 10 moredays until "Metropolis PartII: Scenes from a Memory", YEAH BABY!
It must be cool jazz which you can tap your fingers to or type in time with... Dave Brubeck, nice !
Useally when I am coding, I prefere to listen to classic music, but if I am coding a demo or an intro, I useally listen to "techo"-type music because that is the type music the demo/intro will be using.
I like to listen to a range of music. Most of my music can be categorized into mainly techno and alternative. --> http://mottnews.horde.net/zero-g/aboutme.htm for a better idea.
Zero G
Gee, the temperature on these treads is really very cool and comfortable.
/.
Nothing to argue about.
Gregorian Chants - kinda makes time dissapear, makes me feel like what I'm doing has purpose and discipline, er, even if it's just reading
Try to make a bigger antenna, add a few meters of wire to your current antenna.
I found this to be a good solution as I work inside a building with masses of iron, gigantic copper reels, and other enemies of radio wave propagation.
Most of the time an additional length of antenna works well. Also, where it is placed makes a large difference. The wavelength of the FM band effectively makes dead spots every half a wavelength where it cancels out at the antenna.
The FM band is also highly reflective, so placing your antenna a certain distance from a length of grounded wire can effectively amplify your signal strength. For an industrial strength solution in an industrial building, your best bet may be to sneak one of those rooftop yagi antennas from RadioScrap, hide and aim it around non conductive mass, like the wall of a cubicle.
If you wish to make your own stealth antennas on a cubicle wall disguised as artwork from pushpins and wire, there are many good books here . If someone can find a good web based yagi design calculator, please let me know!
I like to listen to a range of music. Most of my music can be categorized into mainly techno and alternative. More specifically, the Crystal Method and Radiohead also seem to be good coding music. --> http://mottnews.horde.net/zero-g/aboutme.htm for a better idea.
Zero G
The Quake 2 sound track and Rammstein are both music that will make you feel like you are invencible and keep you coding all night long. Neigher of them have understandable lyrics either, which is good for clear thinking.
usually it's whatever MP3's i currently have on my hard drive. rarely will i listen to cd's, and the radio just sucks.
-
This Post has been brought to you by the letter "E".
Selected Ambient Works Vol II, and I Care Because You Do to be specific.
Words only clutter the mind, and these instrumental albums are great at keeping my concentration high.
Actually, I tend to just fire up SidPlay and listen to some of the classics of computer music. The mind-clearing qualities of Delta's in-game theme, Wizball's bonus level theme, or even demo music like Mixer's SurSumTheme are not to be underestimated. The 12000+ songs (many with sub-tunes) at your fingertips are sort of nice as well. B-)
"The good die first." "Most of us are morally ambiguous, which explains our random dying patterns." --- MST3K
Some of these are very good, but time of day=type of music. Mornings for Metal;Sevendust, Godsmack, Staind, White & Rob Zombie, along w/Powerman2000.Afternoons I go electronic Crystal Method, Orbital, Killing Joke. Night belongs to Bowie and Iggy and the Cult
I listen to 20th centery Classical (or at least close to 20th centery) like Stravinksy, Copland, Gershwin, Villalobos, Holts, and Mallar.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
NiN, Nirvana, Black Sabbath, Rob Zombie, Slayer
Bach, Mozart, Schubert, Chopin, Tchaikowsky.
As a small selection :-)
It seems to me that music is continually adapting things from decades ago. Perhaps that is why many people today listen to 70's and 90's music, etc. Things that don't seem like they go together. I'm part of that group too. Last things I listened too while coding were Strawberry Alarm Clock, Squarepusher, Eric Clapton, Mu-ziq, Jefferson Airplane, Bogdan Raczynski, and Blue Oyster Cult. Trippy music is great for reading through algorithms, really lets me concentrate. If I'm not in a rush, I'll listen to Miles Davis or something like that. But if I'm up at 4:00 trying to finish some code, something like Boston or Kansas, or fast paced orchestral pieces from Dvorak are the only way to go.
Well.. i must say.. i like coding with some fast dutch hardcore gabber! :)
the crystal method gives me the best results.. mellow bassy music seems to stimulate the brain somewhat more than loud thrashy music (eg. slipknot, spine shank etc.) -juice
I prefer to code listening to Paul Oakenfold.
On my last head down coding project, I pretty much listened to Stevie Ray Vaughn, Chris Duate Group, and Damon Fowler group non-stop for 6 weeks. For a litle variety, I threw in some Metallica and Queensryche (for problems requiring that extra bit of inspiration).
With a cable modem it is possible to download excellent quality Phish shows in an hour or two, so there is a never ending supply of concerts to hear. I have also started to listen to Bruce Hornsby, the Dead, and other bands who allow fans to trade shows. These bands will become more successful with the Internet economy because they won't be fighting the MP3 revolution; they welcome it. I've always been interested in good guitar players; I have Steve Vai, Satch, Eric Johnson, the Hellecasters, and others in my playlist now. Mark
Less Than Jake, The Offspring, Operation Ivy, Five Iron Frenzy, the Toasters, Cherry Poppin Daddies and Bid Bad Voodoo Daddy. Of course the only coding I do is playing around with Perl and Java. I don't have the money to buy any C++ books other than idiots guide to C++.
I usually listen to Vangelis when I am in front of the computer screen doing whatever!!
in "classical" you can't beat the Unaccompanied Cello Concertos of J.S. Bach or his Mass in B Minor.
In Jazz I use John Coltrane's "Kinda Blue" or Horace Silver's recent "Jazz Has a Sense of Humor".
In pop/rock/alternative, it's a 3 way tie: Moby's "Play", Catherine Wheel's "Adam and Eve", and Meshell Ndegeocello's "Bitter".
- E.
When I'm coding I tend to listen to alternitive rock (Early 90's Grunge). However, I also listen to bands such as Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin and others (ever heard of Fleming and John (they kick, well, you know...).
Anyway, just a casual observation, but, I usually code BETTER when I listen to music. Not just that, I also play chess better (I'm the only one who brings headphones to a tournament) and I do just about and thinking intensive job better when I listen to music.
Wasn't there a scientific study on this a few years back (Cow's produce more milk while they listen to Mozart or something (of course, now in my state (Georgia) we give a free Classical music CD to all new Mothers (and were still 49th in Education)).
That's my $(2^4*3+1/7%3*2/100)
--Justin Mitchell
"2nd Place is a fancy word for losing" --Bender (Futurama)
I'd have to say that there is absolutely nothing better than having a late night programming session with the lights down low, coffee and penguin mints by your side and the Ozric Tentacles playing in the background. Well, I say nothing - there's probably something, but you have to take it in context.
Nothing like metallica to get the blood going...
I depends on the time and what mood I'm in. In the daytime mostly ska music and a lot of bob hund and in the nighttime something a little heavier.
Daytime: bob hund, Sublime, Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Chickenpox, Liberator, Smashing Pumpkins...
Nighttime: Fireside, Rage Against The Machine... and sometimes NOFX, Bad Religion (No Control, Generator), Lagwagon...
And also Radiohead, REM, Hendrix and other stuff.
It's gotta be gutter punk. Sloppy Seconds, Sex Pistols, Blanks, Dead Boys, Fear. etc etc.....
Painful though it can be... :) actually, thinking about it makes me want to put on that 'station'! Also, listening to shortwave stations in languages I don't understand is another coding-positive sound environment. Usually it's just silence though, which is why I have a tough time working when it's not very late at night. I need _real_ silence, not random peoplenoise from outside :P
I play too many instruments- any music worth a damn tends to make me sing/drum/play along with it or at least _think_ it so powerfully that there's no way I can code.
Oddly enough, I have found a sound I can code to, it's just a disturbing sound. Occasionally I will listen to the satellites just beyond the 30-meter shortwave band. It's a roaring electronic noise with rumble and an alien electronic twitter overlaid on it, and will happily continue for hours without a break like an 'environments' record. The fact that it is really abrasive bothers me not at all
Now, if only there was a full-time jazz station in Madison...
I also like Selected Ambient Works II and ICBYD, but I don't know that the words for others really throw me off.
Unlike most others, who feel that what your coding or when it has to be dones matters, I have one group of CDs that I always listen to while I code: Front Line Assembly: Tactical Neural Implant Reclamation Hard Wired Millenium Skinny Puppy: Too Dark Park Cleanse, Fold, and Manipulate Bites Moby: I Like to Score Animal Rights Everything's Wrong Orbital: In Sides Korn: Follow the Leader Rammstein: Sehensucht Herzeleid The Crystal Method: Vegas Soundtracks: The Saint Hackers
... my tastes are ridiculously eclectic. While I do have a fixation on 70's progressive rock (mainly Yes, Genesis, Pink Floyd, Focus, solo Peter Gabriel, Steve Howe and Rick Wakeman albums, although I also like Jethro Tull (which isn't very progressive, when you think about it) and Rush), my tastes are definitely not limited to that: my collection goes from baroque and early romantic classical (J.S. Bach is my favourite), through blues (B.B. King and Muddy Waters) and jazz (Miles Davis and Larry Corryell, but mostly Keith Jarrett, my favourite pianist), seminal 60's London rock (Yardbirds, Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton, and of course Jimi Hendrix), all kinds of 70's hard rock (Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Nazareth), and some of the older heavy metal (Black Sabbath, basically). Most of the later music I actively dislike, with a few exceptions.
To the editors: your English is as bad as your Perl. Please go back to grade school.
Bands: Rage Against the Machine. System of a Down. Rammstein. Our Lady Peace.
Specific songs: Anything by RATM. "Sugar" by System of a Down. "Du hast", "Sehnsucht", "Tier", the Eskimos and Egypt remix of "Rammstein" by (guess who) Rammstein. "Bodyrock" by Moby. "When Worlds Collide" by Powerman 5000. "Push It" by Static-X. "Song 2" by Blur. Anything off "Naveed" or "Happiness..." by Our Lady Peace.
This is, of course, only a very small sampling.
I listen to Yanni or Delerium mostly, but I also have a large collection of that pop/dance crap we all love to hate on the radio. :)
Jason.
jungle/drum & bass, or better yet, ragga jungle is awsome for coding =) progressive trance or goa trance is also good, depending on the mood or what im coding.. - dink ( http://dink.org )
Bjork, FSOL, Garbage, Autechre, Cardigans, LFO (the techno one, not the pop one), Gus Gus, Prodigy, Orbital, Meat Beat Manifesto, Morcheeba, Sneaker Pimps, Portishead, Tricky, Massive Attack, Lamb, Esthero, Underworld, Photek, Tori Amos, Dave Matthews, Doors, Beck, some hip-hop/pop/dance
-- Liquor up front, poker in the rear.
Zeppelin, Hendrix, Pink Floyd, The Doors, Grateful Dead, Bob Dylan, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Metallica, Crystal Method (I know this last one's a bit out of the ordinary.. ;)
...Dream Theater, Queensryche, King Crimson, Joni Mitchell, Philip Glass, Bryan Ferry/Roxy Music, David Sylvian, Crash Test Dummies, Vangelis, Yes, Neil Young, Elmore James, Dead, Alison Krause/Union Station, Cream, Seal, Beatles...
Buy it usually stays between R.E.M., Metallica, or Billy Joel (can't we all relate to "Captain Jack" [playing now]?).
In addition, there is some Zepplin (gotta have your daily dose of Stairway), BOC, Zombie, Less than Jake, Dire Straits, The Police, Dave Matthews, NIN (you have to count the Quake soundtrack for those "little" breaks), Nirvana, Offspring, Blink 182, Wierd Al :) etc.
And to top off the better known bands, and interesting group that publishes to the web: God Ate My Homework
Paramaecium, Detritus, Deliverence, Living Sacrifice. (Christian Metal)
Selective classical is also cool
Other things I find improve focus and coding ability are: Coding in the dark, temp 15 - 18 degrees c, moderate coffee, not having slept for 24-36 hours (less prone to distraction)
Cyan
While my tastes are *all* over the place (Orff, St. Saens, George Jones, Journey, Boston, Ozzy, James Taylor, Bob Marley, for example), I find that if I am really getting serious about coding I tend to gravitate to 60s and 70s R&B and funk: everything from Gladys Knight and the Pips to Parliament to Sly & the Family Stone.
Check out Linux University
I listen to music whenever I do something that requires concentration; it helps me slip into "that mood" -- you know, where I forget to eat and sleep becuase I am so focused on a problem...
Anyways, my current list includes:
Nine Inch Nails
Tool
Prodigy (on occasion)
Pink Floyd
The Sisters of Mercy
The Cure
Dead Can Dance
and some more.
decksandrumsandrockandroll
Especially the James Bond stuff. Love it. I got a few offspring and Smashmouth in there and thats about it (and for good measure the Star Wars Imperial Death March =P)
Also Dave Brubeck, Ben Folds Five, Squirrel Nut Zippers, Bach, random other jazz...
---Jason
It depends on the project I'm working on. But usually I start off with some Burt Bacharach and then slide into some Lionel Richie and early Whitney Houston. Really gets me worked up. After that I usually mix it up with some of my favorites: The Osmonds, The Partridge Family and Bryan Adams. If I'm really under pressure I'll usually rock out to something that gets my blood pumping like Roxette, Dokken or Queensryche.
ozone pilot
focused, intent music for a focused, intent job...and lots and lots of Jolt White Lightning
01100011 01101111 01110101 01101110 01110100 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111
I actually spent quite a lot of time pondering this matter and discussing it with friends, and I eventually came to some conclusions.
Based on these considerations, we came to the conclusion that the styles of music labeled generally as "electronica" or "techno" were probably the ideal choice for the job. This includes such things as drum & base, trance, trip-hop, jungle, gabber, happy hardcore, etc.
These genres of music vary enough that almost anyone can find something they love, and yet they are similar enough that they all meet the criteria and are all wonderful music for coding.
My personal mp3 playlist for coding includes: Underworld, Aphex Twin, Dune, Orbital, Sneaker Pimps, and many others.
Got Rhinos?
Most electronic bass pounding music annoys me. I like something with a more inventive twist. Something like Folk Implosion uses samples a lot better. Basically, anything with Lou Barlow in it is good and gets you in a groove. To pick you up when you are slowing down, perhaps put in some surf rock ala Dick Dale or Man or Astroman?. Definitely some stereolab on a long lonely quiet night is nice too. Also, if the lyrics are distracting I put in something like John Zorn's Masada which is a jazzy more mellowed out klezmer.
No words, upbeat but not too distracting. Perfect for drowning out my co-workers, who are afraid of Linux, who bitch and moan while their MS PeeCee's reboot and virus check.
At the office when it starts sounding like a day at the monkey house, I slip on the headphones and crank up Solitudes:Heavy Surf. This has 74 minutes of non-stop heavy surf at a secluded beach. Anything with words or a distinct beat captures too much of my attention. The heavy surf has enough white noise that it drowns out all the ringing phones, intercom messages and loud laughter. It is restful enough that I can get deep into flow.
I try to invoke the early years of computing when coding. Sounds crazy, but it got me through a lot of hard CS work. That light my fire instrumental just puts me in the mood to right elegant code.
Orbital
.02
Apollo 440
Crystal Method
Hallucinogen
KRS-One
Loud.
ps - Tori, at any volume. Simon & Garfunkel, Peter Gabriel, Kate Bush if I need finesse,
My
Quux26
My
Quux26
www.crashspace.net
Lark's Tongues in Aspic
... Depeche Modes 'Songs Of Faith and Devotion' and Nine Inch Nails 'The Downward Spiral' are two albums that totally rule when you want to get some work done... fast.
-- http://z80.org - all opinions, all the time --
One of the joys of working near Nashville, Tennessee is that our alternative music is actually somewhat local. So consider such older groups as Flatt & Scruggs, Bill Monroe, Roy Acuff, or more modern ones such as Ricky Scaggs & Kentucky Thunder, Allison Krauss, and such.
Good stuff, all... and fine to code by.
Free the mallocs!
U2, Frank Zappa, Duran Duran, Smashing Pumpkins, David Bowie, Electric Light Orchestra, Boston, Black Sabbath, The Ink Spots, PDQ Bach, Holst, Bjork, Dave Batthew's Band, Joe Satriani, REM, The Cure, and ANY good Jazz or Blues.
Well, hey, you did ask.
Stuff on my home system tends to be Glen Miller or Wynton Marsalis; Anything more than HTML for my web page (or anything my dad wants on his site) always ends up as Garbage or the Matrix soundtrack...
There's a 68.71% chance you're right.
..it depends on what's on the current mp3 cd.
When its general OS-hacking, Hendrix and Santana will do. When its net programming (html, perl, sql, etc) then drum & bass is the way to go. When its democoding (what an amazing art form) then I need silence on the outside and a song in my head.
David Arkenstone (New Age Cinematic Rock - Pure idea music, fantastic for inspiration)
Bjorne Lynne (Symphonic Rock - Great for getting work done and good inspiration music)
Mike Oldfield (Styles all his own, mostly rock or classical, great for working)
Pink Floyd (Best band around, good for problem solving tasks)
Robert Miles (Well-Composed Techno/Rock, good for working)
Yanni (New Age Rock/Classical - good for stress relief)
Rick Wakeman (Progressive Rock, good for inspiration)
Metallica (Metal, great for those really tough pieces of code)
Enya (Very relaxing New Age, great for bug hunting. Do not operate heavy machinery while listening to Enya)
That pretty much covers my favorites. I have 30.3 days worth of non-repeating music on a big fat raid array. Most of it is Rock, Metal, NewAge, Classical, or Pop. I have 3 mix discs of pop that I guarantee would put any existing radio stations out of business in a few weeks flat just due to the quality of the playlist. I love MP3s.
Hell is being intelligent in a world full of idiots.
Three letter abbreviation says it all: EBM. Electronic Body Music. Especially german kick ass bands such as And One, Das Ich, Funker Vogt, todeskampf, DAF/Dos, Tyske Ludder and etc. But lets not forget the kings of EBM: Front 242, Front Line Assembly, Cobalt 60 and Apoptygma. Swedish Covenant and Statemachine are also excellent coding music. And when I want to hack really aggresively, I listen to Rammstein. English is a sissy language ;) Pretending to guide me, you let me astray..
are nice...but don't forget about Rush! It's pretty cerebral with lots of moods and usually has good intensity.
I have to agree. Anything dark and demanding to sunny and shinny. I prefer heavy ominous and dark. Not evil, just Fear Factory, ya know. Bah! Anything goes around here anyway!
Abbey Road may have been years before my time, but in my limited coding experience it seems to fit in nicely- since it is a diverse enough album - which means it will intersect almost any mood at one point.
Drum N Bass is THE music to program to - it locks my brain in digital mode...Muziq, Photek, Metalheadz, Amon Tobin, Digital, Endemic Void - hot shit, lemme tell ya. Sometimes I just want to rave around in my cubbyhole!!! :-D
The subject says it all, I usually code to Pat Metheny's 'The road to you' and John Coltrane's Blue Train
;)
I used to code with Bach's organ works and/or Mozart piano concertos, but I found that jazz makes me slightly more productive, actually, these particular two CDs make me more productive
-- the cake is a lie
Korn, Underworld, The Smiths, Prodigy, Gorecki
...the warlock pinchers , bro!!
I have two main computers- one I sue as my work box, the other one is a backup archive, cd burner, and - you guessed it- stereo. I'm constantly running two MP3 cds off of it unless it's rebooting or the burner is in use. Contents include: Metallica, Sound Garden, Gwar, Curve, KMFDM, Clan of Xymox, and a whole big host of industrial and gothic. The only time the rig is ever turned off is when I leave town.
I guess only the people who listen to them would really understand... Oh well.. -D.Alphaeus
-- Java is not a Jedi trait... "do, or do not, there is no try" --
that's the wisest choice! they're the daddies of synth music. of techno. of computer music. what's better than coding at 3:00am while singing "it's more fun to compute"? :) jaguar / negative edge.
Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young i also find the gratefull dead to be mentally stimulating
"To live alone one must be a beast or a god, says Aristotle. Leaving out the third case: one must
I'm also a JMP fan. I also like MMW, Liquid Soul, Ray's Music Exchange, and some older Phish.
Citizens Against Plate Tectonics
Blondie(top)
Devo MP3s
Warren Zevon
The Who
newer/techno stuff
"domino" by APhex Twin(great song)
some Prodigy
"Escape from New York" soundtrack(great for synth)
"Blade Runner" soundtrack
I like coding by NIN, although it can have some interesting side effects.
I was writing one program while listening to broken and fixed. In part of my code, I had routines for allocating and deallocating objects of a particular type. In the allocator, comments to the effect of "I want you to make me, I want you to take me" snuck in, with the corresponding "I want you to break me, I want you to throw me away" in the deallocator.... :-)
NIN is good (particularly The Fragile, broken and fixed, and the downward spiral), since there is a good mix of hard, heavy pounding music, and softer, calmer music.
--Joe--
Program Intellivision!
I listen a lot John Lennon for most of my programming. Towards the end of a program, I usually switch to the reckless abandonness of Jimi Hendrix. And if it is just late at night, I listen to the Doors. Oh, almost forgot- just as a wild card I listen to Weird Al Yankovic . . . he is always good for a stumper.
Most hard rock or heavy metal isn't good for code (with the exception of Tool, Skunk Anansie and any instrumentals.)
Techno or electronic music can produce very streamlined, well formatted code. (-:
Classic rock is often good for coding but it's not always the best. I like it a lot though, so it gets played alot.
Classical is good (movie scores in particular.)
Instrumentals are generally better
Mellow stuff (Tom Petty gets lot's of coding time with me) is great.
Gothic stuff (i.e. Type-O-Negative) is alright if I'm in the mood.
They Might Be Giants is bonus (especially Apollo 18.)
Music that will not find its way into my collection includes country, adult contemporary, most rap, most "friendly" modern rock bands (i.e. Matchbox 20), Most wannabe-hardcore-but-aren't-really bands, boy bands (DUH), and new age crap (John Tesh, Yanni).
... "Give me a woman who loves beer and I will conquer the w
Psychic TV, particularly their older "hyperdellia"
stuff like romanp and godstar
-an anonymous johnny
PS: When is GPO going to release soemthing new?
I listen primarily to progressive metal (e.g., Dream Theater, Fates Warning, Queensryche, and more esoteric bands like Lemur Voice, Ice Age, and Superior) and progressive rock (e.g., Rush, Yes, Genesis), though I also listen to power metal (e.g., Stratovarius, Blind Guardian, Helloween, Gamma Ray, Iced Earth, Iron Maiden) and "other" (e.g., Loreena McKennitt, Sarah McLachlan, Altan, GWAR, Black Sabbath, Pearl Jam).
I like listening to music that challenges me as a listener. I can't stand pop music, especially when I'm coding: it's then when I especially need something complex, so Dream Theater usually fits the bill. Incidentally, Dream Theater's Images and Words is the best album ever written, by any band in any genre. (Nothing like an opinion asserted as fact. =)
--
Kyle R. Rose, MIT LCS
[ home ]
Well, as far as listening to music during coding, I find that when I code, my mind wanders often... music sometimes succeeds to take my mind off what I'm coding. Oops. However, I do like a good rhythmic quiet background to my music, either something whose words i've memorized, or something with no words. They Might Be Giants is usually my choice. :) It's a real useful skill... I can play back sounds and music in my head. A friend suggested a sort of "ekg" system for system administrating... things beep differently depending on what their status is, and different boxes "talk" different pitches. It's an interesting skill, I'm going to have to look into what I can do with it.
Anyway, interesting sidenote: I discovered the other night that, in fact, I have perfect pitch. Sure I like playing an instrument, but what the heck am I going to do with perfect pitch as a CS student?
.
--
Kyle R. Rose, MIT LCS
[ home ]
Ok. I did not want to post to this but there was :)
this pulling urge for me to do it. So I LOVE
Sunny Day Realestate. I code to it. I play quake to them. And you should to!
Can you see Iron City here?
because they rule.
When I'm hacking, VTs 1-7 are usually tied up with emacs sessions, gdb, and a few less sessions for reading the docs. Sometimes. But tty8 is always got splay running thru my collection of Anime MP3s. Mostly Urusei Yatsura stuff, but there's some Sailormoon (My main addiction! ^_^) and other miscellaneous in there.
- Eno
- Robert Rich
- Steve Roach
- early tangerine dream
- 'lifeforms' by FSOL
- 'one AD'
- any of the 'from here to tranquility' series
- miles davis / john coltrane-era jazz
- good dub
- DCD
sounds that pump that adrenalin though those fingers and relevant neural net:OK. I'll bite this time.
Call me stereotypical if you want, but my favorite music for coding is the soundtrack from BladeRunner - the "composer's cut" version, not the original soundtrack album. In fact, the first time I heard the music was while coding C - go figure.
Other than that, I tend to choose music that fits the mood I'm in when I wake up, and this means mostly classic rock, prog rock, orchestral, big bands, Celtic music, electronic music, and some goth. For instance:
Jefferson Airplane, Pink FLoyd, King Crimson, Glenn Miller, Count Basie, JS Bach, Richard Wagner, Led Zeppelin, Dead Can Dance, Loreena McKennit, Clandestine, Claude Debussey, Yes, Christopher Franke
Of special interest for me, though is the music of Philip Glass. His music tends to have a quality to it that for me is very conducive to prolonged mental effort. On the one hand I can put it in the background if I need to, and it's there with its constant motion, quitely impelling me forward. On the other hand, when I get mentally tired I just close my eyes and sink back into the sound, letting it massage my brain back into health. It's quite nice.
Anyway, this was my first post.
Thanks.
I'm gonna go lurk some more.
I generally code to techno music... It helps me think better
At 4 in the morning when a projects due by 9 am there is no replacement for some Metallica / NiN, to keep me from thinking or falling asleep, I just use my roommates head phones and crank it all the way, that usually does the trick.
If I put on dave mathews band to program by I would be asleep in under 5 minutes.
Lots of Hard core...Limp Bizkit, KoRn, Rage, and everything else of that type.
"a retarded monkey could do a better job..."
for Debugging: "Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" - U2, Joshua Tree
for Coding: "Clubbed2Death - Kurayamino Mix" - Rob D, Soundtrack - The Matrix
A computer without Microsoft is like ice cream without ketchup.
Voice say "Go bed. Stand up. Scream loud!" Voice explain logical C++ solution. No listen music. Voices only.
Design:
Something unobtrusive. Eno, Lustmord, Global Communication.
Implementation:
Something meatier to keep me moving. Autechre (really anything on the Warp label), Juno Reactor, Empirion.
Debugging:
This varies the most of all. No music at all, sometimes. Sometimes kinda crazy stuff, maybe -ziq. Or Portishead?
Usually when it's extremely late (early?) I feel the need to switch over to either very loud thumpy stuff, or very ambient stuff (the Aphex Twin's SAW2, for instance). Both help me stay awake.
Trees can't go dancing
So do them a big favor
Pretend dancing stinks!
Gotta go with Soul Coughing. Brilliant poetic lyrics. Most importantly, it's NOT Lynrd Skynrd. I hate Lynrd Skynrd. Actually, I hate anything resembling country other than Wilco.
Many coders out there have quite broad musical tastes - nice to see. I'm just really surprised that Tom Waits hasn't featured - at least not on page 1 of the comments.
A few of my faves:
Tom Waits
Radiohead
Dave Matthews
Black Crowes
Frank Zappa
Music is a tricky thing though - there are an awful number of really poor pieces out there, and just like coding, music *can* be bad - it's more than just a matter of taste. One doesn't want to see poorly coded programs that work not getting criticised for poor code, just as one doesn't want to see sloppy arrangements being listened to without question.... Where's the bridge?
I really like Syd Barrett's solo albulms as well as anything Roger Water's has ever produced.
Whevever I code, I usually prefer a good harmonica bluesman like Sonny Boy Williamson or anyone who blew the harp for Muddy Waters. When I can't think straight or have trouble figuring something out, pulling out my strat and ripping through The House is Rockin by Stevie Ray Vaughn or pulling out my yamaha and jamming to Kind Hearted Woman by Robert Johnson seems to do wonders for me.
--- Don't ever trust a woman until she's dead- B.B. King
Can anything top Kraftwerk? I particularly enjoy Computer World while coding. It has something of a pop-like (non-distracting) feel, while avoiding the sappy drivel factor--innovative, pleasant, interesting.
Agreed, minus the Metal, and get rid of NIN and KMFDM (ugh!). I dont even know whats on the Matrix soundtrack so I cannot speak on that.
I'm usually a fan of hardcore and alt.metal stuff like One Minute Silence, Incubus, Tool, NIN, SOAD, VOD, Videodrone, Thumb, etc, etc. But I find lyrics to be a l'il distracting when I'm trying to code (there are a few exceptions). Death in Vegas is great, as is Crystal Method, Fatboy Slim, Wink, Aphex Twin, and Underworld (even though they have "real lyrics")
Robin Trower bridge of Sighs, a definite. Any Led Zepplin, how 'bout the Coda album? (pun intended), or Some Frank Zappa (appostrophe) to wring out your intellectual abstract function of the centerzoid of your organic processor?
Does a jock itch?
What I find really interesting is that the next best thing to trance is Baroque. Bach, Hyden, Vivaldi are excellent. They have almost the same affect on me except the uplifting, blood pumping qualities are not as intense. If I've had too much coffee this is usually what I go with.
Davo -- Free speech, free software, AND free beer.
I think the posts on this poll are highly unrepresentative of what people are really listening to... more so than on any previous /. poll. People are trying to broadcast their testicle size to the world rather than truthfully answering the poll question.
Or... maybe everyone really is listening to the counterculture/alternative bands (but then it can't be called counterculture or alternative then, can it? Kind of a catch-22 or a truth we fear to accept.)
AC in paradox. Am I wrong here?
Well, please don't beat me up, but but turning up enya really loud usually seems to get the code out pretty quickly. But if I'm out of enya, a band with really long techno-ish songs without many vocals is an ideal choice... Orbital for instance.
Gotta be a female. Likes to relate anything they don't approve of to the male organs. re: broadcast their testicle size. Can't we all jest get along...hey..who said that?
Does a jock itch?
Ohhh ohhh ohh that is the ultimate coding music. I love astral projection and consider them the ultimate coding music above all others. But, when one gets into a particularly crunchy bit of code, kraftwerk lightens the spirits and makes everyone happy.
.... COMPUTER LOVE!"
"Call dis numba, call dis numba
Coding heaven. October Rust, World Coming Down and Bloody Kisses on TON and practically anything on the Sisters of Mercy front. Talking of SoM - when is www.sisters-of-mercy.com ever going to have anything on it.... [)
Punk Music to write good code by:
EconoChrist
Born Against
Flipper (only the Generic album and maybe American Grafishy)
Misfits
Oh, and one other thing.
"T S O L are sissies" -- Meatmen
--
A mind is a terrible thing to taste.
"A mind is a terrible thing to taste."
Stevie Nicks, Debbie Gibson, Cyndi Lauper, Tiffany, Will 2 Power, Madonna. Flame all you like, you won't change my opinion!
I kept White Zombie spinning as I hopped over to ./ for a Nerd News update. I've also been known to listen to Live, Static-X, Godsmack, AIC, REM, Korn, Limp Bizkit, Black Sabbath, Janis Joplin, among others.
--
Scott Brady
--
Scott Brady
either drum & bass or deep deep house nothing better than that
when i code i prefer vivaldi, or loreena mckennitt
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
Everlast, Matrix Soundtrack, Enigma, Caroline's Spine, Metallica, Nirvana, and the plain ol radio.
EverCode
nt
I really enjoy writing code while listening to the Ramones!!
**One day I will come up with a really clever sig, until then this will have to do.**
DEVO rox. The EZ listening disc, was, IMHO, made for programming. No lyrics, just a backgroundish version of their hits. Anybody know what DEVO is up to these days? I heard they were writing tracks for computer games... Mark
Mark
A lot of jazz albums (especially older, horn-driven stuff by artists like Sonny Rollins and Charlie Parker) are great for long stretches of coding (or anyother type of writing).
Other great coding albums- Depeche Mode's "Violator", Pink Floyd's "Mettle", Maxwell's "Embrya", and anything by They Might Be Giants (especially "Lincoln", "Flood", and "John Henry")
Put my clarinet beneath your bed 'till I get back in town.
and sometimes Oval, but that's better for sleep :-)
My employer was kind enough to supply me with Apple's G3 laptop with the DVD player, so it purrs away at my desk (at work & at home!) playing Monty Python's Quest for The Holy Grail on infinite repeat.
Now if I could just talk them into letting me install Linux on it, it might actually become a productivity tool .
Mmmm EuroHouse
Euro Trance is Good Too
Sasha
Pete Tong
Any of the Ministry of sound DJs
-kris
Sasha!, DannyT, Pete Tong
Missed the Jay Knipe CD- I'll hit that this weekend
-Kris
metallica, nin, manson, and sometimes some rap that gots some hardcore jams!
Well, I don't know why everyone else on here is into heavy / metal / noisy type stuff (says me, choosing terminology so's not to offend :) but as for me, I like a nice bit of quiet RunRig or Wolfstone, for coding, newsgroups, ...whatever.
:)
Must be mad
~Tim
--
Rushing on down to the circle of the turn
Right now I'm working on some tcl/tk stuff. Rush's A Farewell to Kings is in el cheapo CD player (yum, "Xanadu"). Mendelssohn's 3rd and 4th Symphonies have graced my speakers, and I'm particularly fond of his "Hebrides" Overture (aka "Fingal's Cave"), Opus 26; other times I pop in Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Steve Vai, Dream Theater (!!), Miles Davis, Dexter Gordon, Bizet, or anything that wanders across my mind. The new Live, The Distance to Here, is particularly good. Yes's new album is also excellent. The Unreal soundtrack (yes, there is one!) is also good, as is the soundtrack to The Matrix and the scores to The English Patient and The X-Files: Fight the Future.
I think any pre-Presto Rush dominates my CD-ROM, though. =)
I listen to Jimmy Buffett, The Barefoot Man and Brent Burns. Why you ask? It tends to put me into my own world. I forget I am at the office and wisked away to the beach. I know all the songs by heart so the words do not bother me, in fact they help to drown out the noise. If I am in the middle of a very complex problem I will switch to Mozart or some Floyd. If it is late at night and I am on a roll Metallica, Offspring, Black Sabith. 95% of the time it is Buffett.
I don't consider myself much of a programmer, but when I try . . .
I have about 1.5 gigs of mp3's, but I've burnt a few to regular audio CD's in a very specific order, start slow, start artsy, and hit the gas. A good CD of that I made is:
Some classical guitar stuff, some other slower classical/ambient peices, move up in speed to an acoustic Everlong by Foo Fighters, pump up to electric guitars, end with Tool's Hooker With a Penis. It's not the heaviest song ever, but it's one of the best.
Another favorite is the schitzo CD (I know, it's really M.P.D., but anwyay), where you have a fast/upbeat song followed by a slow one (say, uhh, Korn, then Tori Amos).
But, main CD's when I can't listen to MP3's (labs, too much memory used, or whatever the reason):
Tool: AEnima or Undertow.
Rasputina: How We Quit the Forest (I use this while writing too).
Marilyn Manson (yes, him): Anti-Christ Superstar.
NIN: Downward Spiral/Broken/Fixed (fragile is excellent, but too new for me to have coded to it.)
Aphex Twin: Richard D James or Selected Ambient Works 2. Come To Daddy Single is good, too.
Tori Amos: Little Earthquakes
Jocyiln Montgomery: The Music of Hilge Von Bringen (is that correct), it's with David Lynch, and it's Absolutely Beautiful. It's good for those of you that don't like words you understand (it's old German, I think, and Latin).
Bjork: Homeogenic (girlfriend has the others)
Foo Fighers: Color and the Shape (WILL keep you awake)
Bloodhound Gang: Any (just for fun)
I have to have music on all the time, so, I have a lot of it (~300 CD's, 1.5 gigs MP3's).
Wow, time to go home . . .
Dan
Long live shred guitar. :) Favorites: Kruiz, Yngwie, Annihilator.
;)
Also a lot of baroque music and some romantic: J. S. Bach, Vivaldi, Chopin, and others.
Used to be a huge jazz fan in my teens: Chick Corea, Weather Report were my favorites. I still dig that stuff.
Basically anything that demonstrates the ability to play cool shit.
Tool Tool Tool! I've always got a Tool CD in my player when I'm writing code. It helps me concentrate and it puts me in a really cool mood.
I mainly listen to techno, but it's the techno that gets bundled with many popular games these days. For instance, I listen to the Unreal soundtrack a lot while coding. It's a very soothing, but upbeat techno mix.
I'm sure there are a lot of other games out there with similar soundtracks. Resident Evil and Metal Gear Solid come to mind...
You should never take life too seriously - You'll never get out of it alive.
FUCKING RULES!!!!
..but it's really hard to keep it that way in a
office workspace were you've got people sitting around you who probably don't share your view on the perfect music for coding. Stick with hearphones and save whatever friends you've got left.
I tend to stick with music primarily from the 50's to 70's--mostly blues (recommended mondays with crashing backup tapes and sorry windows questions from your users).
Maybe this should be a poll instead?
I usually have the TV on.
But I guess I'm going to see what Einsturzende Neubauten's "Strategies Against Architecture" does for me when I need to "crank" out my homework programs...
Glückwünsche, haben Sie Slashdot ermordet, indem Sie zum korporativen Druck beugten und Subskriptionen einlei
Nothing beats Trent Reznor when you've got some code to lay down. When your more laid back maybe some Metallica or Smashing Pumpkins.......but when you've got some code to write.....NIN.
Got all the actual album Halo's now.....working on the Single version halo's.
Yeah, Amused to Death is a great album.
Personally, I listen to all sorts of stuff while I'm coding; I used to listen to a lot of metal -- Metallica, Stabbing Westward, etc -- but these days I'm listening to this band called AfroCelt a lot -- it's a cool mixture of Irish music, African music, and techno.
Let's see what kind of bands are currently in my mp3 folder:
Metallica, Nine Inch Nails, AC/DC, Danzig, Offspring, Godsmack, the Grateful Dead, Rob Zombie, Pearl Jam, Soft Cell, ZZ Top, Weird Al, Machine Head, Fear Factory, Guns n Roses, Annihilator, Slayer, etc, etc.
-- sudo.ca
OK, moderate me down now for speaking what many dare not say, just like Govenor Ventura... because you fear my words and fear others having the opportunity to read them and make a decision for themselves. Words are dangerous weapons and need to be rigidly controlled, right?
Fear Factory, Metallica (Pre "debut" album), Ministry (Just One Fix or Burning Inside), Skinny Puppy, Sisters of Mercy, KMFDM (just about anything from KMFDM), Kraftwerk, They Might Be Giants, Dream Theater, Kiquid Tension Experiment, Black Light Syndrome, Spocks Beard, Anthrax, The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Joe Jackson, Exodus, Mortification, Pi movie soundtrack, Jurassic Park soundtrack, PRIMUS, Switched on Bach 2000, Bachbusters, NIN, Sepultura, POp Will Eat Itself, Limbomaniacs, Devastation, Megadeth, and a whole slew of other things. :) I'm all over the board when I code..., as long as it isn't Top 40, I'll probably listen to it. (I've coded Perl to the Kentucky Headhunters and KMFDM on the same day.)
When am I goofing around on my Slack box, up to no good. Well, hmm what can I say.. I have been trying to learn PERL of late, and I generally listen to a multitude of music styles. I can't stand the crap on the radio these days. If I even bother to turn on the radio it is on the oldies station. Oldies, 70s' or 80s' are my brand of POP. My Top 20 to listen to while slagging over code are:
1. X Marks The Pedwalk - Retrospective
2. New Order - Substance
3. Clannad - Macalla; Anam; Fuaim
4. Cibo Matto - Stereotype A
5. Front Line Assembly - Millenium;Hard Wired; Total Terror Part 2
6. KC & Sunshine Band - Best of
7. Keiko Matsui - Sapphire
8. Lush - Spooky
9. Nosferatu - Prophecy
10. Mentallo & The Fixer - Where Angels Fear to Tread
11. Anything by XYMOX
12. Anything by DEAD CAN DANCE
13. Enya - Watermark
14. Amorphis - Tuonela
15. David Bowie - Earthling; Best of
16. Kate Bush - Hounds of Love, Whole Story
17. Happy Rhodes - Many Worlds are Born Tonight
18. Weird Al Yankovic - Anything
19. Tangerine Dream - Box Set
20. Godflesh - SlaveState
Gotta be a guy. Worries about listening to what makes him "get along" with his buddies instead of what he actually enjoys. "But they'll call me fag or girly boy!" Real men don't need to be told they're men by their peers. Wear a pink shirt to work/school for one day if you are about to disagree with me, and tell me I'm still wrong.
Most of the time, a random selection from my classical collection will suffice (Chopin, Bach, Mendelssohn, Sibelius, or Mozart normally). Lately, however, I've been listening to Sarah McLachlan or Dune. Great stuff. =)
Grinding through functions: Jeff Mills, Robert Hood, Stacey Pullen a little Dave Clarke and a whole host of others. Also can find joy in Boards of Canada and Meat Beat Manifesto Debugging all of your stupid mistakes: Bill Evans, Innerzone Orchestra, Charles Mingus
if i havent heard something before, i will try to listen to the lyrics and become distracted from my coding mission. therefore, i like to listen to stuff that i am familiar with while coding. hiphop is the best. not shitty ass commercial stuff though. the real hiphop is the tits. krsone, hieroglyphics crew, dela soul, soundbombing, lyricist lounge, etc... any conscious hiphop with tight lyrics and beats. punk is also a favorite. subhumanz, dead kennedys, circle jerks, blats, dayglo abortions, meatmen, etc... old school country like c.w. mccall, johnny cash, ferlin husky, waylon jennings, willie nelson, and also cb (citizens band radio) related music that you can find at thrift stores occasionally and trucking related music kick ass. death to commercial pop radio!!! azrg!!@*#*$($($
aphex twin, FSOL, even some Clockwork Orange soundtrack.
~clearcutting prevents forrest fires
curvedspace.org
Have you seen Ironstayn vs Supergovernment yet?
I feel the best music to code by is a mix of punk and ska. When you run out of caffeine at 4AM and still need some energy, some NOFX or Less Than Jake may give you just what you need to finish your work. The Ataris is another excellent choice and you can download a few tracks off some of their albums from their web site. Some of my other favorites bands to listen to while coding include Diesel Boy, Strung Out, MxPx, Me First and the Gimme Gimmes, The Vandals, The Queers, Against All Authority, Voodoo Glow Skulls, Mad Caddies, Guttermouth, Lagwagon, and Assorted Jellybeans.
when younger and addicted to (the oh, so wonderful) Qbasic, total isolation from all stimulus was nescesrry to create the wonderful labrythine , incomprehenseible code that requires complete concentration for 24 hours at a time because if you loose your train of thought once, you'll never figure out your program again.
NOFX, Lagwagon, No Use for A Name, Pinhead Gunpowder, Green Day, Mad Caddies, Good Riddance...
Listen all day for free!!!
www.fatfreeradio.com
You know, there are those stacks of CDs on my left side (which would be safer if they weren't simply stacked on top of each other on my table) that I randomly pull a CD out of when I need some music ... (i.e. 24/7 :)
I don't really give much thinking into what specific to play while I'm coding/debugging/whatever, since I'm always hyperactive and can't hold still without some music playing; that's really weird, I think, but hey, that's me... :)
Anyhow, what I've been playing lately would be:
And so forth and so on... guess anything on WARP or related/comparable material will qualify... :)
np: Autechre - Second Bad Vilbel (Anvil Vapre EP)
As always under permanent deconstruction.
"I'm not anti-anything, I'm anti-everything, it fits better." - Sole
the velvet underground - white light white heat
the beach boys - pet sounds
the stooges - raw power
the ramones - the ramones
talking heads - remain in light
the circle jerks - golden shower of hits
sonic youth - bad moon rising
tom waits - rain dogs
cowboy junkies - whites off earth now!
my bloody valentine - loveless
spiritualized - lazer guided melodies
royal trux - cats and dogs
swervedriver - raise
stereolab - refried ectoplasm volume 2
i really detest electronica, i dont know why. i guess cause it reminds me of high school and suburbia and girls with histrionic personality disorder and people who enjoy haircuts and shopping and a complete lack of style and just self-absorbtion in general.
Best song ever - disorder by joy division (live version)
'Nuff said.
Power corrupts. PowerPoint corrupts absolutely.
..is not what you lissen to, but how you lissen to it. If you have a large collection of MP3s then there is a good chance that you spend a LARGE amount of time skipping songs.
Example: Song you are not in the mood for comes on, so you stop work for a second and press skip and go back to work, but just before your brain switches back to code mode another song you don't want to here right now comes on and you must stop work again.
The tradiotnal solution to this is playlists, but it is easy to have too many MP3s to use them effectivly.. or just not understand your own lissening habits.
The solution I came up with is to use a primitive AI (well not really, but almost) to try and learn my lissening habits for me. It also shows you the next 20 songs it is going to play and allows you to cancel them from the list BEFORE they start playing.. this makes an incredible diffrence in the ammount of time you waist skipping songs in random play mode. You can check out the Perl source to smartplay, but be forewarned it is proof of concept.. and not really all that stable or polished. Plus, it takes a while to really learn anyhitng about you, but maybe someday someone who really knows something about AI will pick up the idea.
Related to efficency: There is music out there, like Brian Eno, which is specifically designed (well.. sorta) to make you more productive (well.. sorta). The idea being that the music removes destractions (well.. sorta). I personally lissen to Techno since it seems to fit in well with the mind set required for programming. If your a Techno hater you should try lissening to it while your programming.. I've seen people made into Techno fans this way.
Jeff
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
I used to DJ and manage a radio station, so I have a huge collection.
I feel lost without music in the background... My choice of music has two different categories, if the task at hand is a labour of love or a job that has time constraints.
Currently if I have my nose to the wheel I will be playing Philip Glass, Can, Bach, Marty Ehrlich, Ellington, Aphex Twin, Gianlugi Trovesi (quirky Italian Jazz) or Beethoven.
If I am enjoying the job it will be the punk-lounge sounds of Make Up or New Wet Kojak, Trans Am, Tortoise, Steve Tibbets, Ween, Butthole Surfers or the Talking Heads.
That is only the beginning of the list... no one favorite here, just many mix tapes and CDRs.
pronoblem
I listen to the Music of Bjorn Lynne. Especially his album Isms (he did under the name of Divornium). Any one from the old Amiga scene may remember him by the name Dr. Awsome.
He is at: http://www.us.lynnemusic.com.
Other music I tend to liten to is Techno, or "Dance" music. Mainly high energy music. I am able to think better with this kind of music. I tend to come up with more creative code to this music type of music.
The Truth is a Virus!!!
Whether it's coding for work or making MY OWN jungle tracks at home in the studio, it's strictly drum and bass for the Panther Kru.
Don't like any audio out there to listen to? Make it yourself!
What is this mtv.com?
Forget this morrisey/heavy metal garbage, evolve past your mainstream Billboard brainwashings and step in to the future...
Respect to Cliff for the fine drum and bass taste. You can't beat Good Looking Records.
Respect to all the house/techno/goa heads, but please, it's time to reach for that next evolutionary plane in the RAVER lifespan, TECHSTEP!
LINUX JUNGLISTS UNITE!
As hoaky as it sounds, I do my best coding to James Horner's score for Star Trek II, the Wrath of Khan. Specifically, the Battle for the Mutara Nebula is so freakin' sweeping and fast paced that I do my best coding to it.
Kooky, eh?
That being said, it's Blues and Jazz for me!
Tori Amos, The Smashing Pumpkins, The Cure, Depeche Mode, Primus, (old) Pearl Jam, Enigma, Garbage, Liz Phair, Portishead, Massive Attack, Radiohead, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Rollins Band, Soundgarden, You Am I, Powderfinger, Crowded House, PJ Harvey, Nick Cave, Nine Inch Nails, Led Zep, Pink Floyd, Hendrix, Mech2 (+ mercs), Tricky, Kate Bush, etc, etc, etc, etc.
Orbital
.02
Apollo 440
Crystal Method
Loud.
KRS-One, when I've concentration to spare.
Tori, Kate Bush, Simon & Garfunkel and Peter Gabriel when I'm looking for elegant.
My
Quux26
My
Quux26
www.crashspace.net
http://www.klove.com
Listen online - RA - no commercials!
i've yet to find someone that loves country when .. i find it relaxing & provoking
they're coding
to the mind.
"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence is therefore not act, but a habit." -- Aristotle
Well, not all that avant-garde but you gotta take what you can get =) Generally I like music that gets my blood flowing, especially which gets me excited or happy. That seems to be a fairly common thread with all of my friends who code. (I don't know if that's shared by the general slashdot population as I haven't read others' answers yet in an attempt to be unbiased) .mods (Maelcum, Skaven, Purple Motion, and Zodiak being some of my faves, although nowhere near the extent of my collection =)
Here's my selections: Nine Inch Nails, Moby, Primus, Fatboy Slim, Funker Vogt, Pop Will Eat Itself, Prodigy, Tricky, Spring Heel Jack, Ministry, Atari Teenage Riot, Rage Against the Machine, KMFDM, Pills, Juno Reactor, Keoki, Dr. Bombay, Gravity Kills, Marilyn Manson (shock!), Orbital, The Clash, Tool, Soundgarden, anime music (El Hazard, Ah My Goddess, and stuff by Two Mix or Megumi Hayashibara especially), and of course,
a little bit of pretty much everything in there, and I'm sure I'll have added some and deleted others by tommorrow, but you get the idea.
_________________________________________________
other times its any of the "alternative" junk...
or anything i can sing along too :)
Gorfin
but: aphex twin, morosoph, mozart, ravel, and debussy. a clean mind is best. ~homunc.
Mental clarity in compact disc form. It may not be the most flashy of some of PF's later albums, but it is in my opinion the most musically dense. The happy-go-lucky facade backed up by some frightening organs and chaotic guitars. I'd also suggest this for essay writing.
jungle or raw detroit techno
Funkadelic, Bootsy Collins, Miles Davis, Hendrix, all great music to code/debug by...I especially like Miles because the songs are really long and tell a story, and you can get into a rhythm.
Yo, I like this question.
:)
Why am I the only one (I think) that likes Sepultura, Orgy, KoRn and Limp Bizkit?? (Well, I _have_ seen the last two.)
But Aphex Twin is very cool, too. I've bought the video clip on CD-ROM
But the singer sounds silly.
Strung Out, No Use For A Name, Face To Face, Ten Foot Pole, Jughead's Revenge, The Ataris, Wizo, Blink 182, Pulley, Homegrown... energetic and keep me going all night.
He said, "You'll be able to tell your grandchildren that you helped assemble the first NT supercomputer," and I cringed.
Enya is awesome, but most of her songs pale in comparison to Caribbean Blue. If I had the energy, I'd figure out a way to make that one play in a loop. But not while coding (see below).
Definitely speakers. Shuffling through paper documentation and running over to the closet for books is annoying when you're wearing headphones. Plus with the speakers you get the tactile experience as well...
Of course, if you're an Uberprogrammer then it doesn't matter, because you don't need the docs...
If I want to actually create something I want it totally quiet. No music and no computer noise or anything. Music is ok while reading news or something but not for creative coding.
TA
completely mechanical, raw, sleek and shocking. fits all of the times when you're either pissed at the PC or you're thinking up some algorithms
The Cure:
When you're begining or finishing coding.
[Rob||White] Zombie, Sisters of Mercy, Manson, Pantera:
In the middle of it all
Aphex Twin, or 80's industrial/darkwave:
2am coding but you don't know even if you're alive at all
I have seen lots of punk, metal, techno, etc. so far, but it seems not too many /.ers are indie rockers! Although I have to say I did see someone put down Wilco.
Here's the list:
Son Volt
Wilco
Belle & Sebastian (the best)
Modest Mouse
Superchunk
Pavement
Other stuff:
Tom Waits (Closing Time)
REM (anything)
Radiohead
This is the stuff people! Check it out!
pdubroy AT yahoo DOT com
Metallica all the way.
While trying to focus my assignment: Pink Floyd
During data modeling: Kraftwerk
Plain coding: West coast rock
Debugging: Metallica.
Facing realities: pissed managers.
Since there have been so many studies in the past that say that ppeoppple work better on technical things without music on, it makes one wonder why this is so.
I have come to the ppppppersonal conclusion that hacking is more of an artistic task, as opppposed to technical.
The other thing I've considered is that pprogrammers are actually more dual-brained, or rather, more able to use the left and right side at the same time. Whether this is due to higher intelliiigence or just more of a logical/emotiional ballance, I couldn't tell you. III'd tend to veer towards a combination of both, at least in my situation.
I have come to the point that I _need_ music in order to work optimally. I'll sit in class, and start tapping out a beat. (This may be due to the fact that I'm a drummer, too. :)) I'll get distracted if my whole braiin isn't working.
As far as listening preferance, II'll listen to most anything, albeit adultery(country) western, rap, and pop. The mood I'm in usually determines what I'll listen to. For those Dew-induced frenzies at 5AM, I'll usually pick up some punk - MxPx, Ninety Pound Wuss, etc. For several hours after school, when I'm really pissed off, I'll take some good ol' emocore or hardcore, such as Tourniquet, Strong Arm, Living Sacrifice, etc. When I'm just waking up, at about 9, pretty much anything goes, but techno stuff is at oppppptimality. techno Goth and hardcore techno seem to work best here. Goth opppera iiis great for those introspective, creative GIMP sessions.
Just my .000002% of Mr. Franklin... Iignore repeated letters - my keyboard is dying!
-------
CAIMLAS
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
Wesley Willis is the best song writer that ever lived. I don't know if he's so good for programming though . . . ?
(Does anybody read the 400th-or-so comment in a thread like this? Well, I'll record my answer here for posterity. Do Slashdot postings live forever?)
I seldom listen to music while coding. Mostly I code in silence until my left brain gets tired, then I switch from the PC to the piano for a while. Of course, playing piano is incompatible with having some canned music going, hence my situation. Now if you ask me what music I play between hacks, my current repertoire consists of:
There are occasional exceptions to the above rule. These occur when I am really, really deep into some code and it's are all clicking into place and I am an unstoppable coding machine. Then one of two tunes starts up in my head:
After a while, I tend to put on whichever of the two I'm thinking about. (but it might happen after I've moved away from the keyboard and am just planning and conceptualizing the task)
Both these tunes seem to fit really well with a highly analytic and stateful mental mode. They have a regular, pronounced, but not overwhelming, beat and regular underlying harmonic shifts. They are the opposite of flightiness; they have weight and momentum that will not be interrupted.
first of all, i am a girl, and a hacker. that alone sets me apart. i know what it's like to be a loner, to not have a date, to have everyone hassle you because you're a nerd. i don't think i would be able to live without the /very/ small circle of friends i have who respent me for myself and my ability. the stuff that happened at columbine, which you all probably remember (if not go to tales from the hellmouth), affected me a lot because i am still in high school. you cannot pin down something a person does to just one cause. there are always countless factors that make a person decide to do something. music alone, does not cause somebody to go out and kill people. if it did, i would have done that a long time ago. i listen to a wide range of music, depending on my mood, ranging from save ferris to NIN to tool to the chemical brothers to enya. i use the music to express myself and how i'm feeling. the music does not cause me to feel a certain way, it just reflects my current state of mind. don't blame music, or anything else, for causing someone to become something you don't like.
btw, what music do you listen to?
-dmitri
ps. moderator: i know that this post is sort of off the topic of the article, but i felt that this was something that needed to be said. -dmitri
Agreed. Give me angst ridden anyday.... BTW - i found a great dist. when i lived in NYC and they recently started distributing over the web. check out www.middlepillar.com for some of those hard to find goth/industrial titles, they're pretty well stocked...
Songs of Distant Earth is my favourite for really hardcore hacking. Any of the Tubular Bells is also good. Having 16 of his albums I am kinda spoilt for choice though ;)
It's great to see one of my favorite artists mentioned on /. Nothing goes better with coding than some Electronic and New Order. What do some of you think about the chances of Moz & Marr getting back together?
@tomic212
Palm Infocenter.com
The latest Palm OS News and Info...
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At the moment Toots and the Maytals live
not that it's any of your bidness!
"pull my finger" - Uncle Chuckles
i like to hear myself think... it works better that way. ANY music can become a distraction
Track 7 (the instrumentals) on both disks rule. I could have them on auto-repeat...
:)
....
All too often I begin to play disk 2, get into some sort of trance, and the next thing I know I'm hearing the whining guitars at the end of "Ripe (with decay)". And I have a lot of code on my screen. What happened to the last hour?
it's been way too long since I've had an album that can do this sort of thing
-Stu
let's see.... something to get the mind revved yet not interfere with thought flow or annoying lyrics??? for me it's progressive trance all the way. Paul vanDyk, Sasha, Oakenfold, and a myriad of other good trance labels and artists. next to that would be the 'late night' stuff. Psy trance for those after hours sessions when the adrenaline and coffee has worn off yet I need to support the positive brain flow and ambience and drive off the wee morning hour brain fogginess. Gives me the clarity and concentration without the ultra-motivating, emotional drive that the progressive trance has.
-------------------------------------------------
This topic has quickly garnered far more than the average number of responses (over 400 when I first saw it), but the response tree is very flat -- it looks like 97% of the responses are top-level responses.
It seems that everyone wants to get their two obols in, but hardly anyone cares what anyone else is saying. [Not to imply that I'm any different!]
Actually, it looks like a poll where all the votes have to be write-in votes. A nice idea, in fact, though we need a pattern matcher to go through and generate summary results. [Are you reading, Rob?]
It would be nice to start doing polls like this: generate a free-for-all like the current one, run stats on it after a few days, and then post the summary in the (former) "poll" box, for further discussion of the actual results.
--
It's October 6th. Where's W2K? Over the horizon again, eh?
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
If I were morrisey I'd buy a yard of rope and hang myself.
I don't know why I feel compelled to add to this, but perhaps someone will use it to compute a histogram of Geek music likes/dislikes, so I must add
GodFlesh - Industrial Hip Hop Death Metal (Check out Pure and Songs of Love and Hate)
Laibach -- Industrial/epic covers of the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and Jesus Christ Superstar (thier best work, IMO)
Radiohead -- Unfortunatly grouped into pop, but well worth listening to. (Especially OK Computer, which features vocals done by computer speech synth that sounds like the speech synth that used to come with SoundBlasters.)
Willie Nelson -- Though at first skeptical, I really enjoy his latest (Teatro). It is a bluesy and dark album. Not county.
La Floa Maldita -- A Frech darkwave band. Hard to accurately describe, and great.
Of course there are always The Pixies, Frank Black, Ministry, Aphex Twin, Prodigy, Clock DVA (the hacker!), the Cure, and lots of other stuff.
There, I will regret this post later, but hopefully it will lead to at least one person having at least one more enjoyable listening experiene.
"Life is life." --Laibach
Comment removed based on user account deletion
There's enough Aphex Twin stuff out there in MP3 format that you can listen to it for the long hauls, plus, its repetions and variations are a wonderfully modern reflection of good code. Give Aphex Twin a try and you'll fly.
Electric Light Orchestra started where The Beetle's Walrus left off. It's the perfect mix of orchestra, disco and rock.
I am not kidding.
What's quite helpful is a local (Israeli) radio station that has the quasi-pronounced policy of airing the same stuff over and over. Current pop hits gets aired almost once an hour. It's often frustraing, but when you're only looking for that familiar touch of music, nothing supplies it as good as that station. And, 'course, when they don't, there's always my formidable MP3 collection.
The interesting thing is that I've noticed that I cannot listen to music with words while doing documentation. Somehow the words distruct me. (I've got an Enya CD I never listen to while coding, and keep around just for those boring hours of documentation.)
It's intriguing, because coding, while fundamentally different from documentation, is still oriented around words, and you'd think that the music lyrics' would be just as distracting when you're trying to think up a variable name as when you're trying to think up a noun. The fact that aren't could imply that even commenting and variable-naming have become part of the automated parts of coding, at least for me, and no longer involve the language centers of the brain.
Or maybe it's just that my variable and comment conventions are so bad they don't resemble language at all.
Metallica done on four cellos. kicks ass... depending on the urgency of the project, i listen to one of their two cd's. Deadline approaching: Inquisition Symphony. Plenty of time: Apoclyptica does Metallica on Four Cellos. its heavy and relaxing at the same time. great stuff.
I listen to NIN almost exclusively for coding. Sometimes I listen to UB40. The Fragile is amazing coding music.. I coded for 4 hours last night to it and didn't even notice it. "A Warm Place" on TDS is amazing also.
Beastie boys are good too, though not very good for concentrating.
-Greg
--
Nothing's better for cranking out code than Led Zep, especially late at night when you need energy.
Bach or Vangelis when more deep thought is required.
I suspect this stems from the notion of "split-brain psychology," a model of the human mind which has distinct hemispheres processing different types of thought: the left brain primarily handling logical and verbal skills, the right brain handling conceptual (non-verbal) and creative skills. The theory is descibed quite well in Betty Edwards' book, "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain," a very good read even for non-artists. She suggests that the average person's difficulty in drawing is the result of being stuck in a left-brain-dominant mode, trying to process a conceptual task with the verbal part of the brain.
Coding, I believe, is a conceptual task like drawing, not a verbal one, despite being built up of little words like "while" and "if." When in Deep Hack Mode, one considers "while" as a programmatic concept, not a word, and the movements necessary to convey that concept (typing) are performed out of rote rather than requiring verbal concentration. A skilled musician may experience the same thing...the names and durations of the individual notes are no longer something to be concentrated on while playing...the body is "tuned" to carry them out and string them together as an act of continuous non-verbal expression.
Even playing in the background and/or long since familiar from repeated listening, words keep the verbal left-brain mildly active to a point where it may still trip up our ability to work toward a purely conceptual and basically artistic goal.
It's interesting, looking at the other posts, to see not only a tendency toward instrumental music, but often very specific types or instances...Philip Glass, Jarre, Ravel's "Bolero," etc. Often very rhythmic, repetitive or sort of fractal, in a way. "Minimalism," I believe is the classification. Perhaps the aural perception of these rhythms sets up a sort of "carrier wave" throughout the brain, an atmosphere conducive to performing similarly structured tasks like programming...that not only are the same neurons involved to avoid conflict, as Chad suggests, but perhaps the music can actually kick-start and/or naturally amplify the process, a sort of constructive interference. Funny...sometimes I can only stomach such music when I'm deeply involved in programming...other times it may just be grating.
Allow me to add Steve Reich's "Music for 18 Musicians" and anything by Penguin Cafe Orchestra to that list.
Amen brother. I can't believe we are the only two out there that listen to soul coughing while coding. And if we are, the rest of you out there need to hear this.
"Stop hitchin' with the monster man/
It was a bad plan/
but I had to get to town./
Unbitten, but the way I found it was a hand came down/
And pow! I got illuminated."
------- Driver carries less than 64K of cache.
I toss a Linux cd into the cd-player and listen to the static! *grin* Actually, I tend to listen to lots of different things. Depends on what I'm doing with code, really. Mostly I listen to metal, stuff like Blind Guardian, Rhapsody, Iron Maiden, Labyrinth.. Other times, I'll listen to instrumental soundtracks, random cruft from the 80's (Play the Voltron theme whilst compiling! ;), anime music..
Didn't you read the salon artical about the Columbine killers? they wern't into the 'goth' scene at all, ifact they hated marilon manson and the whole goth scene. Just like you.
The music someone listens to has no effect on my opninon of them, unless it was LFO, Len, the Backstreet boys, or any of that other MTV bulshit. I wouldn't be afraid of them, I would just think there stupid.
Just beacuse some psyco likes the same kind of music as someone else, dosn't mean that all the people who like that music are psychos.
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
I'm surprised at the lack of musical variety showing up here. There are any number of good bands that haven't been mentioned at all, simply because they don't call the U.S. home. Anyway I'll put my $0.02 in (It shouldn't be to hard to figure out what country I'm from): Radiohead, The Chemical Brothers, Big Sugar, The Tea Party, Sloan, Prodigy, Daft Punk, Led Zeppelin, The Tragically Hip, I Mother Earth, The Watchmen, 54-40, Wide Mouth Mason, The Smashing Pumpkins.
It's so nice to hear "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" when i've been up all night coding. The Division Bell also gets my vote...
-I only condemn hypocrisy in other people...
I feel ya, pal. May I also suggest Photek, Jesus and mary chain,Velvet Underground, Stereolab, Talking Heads(duh),Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, soundtrack from Ghost in the Shell, oh, I'll just stop it right now-yeah different noise for different goal, mood gets results like $ talks, for sure.
I really like NPR. I like it a lot. That's the problem with it. I can listen to it all day and be happy and everything's great except for one little thing: I don't get as much work done when I'm listening to it.
If I want to really crank out the work I need to have silence or listen to something brainless. That way I can easily devote 100% of my brain's cpu time to my work. Of course, after a day of furious work, I get grouchy.
To obtain the optimum blend of high morale and high productivity I have to find a balance of NPR, music, and silence. This doesn't work too well in cube farms unless everyone has headphones.
For some reason odd reason, listening to Live's Throw Copper gets me extremely focused. Of course, now we have "The Distance to Here" which is amazing as well.
As others said, intrustmentals/classical work great. Not only because there aren't any words to get in the way of typing, but something about long, deep songs that make you one with technology.
- Scott
------
Scott Stevenson
Scott Stevenson
Tree House Ideas
I find that words get in the way... Wish you were hear is the best, it doesn't have much of those lyrics... Also, some tracks of The Fragile are great... And others: Steve Miller, Jefferson Airplane, Traffic...
-I only condemn hypocrisy in other people...
If I need inspiration I will listen to movie themes or various 80s music. There is so much 80s to chose from, and I'm collecting more and more as the years go by. From synth pop from the Pet Shop Boys, to monster ballads from Bon Jovi, there is always another great 80s song to listen to. After the inspiration, random classical music in the background keeps me concentrated.
There is something about the Chemical Brothers that makes coding more fun. Especially late at night.
"God is Dead"
--Nietzsche
"Nietzsche is Dead"
--God
i just have to hear the Chemical Brothers before any program can be considered complete
Typically I listen to KZZQ nowadays. Unless it's not coming in due to the weather or other interference. Then I turn to my CD collection, which is mostly the sort of stuff they play on KZZQ anyway. Like Five Iron Frenzy, Smalltown Poets, Rebecca St. James, Satellite Soul, Cædmon's Call, etc.
In any case, I usually have it just for background noise. If it's loud enough that I can make out my favorite songs well, I end up jamming along with them instead of getting anything useful done. :) My employers would take a dim view of that, I think.
CT
Constitutionally Correct
Blind Guardian, Iced Earth, Helloween, Iron Maiden Labyrinth, Stratovarius, Rhapsody, Overkill, Hammerfall, Iron Savior, Gamma Ray, Children of Bodom, and Torrential Reign
Dim the lights, turn up the sub and groove to some classic Mad Professor, Massive Attack, etc. Nothing beats "Night Nurse (dub version)" and "Boof'n'Bof'n'Biff (dub)"...
It only seems that all of the wackos listen to KMFDM and Marilyn Manson because when one doesn't, the media doesn't bother telling us. If someone who owned a Mariah Carey album shot up a schoolyar, newspapers would make no mention of his musical tastes, but if he loved NIN they would make sure to mention it in every article. Since the only time people hear about the music that nuts listen to is when it's KMFDM, it makes it seem like that what all of them listen to.
Inventions and Dimensions by Herbie Hancock is currently my favorite coding album. Nefertiti by Miles Davis, The Incredible Jazz Guitar of Wes Montgomery, and any mid 60's Wayne Shorter or Lee Morgan also work for me.
For classical I like Bach's flute sonatas.
I also agree with Cliff -- Drum 'n' Bass is pretty kick ass (and Trip Hop).
---ChrisPixies
..that about covers all of my programming 'moods'
Pell Mell
Chemical Brothers
Micheal Jackson
If you are reading this and saying "What the hell is that?", allow me to introduce you to the fucking coolest genre of music ever created -
www.breakbeat.co.uk
Also, check out some work I'm doing in the jungle arena -
My software synthesizer page
trey
When I code, or am on the computer in general, I set random play on in xmms
and pop up the seperate window spectrum analyzer.
I usually listen to Led Zep, Pink Floyd, Metallica, RATM, Ozzy,
some techno stuff, the Doors, the Rolling Stones, REM, Nirvana, Jimi Hendrix,
and Creed, along with things I find that I like.
--
steve
C-x i ~/.sig
no song is better than Snog's The Ballad.
First I queue up all the Orbital, 5 albums worth. If I'm not done before the music is up, some old school Art of Noise follows.
Sometimes when I code, I just really like to hear only female voices. Don't know why. Go-go's, Tori, Sinead, Poe, Fiona, Sarah McLaughlan, Bjork, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Lushious Jackson, Jennifer Lopez, etc. Some projects they are all I listen to.
At the casa (do lots of coding there as well as lots of Q2) I did listen mostly to CDs, but a few weeks ago I moved the stereo out of the computer room and into the living room. So, now I end up either blasting the stereo loud enough to hear at the other end of the house (which tends to annoy both my dog and my neighbors) or I use mp3s. Have a decent collection of tunes. Haven't updated the list in a while. May do so when I get home tonight.
Last few CDs in my changer? (love throwing in 5 cds and hitting random/shuffle)Ella Fitzgerald's Gershwin Songbook and Jazz Masters something or another, Tori Amos To Jupiter and Back and Little Earthquakes, New order's Substance, Crystal Method's Vegas, Beastie Boys one with Sabotage (shit, going blank on the name. Ill Communication?)and David Bowie's Earthlings.
Slight tangent. Went to the Tori Amos concert up in Dallas a few weeks ago. Damn! Very, very good. Went out and bought the new albulm on the drive back. Also very, very good.
-Gandalf23
Which one? You better NOT be referring to Billy Corgan of Smashing Pumpkins fame.... :^)
SP is one fo my all-time faves, but I listen to a wide variety. My recent hit list has consisted of:
Smashing Pumpkins
Radiohead (Great UK sounds.)
Chris Cornell (former lead of Soundgarden)
Tori Amos
Rasputina (Unique. Refreshing. The UnRock. Give it a listen, you may like it.)
Nine Inch Nails
David Bowie (mostly the recent stuff)
The Cars. (70s Synth Done Right(TM))
Depeche Mode
God Lives Underwater (Very nice electronic)
garbage (i get to go to a concert here on campus this Friday! Yay!!!)
Newsboys (the best Christian out there)
Weezer
Bob & Tom (great fun morning show. listen and be amazed.)
basically, I listen to anything but rap or country (although Garth B.'s recent pseudo-album is kinda nifty). Yes, i even have a soft spot for classical. and music from anime.
-Smitty
± 29 dB
I listen to Front 242 when I need some post-industrial sound to push me through.
My other favs are Pixies, Orbital, the Orb, trance.
And don't forget shout/icecast - repruhzent and (deceased) coredump radio.
Nirvana, Melvins, Sepultura, Foo Fighters
Oingo Boingo's "Farewell" double CD set, anything by Beck, and OK Computer by Radiohead (others are good, but especially OK Computer)
I find music distracts me from coding, and I like to have complete silience when I code. oh, I usually sing songs in my head though, but these range from whatever I've last heard on the radio, to what someone else was humming a couple of hours ago... Anyway, I don't like coding with music playing, I can't think straight.
I Code to Dune(Techno),
Enya(New Age/Celtic),
The Cheiftans (Irish/Celtic), &
Vivaldi (classical).
Wierd, huh?
Everybody runs saya screaming and doesn't bother me anymore. Can't hear the phone(s) anymore. Peace and quiet (well sorta..)
Everybody runs away screaming and doesn't bother me anymore. Can't hear the phone(s) anymore. Peace and quiet (well sorta..)
And a bit of Debussy, Ravel and Respighi, too.
-- ----------------------------------------------
Vive le logiciel... Libre!!!
MP3 techno live and direct. Excellent music library
Yeah, thats pretty much what I listen too. I cant stand the radio anymore to repetitive. Too bad all my CDs got mangled in my jeep though =( need a CD burner.
For working in general, Maxwell is just amazing. Mellow soul, excellent songs, very production.
For fast work, The Brotherhood, Wu-Tang, Nas, and Jurassic 5 feature well, along with classic motown (Ready Steady Go Motown has 2 70 minute CDs - few changes required)
i find that mellow drum 'n bass (see the jazz jungle disc) is usually the best music for long coding sessions. the rolling bass lines allow me to trance out to the perfect state of mind required to really crank out some code.
at the same time, once i've been at work for too long, i usually end up throwing on some really evil, techy drum 'n bass is just what the doctor ordered. evil noises and hard basslines exactly match my mood when i've been in front of my computer for more than 12 hours.
if i'm just bug-checking some of my old code or doing ui work, i find that hip-hop (the defari album is the best for this) fades into the background perfectly while providing enough distraction to make the job not so mind-numbingly boring.
maj1k.
Personally, I listen to a very wide range of musical genres, but I am suprised at the lack of hip hop mentions in previous posts
Hip-hop wise:
Guru / DJ Premier - esp Moment of truth (haven't got their compilation album)
Ras Kass
Nas
Rza, Gza, other Wu peoples
Big Pun, Fat Joe, other T. Squad peoples
from other genres:
Gershwin
Louis Armstrong
Miles Davis
Squirrel Nut Zippers
Spin Doctors
-----Transmission Complete----- If you want to email me...Don't
When coding, one needs to focus all attention to
:) Of course,
writing the code and not to the music. Generally,
music with lyrics seems to distract a bit, taking
your mind partially off the problem you're trying
to solve. Music that stays in the background and
let's you do your work but still stimulates your
mind to work efficiently.
Ambient music is generally just the kind of music
ideally suited for coding. A friend of mine, who
is a heavy-metal fan, said after hearing a few
tracks (D1T3 and D2T1, FYI) of Aphex Twin's Selected Ambient Works 2; "It didn't bother me at
all, and didn't force me to listen to it". That's
exactly why it's called ambient.
ambient music _can_ be listened very intensely
as well.
Now, if you'd like to try out a bit of ambient music, I'd recommend albums like Aphex Twin's SAW2, Biosphere's Microgravity, Banco de Gaia's Last train to Lhasa, 808 State's Don Solar, The Orb's Blue Room and Future Sound of London's Lifeforms.
Some less-ambient artists, which could probably
be better categorized as IDM include Autechre,
Squarepusher, Bochum Welt, Mu-Ziq, Boards of
Canada and Rinneradio.
You need something relaxing to code by. Bands/groups like Metallica, George Clinton, etc. They get me too wound up to dance or play guitar(which I've done for 10 years). Need something relaxing. Seal, Roachford, Anggun, Crowded House.. Those are the guys to sit down and work/code to. Grab a caffe mocha as well, and I'm good to go!
BL.
Something about the mix of violin and his ahem, eccentric voice, it gets you in the mood to do some leet printfs.
-Warren
Any good black/death/power metal.
If i could get me some Klingon Opera i'd be in heaven, but until then i'll have to put up with Sarah Brightman, Enigma, Dune.
I use xhippo and I have it set up to generate a playlist of all my midi and MP3 files and then plays them in random order. This ranges from Classical music, Heavy metal, and even monty python soundtracks!
You can get xhippo from any gnu mirror. Of course I use timidity for the best of midi sound...
Music is the stuff my code is made of. When my librarians (ala Neal Stephenson/Snow Crash Librarians) start to work everyone will be very thankful to xhippo... Mwahahaha!
I am the penguin that codes in the night.
Mostly I listen to any kind of Upbeat music under the sun while coding...(lord knows programmers need the optimism) I mostly listen to Punk/Ska and Techno...really keep me rockin in my seat while coding (makes for great conversation topics during lunch break!) :) ~Marshall
arcane for life
Opera. Wagner, Puccini, Mozart, Beethoven, Rossini, various others. Mostly Mozart, though. Marriage of Figaro is my most used CD during heavy coding sessions. Tannhauser, La Boheme and La Traviata also top my list of most listened to CD's. Turn your stereo up to the max and pop one of these CD's in. You're set for a good 10-12 hours of great coding music. IMO, of course.
SYSOP ('sih-sop) n.: the guy laughing at your typing.
-- And Reggae is the *ONLY* music worthy of code-slinging against. Gimme the pound of Sly Dunbar's percussion with the haunting wail of Michael Rose's vocals anytime.
Jah rules, mon.
Any kind of trance, Progressive trance, house, drum n' bass, just about any kind of raveish music. In MP3, of course. Weird al songs float ma boat too, and i can certainly deal with just about any kind of electronic stuff. Trippy beatles songs rock the house, too.
Dan Noe http://resonator.physics.sunysb.edu/dan/
Imagine, if you will, the basic principles of classical compositition applied to an "orchestra" of organic/ambient/trance/electronica sounds, with a tremendous variety of different feels from one piece to the next. FSOL is not typical techno. The music is intelligent, complex, and intense.
Great stuff. High on my list of favorites. (right up there with Clapton, Gustav Holst, Aaron Copland, Blues Traveler, Rush, They Might Be Giants, Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet, and Wagner)
Leapfrog
For C++ I choose a mix of Blue Oyster Cult, Pink Floyd, and Led Zeppelin. For Java I prefer classical music and Miles Davis. I also repeat the Eagles Hotel California and Eric Claptons Layla over and over again. I think I need profesional help. Mmmmm, Blue Oyster Cult.
I can pretty much code to any music, as long as there are no surprises. In other words, new CDs and random settings are no good. That would be distracting.
For best results I have to get a CD with no bad songs. Something I can throw on and let go repeatedly. This drowns out external noise with no distractions of having to stop at a bad song to FF to the next song.
Matthew Good Band is the ultimate coding music. Their last two albums (Underdogs and Beautiful Midnight) are both awesome... No bad songs, no distractions (aside from some awesome riffs)
Proud to be Canadian!
Well, I personally will listen to stuff other people like just for the sake of getting along, but I make no secret of the fact that I like other stuff (classic rock, to answer the original question, though I don't know as it's the best music to code to... classical is probably best for the concentration, if it's good classical. I like a mix). And neither do I make a point of mentioning what I like either. It really isn't that big a deal...
Personaly I like to listen to anything from chill music to hard core punk rock
John
That gal is a cutie! I'd sure like to .... -Anonymous Cohort
Just a few more weeks. . .
mm.
After that they SUCKED.
I like to listen to ORGY or KoRn when coding. ORGY helps my creative juices flow into perl and HTML, while KoRn let's me concentrate on everything else. I don't have a fuckin clue why, but it just does
HAL 7000, fewer features than the HAL 9000, but just as homicidal!
I find coding puts me into a world itself. Almost, a false drug induced reality based upon immediate (or almost immediate) gratification. Coding is a totally solitary activity. You are alone and you take with you only the essentials. You don't bring your happy, pop, look at me I'm on mtv, shite music with you. Why, your programming, and you live in a world of apathy. Where marketing idiots who have no idea of what you do, try to make useless conversion with you, and even worse, try to sell the product that you slave to make. You need to take the music keep you in the trance/zone/false reality, because once your out you will know its shite again. I almost rarely bring music with lyrics, not because they can possibly be distracting, but mainly since they're all too cheerful and present a false sense of reality. If any of you kids reading his and are saying what about nin and those likes; well piss off its not proper music, it has only been manufactured for you to think its music. My coding is totally dependent on music, and the music is dependent on my coding. No matter what you listen to you move and will still get to the same destination. You need bass, since it lives, it is what the heartbeat gives. You need to be hit upside the the head by an occasional random beat. Four-four time is a great if you have a broken watch. You never run from something you've never heard before.
I listen to Bach Bach Bach Bach Bach Bach Bach Bach Bach Bach Bach Bach Bach Bach Bach Bach Bach Bach Bach Bach Bach Bach Bach Bach Bach.
:)
J.S. and J.C.
.. and generally anything whose musical complexity is in the notes rather than beat. Complex beats make me very angry. Simple beat; widly complex music. Mozart also has it's good bits as does most mainstream alternaive stuff. Teleman and Baroque stuff iz gud 2.
anyways..
That largely depends on mood, and what type of programming i'm doing.
When i literally don't understand a thing that's going on, I can't handle music at all.
When i'm debugging, I like techno/trance/rave: steady beat that I can leech energy off of without it distracting me too much.
When things are going really well, and i'm adding code that i don't have to think about too much (tedious busywork type of stuff), early 90s grunge rock.
It also goes in seasons: celtic music in winter, more techno in spring. *Shrug*
You generally can't go wrong with metal, but when I wanna code all night, there's one sub-genre that stands head and shoulders above the rest: Power Metal. What that? Well.. Judas Priest defined it in the 70s, Helloween and others refined it in the 80s, and Gamma Ray carries the torch into the 90s (along with a few dozen other bands in orbit around them). The melody, the speed -- it all comes down to raw energy pouring into your brain through the ear canal -- the perfect complement to caffeine. Rob Halford almost deserves his name in the credits sometimes...
Oh, I said you can't go wrong with metal, but for coding, that's a lie. No Type O Negative! No Anathema! No My Dying Bride! Keep that kind of stuff away from the computer. Speedy and Happy are best.
---
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
We've been writing a parser for a compilers class for about three days straight here at UNC-CH. We've listened to everything from Phish to Miles Davis, and a lot in between... From French Musicals (one of the guys here is a freak) to Smashing Pumpkins to Information Society. Anything and everything...
To increase your powers of concentration while coding or hacking VHDL/AHDL/JHDL or your FPGA/CPLD/DRPU try some of these bands.
Red Hot Chili Peppers
Stanard Ridgway
Beatfarmers
Sublime
Cranberries
Dread Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin
Rush
Police
Ropert Fripp,Adrian Belew,King Crimson
Talking Heads.
Jazz - Count Basie, Fats Waller
Mods- any Jungle/Trance/acid, Euphonix, u4ia, sidewinder
Kick ass! Just one question, though: Who is Torrential Reign?
---
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Usually when I am at the computer, I am so focused that music is blocked out, so it would be pointless to play it.
But if I'm just dickin' around on IRC or doing some compile or something in the background, I listen to electronic music; trance, drum & bass, ambient. Bands: Underworld, Photek, The Orb, Sasha, LTJ Bukem, Orbital, and so on.
Aaron J. Shaver > adrec@internetcds.com
If your in to electronica, pick up the soundtrack to the movie Pi (as in the symbol). Features ppl such as Orbital, Aphex Twin, Autechre, Roni Size etc.. Great for coding IMHO. Cool soundtrack for a cool movie.
They don't distract.
These famous Austrian composers are the best!
That says it all ; )
When it's time to crank out code, techno is good. Something with a long groove, ten or fifteen minutes at a stretch, no words, and not extremely fast--ideally something in synch with your body's natural rhythms, which means ambient of some sort, generally.
For intense work surf instrumental is very good. it has a sort of quiet, restrained aggressiveness. Excellent for doing something that needs to be bashed out but still maintain some sort of coherent design. the Mermen are excellent for this.
Lyrics are for the documentation phase. Maybe a little country and western, Lyle Lovett.
Alanis Morissette, Phil Collins, Tori Amos, Robert Miles, Garbage while coding.
Alanis, Phil and George Michael offline.
(Alanis rocks.)
Torrential Reign is the band that i'm in. We sound alot like iced earth! check us out at http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Villa/6812/ma in.html
if im hyper, i will listen to some techno thats about 180bpm.
if i am about asleep, i use metal thats emphasized on bass.
if im "normal", anything goes
if i should see little midgets riding llamas, i think i should listen to something to put me asleep...
icq:=22921393;
else it just never really seems to got geted ...
When I used to code a lot, Tangerine Dream was (and still is) simply the best. And it's easy to pick the best TD CDs: Buy anything with four or less songs on it. One song on two CD is a must have. Other great coding Space albums were Vangelis, Klaus Shultz (except BodyLove, it makes you think about checking out the porn sites), Kitaro, Jean Michel Jarre, Synergy, Tomita, and of course when debugging, Philip Glass. Now, when I code (which is rairly) It's more of and acoustic ambient or lite jazz with minimum vocals. Anyone who listens to New Orleans radio on Sunday mornings for the past 20 years might know the term Cheeze Music(TM). I am converting all my Vinyl albums to MP3 CDs. Put a couple of playlist files on the cd for different moods ,and I can get several hours of music without thinking about what do I want to hear next. 100 Albums can fit on about 7 to 9 cds, depending on the type of music. Most pop albums only last 30 min, most space (and Elvis Costello) would put the full 60 min on an album.
If you hang out in the parts of town where lots of drug dealing and using happens and where gangs roam and many robberies and the occasional homocide occur.... then just like the goths and Marilyn Manson/NIN/etc. listerners.... you are committing no crime and doing nothing wrong. You are right in that regard. However, you're also puting yourself among the societal scum, outcasts, and deviants, who have a statistically signifigant probability of doing something wrong as compared with the common regular folk. You guys aren't breaking the law, so you're right, no one should have any bones to pick with you.... but if you don't expect to be watched very closely all the time and treated with continual suspicion and roughed up from time to time for even looking like you're up to no good, then you're just plain wrong. Expect to be watched and live under a microscope.
If I'm programming in Prolog for my AI coursework, I can't listen to any music. Prolog takes up too much of my brain's cpu time and music causes it to crash. However if I'm coding in a language I like to program in, such as Perl or C++, I like to listen all kinds of music - Robert Miles, Moby, Radiohead, U2, Crystal Method, Sarah McLachlan, Jimi, Pearl Jam, Cranberries, really pretty much anything. I also have a thing for Japanese Pop, and Anime soundtracks (NG Evangelion, Akira, Macross Plus are some good ones).
For me to actually get into coding, I have to put in some KoRn, Limp Bizkit, Metallica, or Smashing Pumpkins. Otherwise, I just can't concentrate. It goes well with a couple of sodas at 3am :-)
Oh, this one's so easy!
The Verve, "A Storm in Heaven"
My Bloody Valentine, "Loveless"
Slowdive, "Just for a Day" & "Souvlaki"
Yo La Tengo's "Painful"
What's on now? Public Enemy's latest, "There's a Poison Goin' On..."
Like *aural* novacaine....keeps the rest of my brain swimming in a sea of noise while the grey matter concentrates on the job at hand: coding 'til my fingers bleed (though my ears may, too).
I just start my mp3 player and go from there. Some Classical, rock, alternative, techno, and just about a little of everything
Tries hard. Fails to achieve the low standards he sets himself. Works well with a broom
Usually I listen to a lot of Rush (~10 hours of Rush CDs ripped to MP3 for those long hacking runs), with a little bit of Yes, Boston, and J.S. Bach thrown in for good measure. If I'm in a really weird mood, "Weird Al" Yankovic or Tom Lehrer fit the bill. Lately, I just acquired the "Matrix" soundtrack and have been burning grooves into a couple of tracks off from playing them so much, specifically Rammstien's "Du Hast" (German rock is just so...so...German!) and Rob Zombie's "Dragula" track. Spoooooky!
OK, maybe I need to go lie down now...
Meow.
Windows is the Acme of computing -- in the Wile E. Coyote sense.
Tchaikovsky is great. Especially the 1812 Overture and Swan Lake. Can be distracting though, it's that good. Orbital and other ambient music can be soothing, drowns out those pesky little noises outside, and really gets me in the mood. I think those are the characteristics that any good coding music should have.
I'd be surprised if this hasn't been mentioned yet, but Peter Gabriels "Passion" album (music for The Last Temptation of Christ) is a pretty incredible piece of music. Some might find it a little difficult on a first listen, but once you get into it you get hooked. For me personally, I tend to lean toward the "classic" electronic stuff (Jarre, Vangelis, etc.) I also have a taste for the "80s" synthesizer new-wave/rock bands as well as some Jazz, etc.
david hasselhoff
Dog Pound Ganstars, HipHop, Gansta Rap, and classical jazz (pre-1970).
:)
I must be doing something right cause no one else listens to it
I love anything hard and fast to listen to, it just gets my brain really pumping.. but I also love listening to Weird Al when I code as it just whips up my extra creativity and makes me relax. o/ It's all about the Pentiums baby! /o hahaha
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
Can't have words in it, or I tend to type the lyrics in my code. At first its funny, but when you look at the code you typed at 3am again at 10am (after some sleep), and you find the lyrics for "My heart will go on" for the 10th time, it really gets annoying.
So now I have a special playlist called instrumental, its mainly Mozart, Chopin, and Beethoven. I have a few things like the Babylon 5 soundtrack (with music from the last episode), and the SW:TPM soundtrack (Only 3 tracks though).
Im finding fewer errors now.
-Lord Shadow
I listen to tons of different kinds of music while coding but I have finally found someone else who listens to rap while coding
I can listen to mostly anything. usually one of the electronic varients with Drum n Bass / Trance getting top scores.
one thing that I need though, is NO lyrics, or at least not all the time. it seems to get my concentration and 'coding to the beat' cranking nicely.
either way, the music is gooode'
- We seek not the answers, but to understand the question.
Metallica is great. I code better to Apocalyptica though, for some reason.
Nuff said
Friends don't let friends buy Compaq's. (Dell/Gateway... same same) You want a good computer? Build it yourself.
Try Front Line Assembly, Ministry, Skinny Puppy, and sick, twisted stuff like Mr. Bungle. 'psychosis is the conduit for creativity'
Cocteau Twins, Joe Satriani, Cibo Mato, and Spearhead. Cocteau Twins the most. Even after all of these years.
If you need bouncy synth-pop, but are embarrassed
to listen to the above-mentioned "artists",
the Pet Shop Boys are all you need.
if i have to really think thru something difficult, you can count on either total silence or something baroque: Bach, Vivaldi, Bach, Pacobel, and Bach. Oh, did I mention Bach? But that's more algorithm design and not nuts and bolts hacking.
Now, let's suppose its 3:30pm friday and i'm about to go home. "Stranglehold" by Nugent, or "Mars" by Holst. Van Hagar or Def Lepperd also helps to raise the spirits during those last hours at work.
Satriani's "Surfing with the Alien" is regarded by some to be the ultimate programming CD. I'm inclined to agree. I keep Satriani's stuff going a lot while hacking. That's what's wonderful about MP3s, you can put in a day's worth of programming music on a CD-ROM and never have to cycle CDs.
Squaresoft game soundtracks, thank you. The whole Final Fantasy VIII soundtrack for example. They are all great, almost never have vocals, and have enough variety to suit any particular mood.
Well, this is one which has always bothered me... who listens to what, and the quality of the code that they produce while listening.
;) Other than that though, anything.
Personally, you name it, I'll listen to it. Nearly - won't bring myself to listen to country or anything like Spice Girls etc.
Listening to Eric Bogle now - while doing up a PHP script... later when working on a Java assignment it'll be Enigma (don't ask why - I'm a creature of habit, and Enigma is my choice while coding Java).
Free the code - because you know that it's the right thing to do. Every line counts.
Drum + Bass all the way.
Ed Rush + Optical; Dillinja; Photek; Dom + Roland; any of that sick, dark stuff. This is music at the speed of thought.
But the late romantic period in particular. I like Anton Bruckner, as his symphonies have that wonderful quality where you can listen to them at the edge of your hearing, fully concentrating on code, and still hear everything. Lovely stuff. I also like Mahler and Brahms for these purposes.
I got this album , Tom and Rich (Tom jenkinson AKA squarepusher, and Richard D James AKA Aphex) working on the same tracks.
I ripped it 8 months ago, and hasn't left my playlist since. Some of the samples in it sound as though they've been modeled after hard drive axs patterns...
Orbital, future sound of london, underworld are all seeds for the imagination.
I was wondering how many comments it would take before someone said "No music". How anyone can disrespect both coding and music so much, i have no idea.
I only scanned one subject line with The Cure in it. Also no Queen (?!?), and just two mentions of Rush.
Actually, only The Cure, Rush, and Megadeth have continued to get me excited about new music. Frankly though, Megadeth's latest, Risk, just doesn't do it for me. Maybe I'm just not used to their new drummer.
Since there's not likely to be a any resurgence of pop music from the 80's, the only thing I have to look forward to is the return of late 80's metal gods.
I rarely listen to it othertimes, but I have listened to rap when coding for years. Not the new stuf with that obnoxious synth whine, but more melodic early 90's stuff- Public Enemy, Disposable Heros, Queen Latifa, etc. I think it's the rythym, I somehow concentrate better.
Melodic, vocal-based metal or "fingers in throat" -deathmetal. Doesn't make sense really - lyrics just distract me whenever I try to do something, but I never produce any code anyway so who cares :) Wonder if I should start listening big classics (Beethoven and stuff, you know), weren't they supposed to enhance your thinking and stuff? Well atleast if you're 3D-modeller :)
- Kaatunut
Lately it's been a mix that's all over the map:
My main goal is to keep outside conversations from distracting me.
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
I rotate the CDs I bring to work...
Definitely the soundtrack from "The Matrix" for me...
Jim
Remember to take out the trash if you want to send email to me.
Hard
Core
Techno
Seriously, it helps me keep up a nice keystroke beat, the 180bpm or so. Something fast, so maybe a nice Dance or House track as well.
Sometimes hard to find, so I usually spend a few days sifting through crap on MP3.com to find the coolest stuff (phenominal gems in there if you look long enough) to code to.
I find, that proper movie soundtracks actually help productivity, if you know the movie, as you can use the music to get in the mood of the film (e.g. Schindler's List soundtrack is rather bad for programming, while the music for The Englishman Who Went Up A Hill is rather upbeat - especially if you actually KNOW the films and know what kind of moods they have during the current part of the soundtrack).
I also find that instrumental pieces are a lot better for coding, as the don't have any words that might actually distract. I guess, classical music might be nice, but someone I personally can't really relate to it.
Goodness, gracious! I can't imagine listening to talk radio while trying to code. Anything that has some thread to follow (like a conversation) really prevents me from concentrating. I even have trouble paying attention when I'm listening to some band I've never heard before if they're any good; my brain constantly tries to pay attention to the lyrics.
Maybe if I had a cubicle job, but for me, (conversation == no coding).
Graham "Teach" Mitchell, computer science teacher, Leander HS
I've probably written more lines of code listening to Tori Amos' Little Earthquakes and Trent's pretty hate machine than any other albums. Used to in college (when those albums were fairly new) just go into the public lab, stick a CD in the CD-ROM drive, and code for fourteen hours at a time. And later when they came out I listened to Under the Pink and Fixed (which I prefer to Broken).
Nowadays I teach high school. I've got a custom mp3 jukebox program that plays whatever albums students vote for that day (coming under the GPL to freshmeat Real Soon Now, as soon as I get the linux client finished), and the albums on it are submitted by students. Before I can put them up, though, I have to approve the albums, so I usually have a steady stream of student-submitted albums that I try to listen to when I code.
Graham "Teach" Mitchell, computer science teacher, Leander HS
If there's a deadline to be met, I generally listen to Bill Leeb's noise to put the wind up me and churn it out. Heh heh. If I have to meditate on something, tends to be something ambient like 'The Orb' or even Enigma.
Personally, I have WinAmp spewing tunes, shuffling through Orbital, Sarah McLachlan, Alanis Morrisette, Barenaked Ladies, Sixpence, a 55 minute heavy trance mixtape a friend of mine made, etc. As long as it doesnt whine too much, or get me depressed thinking about how much I miss my girlfriend too much, it gets the juices flowing.
"To err is human, to forgive is simply not my policy." --root
well as the topic says... Jefferson Airplane is simply my favorite programming music.
Erik Dalén
Yes, ZAO and Stavesacre were left out - all very good listening. The harder stuff is what I'd like to call "easy listening" music, because they're fun to listen to. Country and stuff is just grating and irritating, not to mention repetitiiive! I'll often to go sleep listening to Circle of Dustor Saviour Machine. It's the only way to fly. :)
-------
CAIMLAS
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
Chief Architect
World Fusion
http://www.atriarch.com
You just gotta dig them!
You just gotta love them
For serious "in the zone" coding I usually go
for instrumental, the longer the album the better.
I listen to Sky, Mike Oldfield, Bach (all six
Brandenburg Concerti is a good run); then there's
stuff that I count as "pseudo instrumental";
there's words there but who cares: Enya, Rush,
Metallica (before self-titled album).
I swear I would double my coding efficiency if
Justin Ryan would get Storytime back together and
do a couple of really long albums. The Puzzleman
is the source.
"I went to see the pool of wisdom but it was empty. Someone has drained the pool of wisdom." - Todd Jones
cat 1.mp3 2.mp3 3.mp3 > concerto.mp3
The players will just skip the extra header info
between movements and continue playing.
I have quite a few gig made this way.
I like to just put my whole collection on random shuffle, but I like movements to be in order.
--
i have to broadly agree with those people that say classical music increases inteligence. i wouldnt say it necessarily completely true, but i certianly find coding easier while listening to Mozart, Beethoven.
and for the early morning sessions Wagner's 'Ride of the Valkyries' is pretty good.
Its depressing... oh so depressing.
:-)
The Bloodhound Gang's One Fierce Beer Coaster is great to code to, otherwise I'm another NIN freak. Nirvana, Rage, Marilyn Manson, Foo Fighters, The Offspring, and Greenday also come into it somewhere along the lines. NIN Further Down The Spiral is certainly unbeaten for Quake - but Nirvana's In Utero comes a close second. Random play on 2.7 gig of mp3s suffices when cpu is not needed
well ... I have to answer your questions I guess ..
.. okay .. so before you start claiming anything, read the "Living Vampires Homepage" ... and no .. I don't drink other people's blood
...
.. although for certain people, being a Roman Catholic (which I am) might be just as bad ...
.. over here people aren't judged on the way they look ... I walk around here at work (I am a systems administrator) in jeans (preferrably black), combat boots and band-shirts (currently Dark Tranquillity) ... My colleagues judge me on my knowledge and not on how I look ...
.. words are powerful weapons .. IF what you say makes any sense that is .. and the stuff you blabber about is based only on prejudice and ignorance .. try to look into stuff some more before you shout the next time please .. and have the guts to at least post under a normal name, just like I do ...
1) I am indeed a vampire
2) Serial killer? only when playing Quake, Unreal, Carmageddon, etc.
3) Worship Satan? I didn't do that last time I checked
Coming from the Netherlands myself, this response shocked me actually
I do agree with you on one thing
--
Ignorance is no excuse
Shouldn't it be that things using _different_ neuron clusters are easier to do at the same time? Wouldn't want the structure of some random song to get all mixed in with my code ;)
Possibly relevant: If I am playing the piano, I have no problems listening to someone talking and understanding what they are saying. But there is no way I can reply. I can think of the reply in my head, but not speak it. At least not without messing up the piano playing badly!
if you're reading this and you went to slashdot you're either an internet newbie or a geek... phreak... programmer... etc.... in any case this isn't the type of crowd to try to be hip or cool this is the type of crowd to just share ideas with each other and help each other... lets face facts everyone... and if you're a newbie why post a responce somewhere when you don't even know anything about the topic... in any case don't be stupid... know where you are....
smile, this is slashdot, jeremy d buchman
Hey, I listen to music like this because its good, and I've got taste. I'm not a satan worshipper, and as yet have no plans for blasting everyone in England to pieces with a shotgun. Sorry to disappoint you.
I tend to listen to easy listening (Clannad/Enya) or synthesizer music. I find synth. or something with a strong rhythm best for debuging, but softer stuff when I'm trying to think out the design of a procedure.
Bad Religion's intelligent lyrics keep the neurons flowing for me. Living End and Rev. Horton Heat's fast tunes keep me wired for hours.
Where are all the punkrock coders out there?
Derek
Or Busta Rhymes. Or the Apex Twin. Or Atari Teenage Riot.
Fine music, all of it.
Steff
These days I have about a gig or two of (mostly) legal MP3s that tend to be more slanted toward rock and plenty of generic techno stuff (non-industral) from mp3.com, riffage.com, amp3.com, etc. that is just background for getting stuff done. In general their techno stuff is OK, but I think they are a bit lacking in other generas. But I still cycle CDs through depending on what I'm in the mood for.
- Mike
I'll listen to most anything Alternative, Industrial, Hard Core, Punk, etc, etc, etc, but if I'm really into it, then the only real noise I hear is when the CD stops...
And it has to be a CD, because the radio music is too interrupted - DJs, commercials, annoying songs, and the like.
um...how about some real prog rock bands (Crimson noted).
In no particular order:
Van der Graaf Generator, Peter Hammill, Gong, Ozric Tentacles, Gentle Giant, Camel, Anekdoten, Anglagard, Il Berlione, Happy Family, Minimum Vital, PFM, Djam Karet, Present, Univers Zero, Magma, Can, Grobschnitt, Renaissance, and of course bands like Yes and Genesis who sold out big time.
Yeah, that was a little weak on Italian prog and Canterbury groups, but hey, follow up if it bugs you.
For more info check out progrock.net
Kraftwerk, Underworld, Devo....
Because it feels like something I've done before, yeah I could fake it but I'd still want more...
I'd have to say Pearl Jam and STP is my favorite coding music...
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
Not much 'happy-happy joy-joy (in XTC)' in there at all.
I've found Alien Sex Fiend are good to code to while PIL's Metal Box album is the worst.
On a music related note, A large preportion of people I chat to at Slimelight (Goth-Industrial club, London) are programmers, web site designers, etc...
Check these
http://www.talla.de (Talla 2 XLC one of the best DJs)
http://www.djtaucher.de (Taucher [=Diver] also very strong)
so long as it's kick-ass take-no-prisoners no-bullshit no-excuses get-your-blood-pumping ROCK AND ROLL!!!
What have you done to make the world a better place today? Got 30 seconds? Feed somebody. http://www.thehungersite.co
a disproportionately large portion (compared with the general public) of the hackers I know like They Might Be Giants, Dave Mathews, etc. The crackers I know like metal bands.
O.K., you can flame me now.