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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?
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.
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.
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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...)
'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. . .
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.
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
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"
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?
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).
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Do not discount the fact that you have free will.
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.
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...
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.
Tree my ass in front of me and my cash money!
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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!
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
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!
..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
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!
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CAIMLAS
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
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.
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It's October 6th. Where's W2K? Over the horizon again, eh?
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
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.
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.
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.
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As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Check these
http://www.talla.de (Talla 2 XLC one of the best DJs)
http://www.djtaucher.de (Taucher [=Diver] also very strong)