Once upon a time, I found myself at a remote demo site trying to fix some broken software. Now, we were primarily a linux shop. Though one component had to run under WinNT due to Prolog support. (Back in the dawn of time before Linux support became commonplace.)
Anyways, we're all working on laptops. And, due to a bizarre unfortunate hardware/software configuration, we found we couldn't transfer large quantities of data to the NT box. No cdrom support. No feasible way to manage it via ethernet. Etc. (Mind you, all the Linux boxes were happy. It was just the NT box that was uncooperative. Don't even get me started on what was required to get the ethernet card semi-working in the first place! On Linux it was grab, plug, and play. NT actually cared about the card version number. "No not that one. I need one that ends in a 'C'. No, the other one that ends in a 'C'. Oh hell, maybe if I uninstall and reinstall the drivers a few more times...")
So, pluck up the NT-side source code backup cdrom. Put it into a linux box. Share/cdrom so my laptop can see it. Edit the JAVA source code under Linux. Compile it under Linux. Copy the.class files onto a floppy. Put the floppy into the NT box. Copy the.class files off the floppy onto the NT box. Software now works. Go find coworkers who are trying to upload the files by modem across half the country just so they can download them again under NT.
Now, about that "write once run anywhere" nonsense. Perchance, are you living in a big river in Egypt? Better known as "de Nile"...
I've been around the block, as they say, a few times. I've worked in open offices, cubes, and private offices. So permit me to address this issue from the perspective of experience...
First: The art of programming. This is a strong mental activity. Try this example: Count out loud from 100 down by 3's. After you get to 91, have somebody else start calling out random numbers. So far, I've only met one person who could keep going. He was a math professor with 20 years of experience working in a noisy environment.
Writing code is a lot more complex than merely counting down from 100 by 3's. I can easily spend 20 or 30 minutes constructing a mathematical model of the program in my mind.
It may seem like a good idea for folks to be able to easily talk. But the same circuits in my brain that process intelligible sounds, regardless of whether I can speak the language, are also used when I'm coding. Or debugging. Or writing english for that matter...
Audible (spoken) communication effectively kills my productivity. I lose concentration, the last half hour of my work is destroyed, new bugs are created that cost even more time, etc.
Visual: The human eye is are geared towards detecting changes in the surroundings visually. Ever see one of those snakes that has "protective camouflage coloration"? It's nearly invisible until it moves. Then you can see it instantly. Coupled with the wide field-of-view of the human eye's peripheral vision, you have a major source for interruptions.
Tactile: Humans, at least in our culture, don't touch except under very special circumstances. Check it out sometime. Even in the most crowded elevator, or a crowded bus, there is absolutely no physical contact. If there is physical contact, folks become distressed very quickly.
If the office is small enough that folks bump into one another... Well, that's the worst of all possible worlds...
So, Cubes vs Offices:
Open office: The worst of all worlds: Audible, Visual, and possibly Tactile distractions. However, it is the cheapest arrangement. And clueless managers like to be able to watch everyone...
Cubes: A GOOD cubical arrangement will block out Visual and Tactile distractions. A lousy cubical arrangement is basically a more expensive open office.
Cubes are sound-transparent, but provide the illusion of sound-opaqueness, so Audible distractions are *MUCH* worse.
They are relatively cheap. Easily modifiable. Easily altered. Favored by clueless managers who like to be able to walk around and verify that everyone is at least "trying" to work.
Private Offices: Depends on the walls. Could be no better than cubes. Could be the holy grail of work environments. Windows are best avoided, they provide a visual distraction and a source of glare on monitors. (Though some folks dislike caves.)
Semi-private offices: You either have Visual distractions, or you jump three feet in the air when you suddenly realize you're no longer alone. Possibly Tactile distractions. Probable Audible distractions. Could be almost as good as a Private Office. Could be as bad as an Open Office. All depends on your officemates.
Personal Experiences:
Open office: Got nothing done during the day. Got everything done at night, after everyone had left. Sometimes worked until after 3AM. Still got fired in the end...
Hardwall cubes, chest high: Good Visual/Tactical blockage. Heard every sound in the facility. Cheered when the guy who insisted on using the speakerphone for all his many calls was fired.
Softwall cubes, 6ft: Good Visual/Tactical blockage. Completely sound transparent. Had aisle cube, next to main elevators/stairs for the floor, across aisle from kitchenette where everyone went to take their breaks. Though they had to talk quite loudly to be heard over the copier that was also located there. Shared other cube wall with a fellow who was trying to transition to being a sports agent -- and on the phone constantly. Next cubical bay over was the sales team.
Productivity fell to zero. This was when I acquired a "background" noise source -- one of those ocean / brook / crickets noise sources -- which allowed to at least get some work done... I got a lot more work done on the weekends than I ever did during the week. Even though they turned the AC off on weekends, and I had triple-digit temperatures to work in...
For those who think that encouraging communications is a "good" thing, I would like to point out that sports-agent-wanabee-guy wrote the threading code that I took over. When I asked him where the mutexes were, he told me he had tried it without the mutexes, found it worked just fine, so he left them out. Suffice to say, the language I used while re-writing his code, and getting yelled at by my boss for wasting precious time, did not encourage teamwork...
Semi-private office: Had two officemates who were managing different projects. They were constantly in meetings in the office, or on the phone. Productivity: Zero.
Telecommuting: Private office. Absolutely NO Audible, Visual, or Tactile distractions. No hardware/software changes without my knowledge. Vastly superior hardware. Paradise.
However, long-term lack of social contact does degrade performance. It becomes too easy not to go out. Humans are, fundamentally, social animals. Total isolation does not become us.
Suggestions: Private office. Encourage group lunches. Encourage group activities outside of work, even if it's just a foosball table in the break room at the end of the day.
Curiously, this is remarkably similar to what Microsoft does. For all I might knock their despicable business practices, they do know how to maximize the productivity of their programmers...
Slashdot Mirror
Once upon a time, I found myself at a remote demo site trying to fix some broken software. Now, we were primarily a linux shop. Though one component had to run under WinNT due to Prolog support. (Back in the dawn of time before Linux support became commonplace.)
Anyways, we're all working on laptops. And, due to a bizarre unfortunate hardware/software configuration, we found we couldn't transfer large quantities of data to the NT box. No cdrom support. No feasible way to manage it via ethernet. Etc. (Mind you, all the Linux boxes were happy. It was just the NT box that was uncooperative. Don't even get me started on what was required to get the ethernet card semi-working in the first place! On Linux it was grab, plug, and play. NT actually cared about the card version number. "No not that one. I need one that ends in a 'C'. No, the other one that ends in a 'C'. Oh hell, maybe if I uninstall and reinstall the drivers a few more times...")
So, pluck up the NT-side source code backup cdrom. Put it into a linux box. Share /cdrom so my laptop can see it. Edit the JAVA source code under Linux. Compile it under Linux. Copy the .class files onto a floppy. Put the floppy into the NT box. Copy the .class files off the floppy onto the NT box. Software now works. Go find coworkers who are trying to upload the files by modem across half the country just so they can download them again under NT.
Now, about that "write once run anywhere" nonsense. Perchance, are you living in a big river in Egypt? Better known as "de Nile"...
I've been around the block, as they say, a few times. I've worked in open offices, cubes, and private offices. So permit me to address this issue from the perspective of experience...
First: The art of programming. This is a strong mental activity. Try this example: Count out loud from 100 down by 3's. After you get to 91, have somebody else start calling out random numbers. So far, I've only met one person who could keep going. He was a math professor with 20 years of experience working in a noisy environment.
Writing code is a lot more complex than merely counting down from 100 by 3's. I can easily spend 20 or 30 minutes constructing a mathematical model of the program in my mind.
It may seem like a good idea for folks to be able to easily talk. But the same circuits in my brain that process intelligible sounds, regardless of whether I can speak the language, are also used when I'm coding. Or debugging. Or writing english for that matter...
Audible (spoken) communication effectively kills my productivity. I lose concentration, the last half hour of my work is destroyed, new bugs are created that cost even more time, etc.
Visual: The human eye is are geared towards detecting changes in the surroundings visually. Ever see one of those snakes that has "protective camouflage coloration"? It's nearly invisible until it moves. Then you can see it instantly. Coupled with the wide field-of-view of the human eye's peripheral vision, you have a major source for interruptions.
Tactile: Humans, at least in our culture, don't touch except under very special circumstances. Check it out sometime. Even in the most crowded elevator, or a crowded bus, there is absolutely no physical contact. If there is physical contact, folks become distressed very quickly.
If the office is small enough that folks bump into one another... Well, that's the worst of all possible worlds...
So, Cubes vs Offices:
Open office: The worst of all worlds: Audible, Visual, and possibly Tactile distractions. However, it is the cheapest arrangement. And clueless managers like to be able to watch everyone...
Cubes: A GOOD cubical arrangement will block out Visual and Tactile distractions. A lousy cubical arrangement is basically a more expensive open office.
Cubes are sound-transparent, but provide the illusion of sound-opaqueness, so Audible distractions are *MUCH* worse.
They are relatively cheap. Easily modifiable. Easily altered. Favored by clueless managers who like to be able to walk around and verify that everyone is at least "trying" to work.
Private Offices: Depends on the walls. Could be no better than cubes. Could be the holy grail of work environments. Windows are best avoided, they provide a visual distraction and a source of glare on monitors. (Though some folks dislike caves.)
Semi-private offices: You either have Visual distractions, or you jump three feet in the air when you suddenly realize you're no longer alone. Possibly Tactile distractions. Probable Audible distractions. Could be almost as good as a Private Office. Could be as bad as an Open Office. All depends on your officemates.
Personal Experiences:
Open office: Got nothing done during the day. Got everything done at night, after everyone had left. Sometimes worked until after 3AM. Still got fired in the end...
Hardwall cubes, chest high: Good Visual/Tactical blockage. Heard every sound in the facility. Cheered when the guy who insisted on using the speakerphone for all his many calls was fired.
Softwall cubes, 6ft: Good Visual/Tactical blockage. Completely sound transparent. Had aisle cube, next to main elevators/stairs for the floor, across aisle from kitchenette where everyone went to take their breaks. Though they had to talk quite loudly to be heard over the copier that was also located there. Shared other cube wall with a fellow who was trying to transition to being a sports agent -- and on the phone constantly. Next cubical bay over was the sales team.
Productivity fell to zero. This was when I acquired a "background" noise source -- one of those ocean / brook / crickets noise sources -- which allowed to at least get some work done... I got a lot more work done on the weekends than I ever did during the week. Even though they turned the AC off on weekends, and I had triple-digit temperatures to work in...
For those who think that encouraging communications is a "good" thing, I would like to point out that sports-agent-wanabee-guy wrote the threading code that I took over. When I asked him where the mutexes were, he told me he had tried it without the mutexes, found it worked just fine, so he left them out. Suffice to say, the language I used while re-writing his code, and getting yelled at by my boss for wasting precious time, did not encourage teamwork...
Semi-private office: Had two officemates who were managing different projects. They were constantly in meetings in the office, or on the phone. Productivity: Zero.
Telecommuting: Private office. Absolutely NO Audible, Visual, or Tactile distractions. No hardware/software changes without my knowledge. Vastly superior hardware. Paradise.
However, long-term lack of social contact does degrade performance. It becomes too easy not to go out. Humans are, fundamentally, social animals. Total isolation does not become us.
Suggestions: Private office. Encourage group lunches. Encourage group activities outside of work, even if it's just a foosball table in the break room at the end of the day.
Curiously, this is remarkably similar to what Microsoft does. For all I might knock their despicable business practices, they do know how to maximize the productivity of their programmers...