Friday, January 05, 2007

How to kill a programmer

Refer to Doug's poston how to kill a programmer and also Joel Spolky's original article on programming productivity.
Here are the comments I made over at Dougs site.
I agree - I read Joel's article too - it is very true.
I can be in the middle of balancing a whole bunch of variables and short term things in my brain as I solve a complex programming problem, and then the kids have a fight in the next room (where my wife is seated at her pc). I am "programmed" to tune it out and initially I ignore it - but then the cries turn to screams and howls as injustices are performed and I am forced to become involved. Unfortunately I normally do that with some angst at my wife's perceived lack of intervention and the fact I am interrupted. This causes two losses of productivity, first I lose the spot I am in and have to back up and get into that zone again. Second I have to now set more time aside for "family peacemaking" to set right the wrongs caused by the way I handled it. The first I can do nothing about (short of physically relocating my office out of my home or sound proofing and locking the room), I am working on the second.


Posted by: Jethro | 10:36 AM |