[antimagic]

Ahhh, premature optimisation! You've optimised for your time, but have you optimised for the best efficiency at the company level? Ok, so your precious flow doesn't get interrupted, but the person that had a question that needed your input now has to wait around until you deign to respond.

You know who doesn't work that way? Fabrice Bellard. If you're lucky enough to be his co-worker, you can sit down next to him and ask a question at any time, and he will stop what he's doing and answer you. Then he'll get back to work.

The attitude you expressed above (and it's far from uncommon here on HN) is just an example of developers wanting to be treated like special snowflakes. I do not believe this is a desirable trait for someone working in a company.

[Kalium]

This attitude tends to stem from having been managed by non-engineers. Spend a year or two working for someone who interrupts you for updates every 15-30 minutes, and you get extremely protective of your focus. You also become aware that the cost of interruption is relatively high. Generally, developers don't want to be special snowflakes. We want to be allowed to actually get our work done in a reasonably time-efficient manner.

Perhaps that is not a desirable trait for someone working in a company.

Also, I submit that if your company is larger than a couple dozen people and there are many questions that cannot be answered by more than one person, then your company has significant compartmentalization problems.

[joshguthrie]

Thank you for expressing exactly what's going on in my mind.

I hate being interrupted, we all do, even working as a cashier in McDonalds. But the idea that a special branch of people SHAN'T be interrupted is snowflake treatment.

I already feel privileged over other employees in my company for having flexible workhours (felt sick yesterday evening, sent a text at 1am and got at work around 2pm today despite a production deployment being scheduled for 5pm), now if suddenly MY time is more important than anyone else's, I'm not an engineer, I'm a snowflake in an ivory tower.