[leethomas]

So culturally which style of working do you prefer yourself? Or if it’s not binary, are there parts of how software was written yesterday that you’d like to bring into organizations today, whether mentioned in the article or not?

[sblom]

There's room for both extreme concentration and extreme communication, and most teams need some of each.

I actually snorted at the essay's idea that communication and concentration can't mix. I'm not sure what he thinks email and detailed specs are if not communication. I think the key is that they're batch-mode communication.

I can see value in several hours a day of concentration unbroken by communication, but insisting on a full week straight of unbroken concentration is impractical and possibly counterproductive.

[France_is_bacon]

It's not that there was NO communication. He said that he'd go to QA and fix anything that they found. It's just that it was more informal, and you did it when it was time to do it, but not just meetings every day that are required, even when there's nothing really to say, or what couldn't be done in a 15 second or one minute conversation. And you could do it on your own time, so you didn't have to stop right in the middle of some super productive time when you're on a roll. Because that's how it works - some coding time is more productive than other time. You're just into it and everything is just flowing, as he said.

[JKCalhoun]

I much prefer the old days. At the risk of the cliche (and I realize all the negative connotations as well), we were cowboys, but I liked it that way.

Of course, that may be what drew me to coding then. Perhaps the new culture attracts a new type of coder that likes process much more.