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by xutopia 4922 days ago
The best programmers I know (those we refer to 10X) check Hacker News once a week, their email once a day, twitter once every 2 days and have every notification turned off in every application that could send them one. They also turn off chat entirely.

One even works with a single monitor so as to only see his code and get 0 distractions.
1 comments
d--b 4922 days ago
That's bullsh*t. The best programmers I know talk a lot and read a lot. Shutting off oneself just kills the creativity...
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duggieawesome 4922 days ago
Not necessarily bullshit, but anecdotal. Just like your own experiences.
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thirdtruck 4922 days ago
It comes down to what one reads, when, and with how much focus, too.

I just started trying to "chunk" my time in Google Reader, and I noticed a significant increase in actionable information taken away from the articles despite reading from the same sources as during my "between work duties" peeks.

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lnanek2 4922 days ago
Depends on the job, I guess. Some jobs you hammer out the spec in a meeting once a week, and then sit down, shut up, and implement the heck out of it. Maybe a few tweeks on a public wiki or bug reports fixed during that time.

I suppose I'm noisy as heck, and attend lots of events and meetups and conferences, but I know whole companies full of people who don't get out, dont't talk or read much, and they just stay at work and make a killing. You don't hear about them because they don't get out.

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d--b 4922 days ago
My point is: no doubt that twitter et al are distracting. But that's not what makes the difference between a good and bad programmer. Really complex engineer tasks require your brain to slowly process the ideas that you have, sleep on them, discuss them with colleagues, maybe read something online about it. But I find that the argument that says 'you suck because you are too distracted' is kind of dangerous. Taken to the extreme and it becomes: 'oh I won't answer my mom because that makes me worse at my job' or 'oh I am not drinking wine tonight because I won't be at my best tomorrow'. I think on the contrary, it is important to take one's job slowly to be better at it.
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untog 4922 days ago
They're not mutually exclusive. But constant breaks for Twitter, Hacker News, etc. disrupt your attention.
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