[jasonkester]

Speaking of genetic differences, you see this same sort of split whenever "what music do you listen to while coding?" gets discussed here. Half the folks suggest music that makes them more productive. The other half say that any music at all distracts them to the point that they can't get anything done.

For anybody looking to correlate the two, I wrote the above and fall squarely into the "no music" camp as well.

Maybe we're just overly sensitive to any intrusion on our concentration. (I also prefer nobody throw hamburgers at me while coding, so there's a 3rd datapoint.)

[jameyc]

I'm not sure there is much correlation between the two, at least in my case.

I fall squarely into the "no music" camp, and have since I was a child where music during study would drive me crazy. Music while coding is just a distraction to me.

However, I really love F.lux/Redshift. One of the most relaxing and productive things for me is to work in a dim or dark room with the display shifted to a fairly low color temp. By contrast, during the day I prefer fairly high contrast, using the VividChalk theme in Vim. In the past I would switch to a lower contrast theme like OceanDeep, but never found one to work well with red hues yet, which I prefer in dim light (partially as a throwback to old amber monitors.)

As a side note, I will agree with everyone saying the automated time based shifts are annoying. I usually find myself pausing or disabling it. Having it triggered off ambient light levels is the logical way, imho.

I also prefer nobody throw hambmurgers at me while coding, but if they want to toss them onto the corner of my desk for later consumption, I won't complain...

[spc476]

For people who light affects their sleep fall generally fall into two camps: those that are oversensitive to light, and those that are undersensitive to light. For the former, (as an extreme example) a flashlight might prevent them from feeling tired (since their body feels like it's day time); whereas for the later, you can shine a tungsten movie light on them and they won't wake up (I think I'm the later---I can easily sleep during the day).