The Fallacy of Productivity in Software Development
medium.comPretty awful article, sounds like it exists just to push pair programming.
In software collaboration simply doesn't happen through interactive conversations. There is just too much background work to do and too much knowledge and information to get through that requires a lot of deep focus, so it can only be a slow moving non-interactive process. Over time people learn code, documentation, comments other people wrote and contribute same things themselves for others to see and learn someday. This is how collaboration happens. If more targeted collaboration is required people just create a some sort of document and give others a chance to read it, learn it and contribute back on their own time. The attitude expressed in the article is actively harmful to that process, software is not that field where you can "love seeing people working together".
I hate seeing my teammate with headphones all day long, fully agree with the article.
I'm guilty. But I'm also on a small team, and the only one of on this particular team out of the many people at my office. The rest of my teammates are at another location.
The people around me speak really loudly (they speak another language and listening to it all day is grating - this frustrates me cause I actually really like languages). Doesn't help that I have a coworker directly next to me that'll bring bags of carrots, celery, apples, etc. and chew loudly. Think cracking vegetables for a solid 10min at a clip. I tend to think I have some form of misophonia, but the noise really is draining regardless.
I'm looking forward to a workplace where I don't feel trapped in isolation despite being surrounded by other people.