Just shut up and let your devs concentrate, advises joel spolsky. If a coworker asks you a question, causing a 1 minute interruption, but this knocks you out of the zone badly enough that it takes you half an hour to get productive again, your overall productivity is in serious trouble. Joel spolsky on stack overflow, inclusion, and how he broke it. To understand what i mean, lets take someone whose job is in sales. How to explain a layperson why a developer should not be. Programmers, teach nongeeks the true cost of interruptions. Developing software is like driving a car in a very busy road for. The ceo of stack overflow, joel spolsky, laid out some of the reasons programmers prefer their. Hes also the name behind the joel on software blog, which consistently ranks top or top ten on software mustread lists. In this talk full of humor, joel spolsky captivates and entertains the audience by talking about how how he built and grew stack overflow, and more broadly on the software industry today. Thats just a fivedollar word for giving people things to do. The cofounder of the online programming hub stack overflow shares his thoughts on to forge a career as a successful software engineer. Workers have to work in a fragmented state as 57% of tasks are interrupted mark.
I was having a mildly frustrating time when i took a break to read jos and posted the first time. Developer flow state and its impact on productivity stack overflow. Of course hed like the guy whos obsessed with shipping products and not with quality code after all, hes the beneficiary of shipping products, and he doesnt have to be the one tearing his. Add at least 10 minutes to the forced break the minimum amount of time you need to start editing code again and there you go thats a solid half hour you lose whenever someone approaches you. Ceo, stack exchange network cofounder, stack overflow, fog creek software and trello. Joel on software excerpt from ui design for programmers. Ive read joel s and other comments on how a workplace can be rated on how much the programmer is interrupted. Noise, phone calls, going out for lunch, having to drive 5 minutes to starbucks for coffee, and interruptions by coworkers especially interruptions by. How to destroy programmer productivity george stocker. Why programmers want private offices stack overflow. Human task switches considered harmful joel on software. I dont think that the state of reverie that joel describes is technical. Software development trends to look out in 2019 0 chapters updated nov 30, 2018 01.
When youre managing a team of programmers, one of the first things you have to learn to get right is task allocation. Im joel spolsky, a software developer in new york city. People need roughly 23 minutes to go back to their tasks after a major interruption, but the plot deepens if youre a programmer. And its gone the true cost of interruptions jaxenter. Joel on software quotes fortunes cookies shlomi fishs. Interruptions are one of the biggest sources of inefficiency for programmers. He also hosts a very popular blog at joel on software, though his. This site is supposed to be full of programmers and engineers. Avram joel spolsky born 1965 is a software engineer and writer. Now, to be fair, theyre probably a big source of inefficiency for everyone, but relatively speaking, theyre worse for programmers. Joel has some odd ideas when it comes to software i think it has to do with the fact that he manages a software company and isnt an engineer himself. The ceo of stack overflow, joel spolsky, laid out some of the reasons programmers prefer their own space. Joel spolsky talks about this in one of his blog posts.
Joel spolsky is the founder of fog creek software, a small software company in new york city. According to joel spolsky, founder of fog creek software and author of the joel on software blog, there should be less fluff and more stuff i guess i. Interruptions kill my productivity because it can take me 1015. Writers, programmers, scientists, and even basketball players will tell. Noise, phone calls, going out for lunch, having to drive 5 minutes to starbucks for coffee, and interruptions by coworkers especially interruptions by coworkers all knock you out of the zone. Typically, the number that gets tossed around for getting back into the zone is at least 15 minutes after an interruption. Joel on software but why interruptions cost so much. A weblog by joel spolsky, a programmer working in new york city, about software and software companies. So after being retweeted several hundred times and being. Our ceo joel spolsky said it best put yourself in the job candidates shoes. They found that the minimum accommodation for each developer. Its only the coding where the interruptions and whatnot are a problem. This book covers every imaginable aspect of softward programming, from the best way to write a code to the best way.
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