For a while now, I've had the office to myself. It's been wonderful. It's so nice being able to concentrate on the task at hand. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy pleasant social distraction as much as the next guy, but I enjoy playing in "happy fun space" (to use Ian Bank's term) with these abstract puzzles just as much. And to be honest, I'm paid to play with those abstractions more than with others.
Oddly enough, this delicious seclusion has made me get more into my music collection. In particular, I rediscovered Lush, a nineties shoegaze band who's kinda dreamy, but perhaps a bit more up-tempo than most shoegaze. (It's an interesting question as to why having a closed door would make me more into my music rather than less. I think it's because I don't have to worry about people sneaking up on me, so I groove out, get focused on the problem and code away.)
I also discovered Outkast. That's a band I don't quite know what to do with. Are they serious? Are they kidding? Do I care? It is, for the most part, incredibly raunchy and low-brow music of the sort that I never like to listen to.
Ok, I'm skipping around a bit, but perhaps this kind of deep concentration is exactly what agile programming hopes to eliminate. If it takes concentration to create, it will take concentration to maintain, and concentration is in precious short supply. Companies don't want to shell out for private workspaces, even for senior people. My normal stance is that this is a sad foolishness - I work better with privacy, and if you want your money's worth, then just give me some privacy. But maybe there's some method to this madness. You don't want your best developers loosing everyone in the dust. How to slow them down? Put them in bullpens, and treat them like bulls.
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