While modular office space is expensive, once you own it, you can rearrange it.

jcwren, have you ever worked someplace where the cubes were actually rearranged while you were working there? Do you know of anyone who has? I'll be really surprised if that's the case.

The idea that cubes are more cost-effective because they can be rearranged doesn't hold up, overall. The problem isn't the cube walls themselves, it's all of the wiring that has to get snaked through them. Redoing the wiring drives up the cost of rearranging cubes to the point where you have to absorb the cost over multiple rearrangements for cubes to win in the long run. And rearranging cubes interrupts work, so no one does it often enough or frequently enough to recoup the extra initial cost.

Most research shows that (most) programmers produce the most code when they can spend 3-4 hours at a stretch on a problem, uninterrupted. You know, that midnight-hacking zone we've all experienced, when the ideas are right there in your head and the code is flowing freely... After an interruption, it takes (on average) about 10-15 minutes to get your head back to where it was pre-interrupt. (Yes, that's an average, so not everyone conforms to the model; more than a few monks here seem to bounce back and forth effortlessly between answering every question in sight and writing some amazing code.)

So the "best" environment for writing a lot of code is one that minimizes interruptions. For most people, that's walls and a door that can be shut. Many can put on the headphones to work uninterrupted in a cube, but you don't lose that ability if you're in a room instead.

You're right, though, that facilities people (including landlords) love cubes, but in my experience, it's simply because they're more convenient for them to work with. That convenience creates some small, artificial savings that lose out when you take a look at the overall cost, especially in terms of programmer productivity. A company gets more bang for the buck out of making its people as productive as possible, not sqeezing a few more dollars out of facility costs.

In reply to RE: (jcwren) RE: (2) A quiet place to code... by knight
in thread A quiet place to code... by el-moe

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.