in reply to RE: A quiet place to code...
in thread A quiet place to code...

While I agree with everything you say, there's an issue you may have overlooked.

While modular office space is expensive, once you own it, you can rearrange it. Once you put up sheetrock, you're stuck with it. Also, converting a cube farm into sheetrock offices makes the entire office space seem a maze of corridors and doors. This is usually not a desired effect when you want to show someone your office building.

Like it or not, thanks to the Scandinavians and a few other "designers", wide open office space is "what people like". I like a small, dark, warm office. But, after walking into IBM buildings in Raleigh, I can appreicate the negative psychological impact that the corridor maze *does* have.

It's a two edged sword, in many respects. Programmers get the environment that most of the them want, but it does make for a "us vs. them" type office environment. I don't think it's the cause, but I do think it encourages departmental isolation, staking out of territory, etc.

You also run into the issue that you want people to *feel* that they can communicate readily with their co-workers. Among people in the same discipline, this isn't much of a problem (programmers to programmers, hardware guys to hardware guys, etc). But when you walk into the corridor maze looking for the hardware guys, it's a lot less friendly feeling than the open cube farm. And then there are the people with their doors always shut (that would be me).

I've worked in both enviroments. While I prefer the private office by far and large, from a management standpoint, and a building facilities standpoint, I can see the value of cubes. I don't how many times at Hayes we went through re-cubing. But I know it was a helluva lot cheaper than building new walls. Not to mention, you *can* take it with you when you go...

One final note I just remembered. Depending on who owns the building, they may or may not want the build out. Depends on your lease, the location, etc. Most people leasing buildings will permit buildouts, but sometimes this is not the case.

--Chris

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RE: (jcwren) RE: (2) A quiet place to code...
by knight (Friar) on Oct 16, 2000 at 20:54 UTC
    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.
[reply]
      Cubicles Don't Work.

      I've worked somewhere where they rearranged cubicles regularly. Generally, people would move every year to year and a half. When I left, they had cut my department, and I'd moved my equipment out of one cube into another, and would have had to move all of my servers AND that previously-moved equipment elsewhere.

      There were no moves in that company that didn't involve rearranging at least one wall.

      Wiring would have been a major problem. I needed lots of juice for all the computers I had in there, as well as a special network connection and an external phone line.

      Invariably, this meant that anyone who moved had to spend half a day arranging the new cubicle layout, or more.

      Then again, this is the company that owned the building but gave departments money to rent (yes, rent) floor space from some other department in the company. I think its signature product should have been Crazy Accounting Schemes, not Laser Printers.

[reply]
      A door with a lock on it would be the best solution for me to be productive. I agree whole heartedly with you when you say

      So the "best" environment for writing a lot of code is one that minimizes interruptions.

      And I also want to re-itterate another thing you said

      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.

      These are both very important topics to me and I am betting to most of you...

      Thanks for the feedback

[reply]

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