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I don't know why people think devs are special in this regard. Being interrupted is a universal human problem, there is no need for an analogy for something th

I don't know why people think devs are special in this regard. Being interrupted is a universal human problem, there is no need for an analogy for something that anyone who works in a professional (or hell even non professional) job experiences.

Clubber 9y ago
Are you a developer? I recall studies that say any interruption costs 30 minutes of productivity for developers. When you put it into cost terms, someone talking in an open office for 30 seconds can literally cost hundreds or thousands of dollars of productivity.
- watwut 9y ago
  I think that his point was that similar drop of productivity happen to other professions. Programming is not the only work that requires focus. Even with programming it does matter what tasks you are working on. Many tasks don't need that much time to get into and out of it, only some do.
  - Clubber 9y ago
    >I think that his point was that similar drop of productivity happen to other professions. Oh, I see. Yes, I would wholeheartedly agree with that. To his point, I would say many people on here don't necessarily think developers are special in that regard, but most people are developers and they are speaking on that which they know. I'm a developer (obviously) and I couldn't intelligently speak on how interruptions would disrupt a soft skill profession such as marketing, sales or HR.
    - watwut 9y ago
      Imo, both marketing and sales cause so many interruptions to everyone around, that if their own productivity is harmed by it, they really should do something about it. They are seriously winning the "who is the most noisy most interrupting office" competition.
- NikolaeVarius 9y ago
  I've worked in multiple roles, including developer. 30 minutes of lost productivity in a dev role is peanuts compared to lost productivity in an engineering job where an hour of engineering work is $300+ of charged time. And with all this complaining about interruptions and lost productivity, its really only the "sexy tech startups" that seem to have ping pong and foosball tables to waste time playing.
DennisP 9y ago
Because if you're doing something complicated, you have a bunch of stuff loaded up in short-term memory, and if an interruption throws it all out then it takes a long time to load it back up again. If you're doing something simple, then it's just a matter of regaining focus. Sometimes devs are doing simple things and interruptions aren't such a big deal, but when we're deep into a debugging session or something it's more of a problem. This is not to say devs are the only people who work on complicated problems like this, but plenty of non-technical people in software shops don't, and tend to not understand that interruptions are a real problem sometimes.
loco5niner 9y ago
Think back to grade school after you learned how to do long division. Then pretend you didn't have pencil and paper, so you had to do it in your head. If someone interrupted you right in the middle, wouldn't it be hard to get that context back and continue? It would for me. At that point, I would most likely have to start again at the beginning.
erikbye 9y ago
Other professions don't need to play computer in their head. I haven't met a single engineer who doesn't recognize that a complex software system is infinitely more complex than any engineering project. Software complexity with its myriad of states is not a joke. Your engineering project, no matter the project, has orders of magnitude fewer variables and possible states. Look into the cognitive load-demands of juggling these multiple layers of complexity and abstractions in your head, and you'll start to understand. There's a cognitive loading stage necessary before you can do any work. An interruption wreaks havoc on this, and you have to start over; go through the cognitive load phase again. Depending on the code base that can be a substantial process.

Clubber 9y ago

Are you a developer? I recall studies that say any interruption costs 30 minutes of productivity for developers. When you put it into cost terms, someone talking in an open office for 30 seconds can literally cost hundreds or thousands of dollars of productivity.

watwut 9y ago
I think that his point was that similar drop of productivity happen to other professions. Programming is not the only work that requires focus. Even with programming it does matter what tasks you are working on. Many tasks don't need that much time to get into and out of it, only some do.
- Clubber 9y ago
  >I think that his point was that similar drop of productivity happen to other professions. Oh, I see. Yes, I would wholeheartedly agree with that. To his point, I would say many people on here don't necessarily think developers are special in that regard, but most people are developers and they are speaking on that which they know. I'm a developer (obviously) and I couldn't intelligently speak on how interruptions would disrupt a soft skill profession such as marketing, sales or HR.
  - watwut 9y ago
    Imo, both marketing and sales cause so many interruptions to everyone around, that if their own productivity is harmed by it, they really should do something about it. They are seriously winning the "who is the most noisy most interrupting office" competition.
NikolaeVarius 9y ago
I've worked in multiple roles, including developer. 30 minutes of lost productivity in a dev role is peanuts compared to lost productivity in an engineering job where an hour of engineering work is $300+ of charged time. And with all this complaining about interruptions and lost productivity, its really only the "sexy tech startups" that seem to have ping pong and foosball tables to waste time playing.

DennisP 9y ago

Because if you're doing something complicated, you have a bunch of stuff loaded up in short-term memory, and if an interruption throws it all out then it takes a long time to load it back up again. If you're doing something simple, then it's just a matter of regaining focus. Sometimes devs are doing simple things and interruptions aren't such a big deal, but when we're deep into a debugging session or something it's more of a problem. This is not to say devs are the only people who work on complicated problems like this, but plenty of non-technical people in software shops don't, and tend to not understand that interruptions are a real problem sometimes.

loco5niner 9y ago

Think back to grade school after you learned how to do long division. Then pretend you didn't have pencil and paper, so you had to do it in your head. If someone interrupted you right in the middle, wouldn't it be hard to get that context back and continue? It would for me. At that point, I would most likely have to start again at the beginning.

erikbye 9y ago

Other professions don't need to play computer in their head. I haven't met a single engineer who doesn't recognize that a complex software system is infinitely more complex than any engineering project. Software complexity with its myriad of states is not a joke. Your engineering project, no matter the project, has orders of magnitude fewer variables and possible states. Look into the cognitive load-demands of juggling these multiple layers of complexity and abstractions in your head, and you'll start to understand. There's a cognitive loading stage necessary before you can do any work. An interruption wreaks havoc on this, and you have to start over; go through the cognitive load phase again. Depending on the code base that can be a substantial process.