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Thanks for sharing! This is fascinating and I want to try it out. Might be an excuse to learn Scheme, too; something I've been meaning to do. Funny, I see only

Thanks for sharing! This is fascinating and I want to try it out. Might be an excuse to learn Scheme, too; something I've been meaning to do. Funny, I see only 6 comments at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15795468 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15795468 , but https://hn.premii.com/#/comments/15795468 https://hn.premii.com/#/comments/15795468 shows 7. Maybe that 7th was moderated? The comment was way heavy on snark, maybe even mean/rude. But I think it is important because it captures how I'd feel if I walked up to ask someone a question and I saw them type "hey adam" on the command line. Going heads-down is important, but so is overlap, banter, and face-to-face communication. And not all of that should be organized/scheduled. Just let folks know you are going heads-down by putting on headphones, setting your status in your chat/presence app, or blocking out time on your calendar. The comment was: "This tool is specifically designed to help you be less helpful, less friendly, more cold, more passive aggressive to friends and colleagues. I know so many developers who are going to love it."

icebraining 9y ago
It's not the specific comment, the whole account was (hell)banned: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15725778 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15725778
masukomi 9y ago
yeah. also that's completely BS. the data this generates is really only for the person running it. it's to help YOU figure out trends in your interruptions so that you can take measures to address them. Like finding out that people interrupt you between 2 and 3 pm. Maybe prepare that time for not doing anything constructive. Or maybe Bob is always interrupting you about X well you could sit down with bob to make sure he understands it better. Or, maybe lots of people interrupt you about Y... maybe write some documentation on that.. re learning scheme... this is not a good example. seriously. Chicken scheme is great, but this was a quick hack that just kept getting bigger. the codebase is ... not a great place to start at all. Sorry. message me on twitter (@masukomi) or email me at masukomi@masukomi.org and I'll let you know when there's a new version and / or help you get the current version working.
daveFNbuck 9y ago
That comment sounds a lot like my latest performance review. It was actually the constant interruptions that caused me to be less helpful, less friendly, more cold, and more aggressive toward my colleagues. A tool that could help mitigate these interruptions would probably improve my relationship with them a lot. I don't think people realize how disruptive minor interruptions are when multiplied by the size of their team. I can't have impromptu face-to-face chats with 30 people every day and still do my job.
- masukomi 9y ago
  hit me up on twitter (@masukomi) or email masukomi@masukomi and i'll let you know as soon as the new version with better installer is available. Also, I'd love to hear any suggestions you may have regarding what i could do that would help people like you to get a better sense of how interruptions are affecting them / their work .
- WorldMaker 9y ago
  There was a previous role where I was alternating both dev and devops hats and it is easy to wonder if I had tracked interruptions and task switching a bit more formally if I'd have more ammo for a performance review that seemed to come out of nowhere for me. I was told that people thought I wasn't being helpful or communicative enough, but I felt unproductive and like I was doing almost nothing but helping other people most of the time. (In the long view that situation worked out in my favor, surprisingly, but it's an interesting thing to wonder about.)
  - daveFNbuck 9y ago
    Your situation sounds very similar to mine. How did it work out in your favor? Right now it looks like I just have to give up completely on productivity to get a promotion.
    - WorldMaker 9y ago
      It's not a way I can generally recommend, sorry. In that particular case the extra scrutiny meant I was in the first wave of layoffs, and they almost ruined my vacation doing it (I almost got word of the layoff right before heading off on a cruise), but I got a full severance unlike some of the following waves. The first wave was to make the quarter profits more appetizing for sale to new owners, and eventually over the next couple of years the new owners entirely laid off all software development in the region. It seems preferable in retrospect to get a full severance and plenty of time to find the next role (even as stressful as that was in the moment) than to hang on for an ownership change and eventual layoff anyway. Some of my friends hung on and regretted it. Anyway, like I said, that's not generally applicable to every situation, though. I hope you get some good luck or find a way to make the extra scrutiny work for you. Sometimes that extra scrutiny means they care for you and want you to ultimately succeed (and may even depend on you succeeding) and you both need to work together to figure out how to make that happen. That was the case in a further previous role, though in that case that was mostly a sign to me that it wasn't going to work in the long term (a lot of my "bad" behavior were symptoms of stress and ethical anxiety), and I needed to move on.

icebraining 9y ago

It's not the specific comment, the whole account was (hell)banned: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15725778 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15725778

masukomi 9y ago

yeah. also that's completely BS. the data this generates is really only for the person running it. it's to help YOU figure out trends in your interruptions so that you can take measures to address them. Like finding out that people interrupt you between 2 and 3 pm. Maybe prepare that time for not doing anything constructive. Or maybe Bob is always interrupting you about X well you could sit down with bob to make sure he understands it better. Or, maybe lots of people interrupt you about Y... maybe write some documentation on that.. re learning scheme... this is not a good example. seriously. Chicken scheme is great, but this was a quick hack that just kept getting bigger. the codebase is ... not a great place to start at all. Sorry. message me on twitter (@masukomi) or email me at masukomi@masukomi.org and I'll let you know when there's a new version and / or help you get the current version working.

daveFNbuck 9y ago

That comment sounds a lot like my latest performance review. It was actually the constant interruptions that caused me to be less helpful, less friendly, more cold, and more aggressive toward my colleagues. A tool that could help mitigate these interruptions would probably improve my relationship with them a lot. I don't think people realize how disruptive minor interruptions are when multiplied by the size of their team. I can't have impromptu face-to-face chats with 30 people every day and still do my job.

masukomi 9y ago
hit me up on twitter (@masukomi) or email masukomi@masukomi and i'll let you know as soon as the new version with better installer is available. Also, I'd love to hear any suggestions you may have regarding what i could do that would help people like you to get a better sense of how interruptions are affecting them / their work .
WorldMaker 9y ago
There was a previous role where I was alternating both dev and devops hats and it is easy to wonder if I had tracked interruptions and task switching a bit more formally if I'd have more ammo for a performance review that seemed to come out of nowhere for me. I was told that people thought I wasn't being helpful or communicative enough, but I felt unproductive and like I was doing almost nothing but helping other people most of the time. (In the long view that situation worked out in my favor, surprisingly, but it's an interesting thing to wonder about.)
- daveFNbuck 9y ago
  Your situation sounds very similar to mine. How did it work out in your favor? Right now it looks like I just have to give up completely on productivity to get a promotion.
  - WorldMaker 9y ago
    It's not a way I can generally recommend, sorry. In that particular case the extra scrutiny meant I was in the first wave of layoffs, and they almost ruined my vacation doing it (I almost got word of the layoff right before heading off on a cruise), but I got a full severance unlike some of the following waves. The first wave was to make the quarter profits more appetizing for sale to new owners, and eventually over the next couple of years the new owners entirely laid off all software development in the region. It seems preferable in retrospect to get a full severance and plenty of time to find the next role (even as stressful as that was in the moment) than to hang on for an ownership change and eventual layoff anyway. Some of my friends hung on and regretted it. Anyway, like I said, that's not generally applicable to every situation, though. I hope you get some good luck or find a way to make the extra scrutiny work for you. Sometimes that extra scrutiny means they care for you and want you to ultimately succeed (and may even depend on you succeeding) and you both need to work together to figure out how to make that happen. That was the case in a further previous role, though in that case that was mostly a sign to me that it wasn't going to work in the long term (a lot of my "bad" behavior were symptoms of stress and ethical anxiety), and I needed to move on.