The submission may be little more than amazon-whoring, but this little discussion about distraction we're having here is pretty good. Another interesting part

The submission may be little more than amazon-whoring, but this little discussion about distraction we're having here is pretty good. Another interesting part of the second study was the finding that music was less distracting for those students involved in honors courses, and for the most competent it appeared to help them. This fits with the fact that the task was about learning java, and as such is not the best model of the average HN user's day. While we all maintain that "every day is a learning experience" and we're constantly taking on new skills, an 8 hour workday spent writing rails code is manifestly not the same as taking your first steps into Java at university.