I agree with the premise of the article and it draws some nice analogies, but there are so many of these "don't interrupt a developer when they're programming"

I agree with the premise of the article and it draws some nice analogies, but there are so many of these "don't interrupt a developer when they're programming" posts now that it's starting to encourage conceit among developers. I'm a developer myself and get the point, but there's a bit of give and take when you work with other people. I used to do 'the zone' thing a lot, particularly when I didn't know what I was doing and wasn't designing things properly first. It's only later on I learnt to think first and pick up a pen - it's much easier to handle interruptions when you can turn back to a diagram or flowchart. Coding's really the last thing, and it's pretty much incidental to solving the problem itself. So do try to minimise your distractions, but don't expect everyone should fit in around your schedule all the time.