When I have music dominating my ear canals, I seem to be able to slam out code faster and better than usual. I don’t need it to be very loud, but it needs to be loud enough to drown out the ambient noise. I don’t know if the pace of the music makes me want to keep up, or if a lifetime of watching action heroes kick ass to a soundtrack has primed me to kick my program’s ass to my own soundtrack. Regardless, nothing else seems suitable to get me into the zone where I’m a conqueror who uses code like a sword swung from horseback.
Some of my favorite coding music falls into the category of gothic metal or industrial. Some examples: KMFDM, Pig, NIN, After Forever, Nightwish. What about you? Do you use music to get into the zone? If not, what do you do?
Incidentally, this is tangentially related to Nate’s post about mind-enhancing drugs possibly being of benefit.
I do sometimes listen to music while I code.
I usually will put on some tracks and then when they stop playing I don’t notice because I am too absorbed in what I am doing.
Last night I was working on a project, and everytime I would get some new bit of functionality done I would “celebrate” by turning on Suspicious Minds covered by Dwight Yocum. And then get back to work, the song would be over and I wouldn’t notice until the next problem was solved.
Though sometimes I do like silence as well. I will often work in silence, and that doesn’t bother me at all. I like steady sounds, like fans or heating systems. It’s comforting.
Lately I am jamming to the new Death Cab for Cutie. It’s good hackin’ music. Right now however I am listening to the steady thrum of this ReadyNas fan.
At one of my jobs, we threatened to have a system set up that would activate a disco ball (with lights) and play “disco inferno” each time we marked a bug as fixed. As time goes by, I want to do this more and more 🙂
SomaFM all the way! Groove Salad 60% of the time, and Secret Agent 40% of the time.
Good stuff!
I listen to a lot of stuff, and actively seek music that goes with many different moods or purposes.
Generally I listen to music that’s either calm and unwinding (new age, ambient, folk, etc), or fun and whacky (j-rock, psychobilly), or badass and engrossing (metal).
At work, I often need to phase out senseless banter and soccer debates, and focus into large codebases.
The key is concentration; in general, any music that “goes into a zone” can also help you get into your own zone.
For me, nothing works better than speedy death and thrash metal. It has to be loud and fast and engrossing, but more importantly, it has to be vicious and adrenaline pumping; it has to take me away.
Nothing gets me into the zone faster or deeper than drinking insane amounts of coffee with no sugar and cranking up my headphones with violent music that makes me clench my jaws and grit my teeth and grin like a demented axe murderer.
It could be about vikings charging into battle in overpowering fits of rage, or zombie break outs full of gore and mutilation, or epic battles between mythological beasts and war gods.
That’s what works for me, but other things could work for other people, like techno or progressive rock.
If you can feel it building up and picking its stride, then cling to it; let it dance with your thoughts and pull you forward. Before you realize, you’ll be flying high enough to break a bone from the fall.
And heh, the disco ball sounds like a terrific idea. You could probably get away with that in a place like Google.
I can tell you love music and coding, too 🙂 I wholeheartedly agree with the sensation that the music carries you off somewhere else. It’s almost as if it creates a world where there’s nothing but music and focus.
I just added some Otep and In This Moment to my arsenal. The code doesn’t stand a chance 🙂