Subj : Re: Constant interruptions and left brain - right brain thing
To   : comp.programming
From : Phlip
Date : Wed Sep 28 2005 04:43 am

Anon wrote:

> I've read several times lately on the web and in books about how coding
> requires left brain and when interrupted it knocks you into right brain
> mode.

It is very sad that people who would never indulge in cartomancy or 
astromancy (astrology) consider the pseudoscience of "bicameral mind" 
theories to be more than a metaphor.

The problem with interruptions to Flow is that programming requires filling 
your short-term memory up with a structure shaped like your progrom's object 
model, executing in memory. People who can't do this ("where do all those 
pointers point to again?") can't program.

Interruptions destroy this short-term memory. Verbal interruptions replace 
it with your verbal abilities. Nothing to do with the dichotomy between 
logic and intuition.

The solution I have found works best is Instant Messaging, and chat. 
Sometimes I would rather IM someone 2 workbenches over from me than yell to 
them.

Chat provides an _optional_ interruption. I send the message, go back to 
work, and wait for the recipient to chat back. This is better than e-mail 
(which we pull only hourly), because it _must_ come from within a team.

When you write lots of unit tests, and run them after every few edits, each 
test run reenforces your mental model of the code's state. That's why you 
should consciously predict the result of each run - either passing, or 
failing because the test is waiting for you to add a new code ability. 
Shrinking the size of each edit between test runs makes interruptions more 
manageable. When you return from the interruptions, the tests make 
rebuilding your mental model easier.

This technique complements the help desk tickets I specified in the other 
post.

-- 
  Phlip
  http://www.greencheese.org/ZeekLand  <-- NOT a blog!!!

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