Comment by jasode | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jasode | Hacker News Reader

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>, I believe that slack in general is a waste of time in a TEAM. Why not have meetings or meet up in real life rather than hiding behind a screen without any physical interaction?

In the book "Facebook Effect" by David Kirkpatrick[1], one programmer described how Mark Zuckerberg and the other programmers extensively chatted on AOL AIM even though they all sat at the same table elbow-to-elbow.

When one of the new programmers responded to one of MZ's chat texts by just looking up and vocalizing an answer, MZ didn't look away from his laptop to respond. Basically, the new programmer unintentionally broke the silence etiquette. The early Facebook team was using chat as virtual hallway conversations.

It seems the "correct" way to use realtime chat depends on differing personalities?

[1] there was more than one chat story in the book and this was one of them (but don't know for sure if Google Books link will show you the page excerpt): https://books.google.com/books?id=PxTvbM-VCPEC&pg=PA137&lpg=...

Yeah. When minimizing off-topic chatter and using the chat features carefully (e.g. threads or private messages in addition to channels), chat hits a perfect balance of immediate but asynchronous coordination.

Personalities aside, chats are a track record (and searchable). Imagine remembering what your colleague asked you last Friday, and you promised to answer. Compare it with scrolling up and finding the exact question.

I'll take phone conversations to email (including a quick recap of the conversation) for precisely this reason. A searchable record of business comms can be invaluable.

Did FB really start with library rules? My understanding is it’s the opposite now, stretching the limits of construction technology to build the largest possible open office.

Open offices with library rules often work fine. The problem is more when you have no rules, at which point it's an interruption free for all.

Libraries are the ultimate open offices after all. Tons of work used to and still gets done in libraries, and they're pretty much all open tables.

All the more reason to have library rules.

Every in-office job I've had has been the same way. Not that we didn't ever talk in person, but so much of the normal communication happened over text, even if we were in the same room.

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