Ask HN: What do you listen to/watch/do during coding?

I like the sound of silence so I can concentrate

I don't really listen to anything. Sometimes I try and sometimes it works, but usually it just ends up being distracting. But having said that, a couple of weeks ago I tried working in my building's laundry room and found the sound of the laundry machines very soothing without distracting me.

I try not to have distractions so I can focus on the work.

I frequently listen to DnB and neurofunk. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. I get nostalgia of 2008 keygens blasting dnb at full volume. The cliché aesthetic of early 2000s programming/hacking is just very appealing to me.

Suffocation, dying fetus, gorguts, immolation, incantation, cannibal corpse

Depends. Often nothing, although if I'm feeling sluggish or struggling to motivate myself then music can help.

Classical/orchestral score or otherwise up-tempo music where the vocals are not prominent works best (I'm partial to a bit of instrumental shred metal but often VGM techno remixes find their way in). Might listen to something with prominent vocals if I'm doing something tedious where some distraction can prevent me from procrastinating.

Apex Legends streamers on Twitch. Only really tough problems requires me to have no distractions and most of the time, I solve them using paper. But I like having background noise, as it will provide something else to focus on when I need to reset my thoughts.

Other times, I just listen to my local music library. No criteria other than my mood. I can't listen to podcasts or any informative things as I tune them out when working.

Depending on the complexity of the task, I often listen to podcasts like twit or lan which I can tune out if concentrating. Factual podcasts are best, like news or history, nature, etc. A lot of programming tasks are really repetitive and boring (like waiting for this to compile, testing..), so having something to listen to does help

Sometimes you just need silence though!

Low Fi electronic music, white noise (Serverroom, Coffeeshop Noises, that kinda thing), Classical music.

Depends on my mood and the kind of task.

Radio. I can't listen to podcasts, I would just miss the entire content, and eventually would just be background noise.

Similarly just non stop music will eventually feel monotonous.

I like having music, but being broken up occasionally with chatter, news, and music i might not pick (or new music) is the ideal balance.

Ideally? No noise or sound, provided some noise isolation/cancellation.

Otherwise, https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5huE8wwXf6h9rjWtjEuzVZ?si=...

Club d’Elf live shows: https://archive.org/details/ClubdElf

They are almost entirely instrumental music with strong Moroccan trance influence.

aside from numerous personal Spotify playlists across many genres:

https://musicforprogramming.net/

https://somafm.com/groovesalad/

It used to be edm, then trap music.

But now I exclusively listen to Amapiano if I am coding (mostly TxC djs)

Search for 'lo-fi study music' on Youtube or 'ambient space music'

Philip Glass, Buckethead, Pink Floyd, Thierry de Brunhuof Chopin recordings.

Access to Arasaka, Weldroid

Lofi music

lofi music and retro anime