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Comment by iyulaev | Hacker News Reader

IIRC Peopleware pointed out a study where they compared two groups of programmers, those working in a quiet environment and those working with music. Given identical assignments, both groups completed it in roughly the same (median) amount of time. However, the assignment was such that there was a "shortcut", i.e. if you thought hard enough about the requirements a much easier solution was possible. Only the programmers in the quiet group got this shortcut. Thought this was interesting.

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>>both groups completed it in roughly the same (median) amount of time.

Sometimes if there is no other option people just adapt. Even if it is uncomfortable.

Besides, it also depends on the tasks you are doing. I can pretty much code any regular problem-solution pattern in a noisy set up. But if I need to debug/trouble shoot. Or if I'm doing something new which I haven't done before I need some silence and undisturbed time to focus and get it done.

Music/noise isn't the issue so much as lyrics for me (or background phone calls, etc if we're talking about general noise).

same here! i generally listen to classical when writing code or just needing to THINK

How was it a shortcut if both groups completed it at the same time?

I think the point was that the programmers working in the environment with music produced solutions with more complexity. Over the lifetime of a project that complexity is going to add up.

Only the median was the same. The way I interpret this is that a quiet work environment sort of "unlocked" the ability to see the shortcut for a small number of workers. However, most still used the normal method and had the same performance as the workers with music, thus the same median.

It was a bit more than a shortcut.

    The Cornell experiment, however, contained a hidden wild card. The
    specification required that an output data stream be formed through
    a series of manipulations on numbers in the input data stream. For
    example, participants had to shift each number two digits to the
    left and then divide by one hundred and so on, perhaps completing
    a dozen operations in total. Although the specification never said
    it, the net effect of all the operations was that each output number
    was necessarily equal to its input number. Some people realized
    this and others did not. Of those who figured it out, the overwhelming
    majority came from the quiet room.

This experiment sounds interesting. Do you have a link to the source?

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