Simple question, what do you typically listen to while writing code? Music, podcasts, silence? Also, does it depends on what you're working on? Thanks and have a great day.
I feel like video game music is perfect for coding - it's not designed to draw too much attention to itself and provides a nice vibe. Rainwave.cc is a great (free) stream for that.
Other than that, jazz/classical when I want to relax, electronic music when I'm in the zone.
I love listening to The Books when I'm really trying to focus and concentrate. They are disjointed and most of their "lyrics" are just snippets from old TV / movie / radio shows so there is nothing for my brain to latch onto and follow along. I can just focus on the problem at hand. Might not be for everyone but once I found them I knew I had struck gold. I've been listening to them for about 5 years now.
Mostly white noise and sounds of rain and thunderstorms.
If I'm doing something more mundane I'll often play some
PluralSight or some programming podcast in the background. I've learned to tune out the talking until something interesting comes up.
Perhaps because it's playing at 1.5x speed my brain doesn't quite perceive it as a human voice. Most music distracts me, perhaps due to my musical background.
I built a curated radio station for myself and friends - http://voyager.fm. Depending on the mood, I can be selective of the music I work with, but most of the time I just want to turn on something and go.
Almost always silence. Sometimes if I'm having a bad mood of some kind, I'll put on something that's soothing or uplifting for me, basically just any of my favorite music that isn't too sentimental or lyrically interesting... but mostly, I find it easiest to concentrate in silence.
(This makes it annoying to work in environments where the only way to not overhear conversations is to put on music in headphones...)
I always listen to music while I work. If I am learning new things or editing a manuscript, I turn the volume quite low and only play music that I am very familiar with. Here are some albums/sets I listen to most often:
Am goa head too. Have nearly a 48 hours worth of tunes locally. Any favorite producers? Am always on the look out for new or unheard of twisted bass and acid beats.
I quite often listen to loud film scores - think Inception/Hans Zimmer. Google Play Music has a good radio station for it and I imagine the others do too!
Listened to dnb mostly 2000-2008, some metal, more recently chillwave stuff like Tycho. The name of the game in coding work is to control anxiety and stress long term. I also listen to this week in tech and sometimes other related podcasts.
My default is Lindsey Stirling[1]. Her music is up-tempo instrumental. I'll also put on a Pandora station seeded on Natalie McMaster.
Sometimes I'm doing something where I'm spending a bunch of time waiting on the machine and I will listen to a history audiobook. Recommendations:
- Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman
- Souls of Black Folk by WEB DuBois
- to answer the Question DuBois raises at the end: Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond
- 1776 by David McCulloch
- Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow
- not history, but if you've only read Lord of the Rings on paper, you really should listen to the Audiobook.
Also lately I've been repeatedly listening to the songs from a musical about a certain bastard orphan son of a whore...
[1] https://m.youtube.com/user/lindseystomp