When I was first getting into software development, I had a thing for The Doors, so I coded to songs like Riders in the Storm.
When I was early in my coding career, I had a Pink Floyd phase.
I recall one tight deadline where I had Nirvana on loop for hours.
Kanye was my go-to for productive coding sessions for a long time.
I go back to these places often to resurrect the headspace I was in at the time. Does anyone else do this?
Oldest comments (32)
Those are some lit names up there 🔥🔥
Great taste across a wide variety of styles 🎵🎵
Thank you :)
@ben out of context have you ever tried to code your music with ruby sonic-pi.net/
I like music, but don't have a lot of personal music-creating abilities. I have, however, recommended Sonic Pi to my brother @mikeydorje who is a musician and Ruby developer.
I don’t code but I recruit coders which involves a lot of sourcing candidates and when I’m sourcing I like listening to glam and punk rock!
The last project I work on was all inspired by Kansas.
Back in 2014 I was working together with the best programmer I have met to this day. He was as crazy as he was good. During one of our way-too-often "it needs to be done by tomorrow, but we have a week of outstanding work" codathons, a couple of trends hit all at once: we had standing desks and we decided not to sit down until it's done. He blasted a 5 hour dubstep playlist and soon we were hacking away to the beats as if they dictated our typing. I remember being completely in the zone for hours and none of us spoke a word for most of the night. Although exhausting, it was a magical experience.
I 100% recall getting my first laptop at 16 and coding computer science problems (some sort of leetcode nowadays) with Lana Del Rey on loop THE WHOLE NIGHT. Not even sure why, never had a Lana phase or liked her music that much, but it was just comforting mixing Lana tears with coding tears 👀
Perfect answer
Try listening indie classicals , absolute boosters to productivity 💯
I always code (or do anything really) listening to my favorite singer Sigrid but when I want to really focus I listen to my all-time favorite music The Theory of everything Movie soundtrack
And Thanks to one of many of your amazing features I can embed them
Everybody knows by Sigrid is amazing! And if you know what happened behind the scenes in the making of the justice league movie, it all makes sense
Finally Moving - Pretty Lights always takes me back to bootcamp! Music was always on, and that song was a staple.
I have too much of a diverse playlist (multiple albums during the day) these days to pinpoint one, but when I was in university in the early '90s, I remember working on my Algorithms class assignments almost exclusively listening to Motörhead.
There are a few albums I listened to near the end of the day in the first few weeks of my first junior dev job, back in the "honeymoon" period of getting the job and before I got seriously burned out. I have such a fondness for those songs, but I haven't listened to some of them since those times since I feel like they only deserve to be played once I find myself in the position of working a new job I'm really excited about again.
"Nevergreen" by Emancipator is the first song on my Spotify Programming playlist and it's a testament to Classical Conditioning: as soon as I hear the first few notes, my mind is primed for coding
open.spotify.com/track/6DsGpDGIDRv...
Full playlist: open.spotify.com/playlist/1nEJ6Tec...
Halsey's latest album reminds me of my iOS project.
Matt Woods' "Impression" reminds me of the red-eye flight I took to a fulfillment center to help resolve a Sev-1 issue.
open.spotify.com/track/6dpOUiMcBUu...
Lately I've found the Doom Eternal soundtrack to be oddly focusing. Video game music in general is especially good for focus and attention without being distracting. However, sometimes such "ambient" music can be too soothing and lulls me into wanting a nap.
open.spotify.com/playlist/4IeI5PQY...
Other than that, I'm generally big fan of The Weeknd, Lana del Rey, & Halsey. The only time I listen to music is coding. (If I'm driving or doing chores I tend to listen to podcasts or audiobooks). So I find that music in general just makes me think of coding, but still funny that songs about drugs, sex, and love remind me of coding.
Not at all. If I play music while programming, it is not music that actively registers as it would be a distraction. Unless my brain is focused too much on the problem at hand, then any music disappears.
A long time ago I was in a serious flow and played a single popular annoying boy band song on repeat to annoy my flat mates. I have no idea what song it was, or which boy band, or even how long it was on repeat.
From my experience, memory/sensorial association occurs whether you're conscious of it or not. I.e.: You may not recall what song it was, but there's a good chance that if you stumble upon that song it will bring back memories from that time.
I was working on a university assignment one night writing a compression algorithm and had a Pirate Metal playlist pumping. I think I was working on some Bit to Byte conversion stuff at the time and write buffers to make it more performant. I remember finishing that, rattling my now empty can of energy drink and thinking "That was a good solid 3 or 4 hours of coding, I got a heap done, I should take a break". Then I looked at the clock; it had only been 30 minutes. I don't think I've ever experienced the same flow since, but Pirate Metal is my go to when I want to drown out the world and work now.
Not for coding, but I listened to a lot of Daft Punk while studying and doing practice exams in high school and uni. In the end I had One More Time on repeat to the point where when I would be tap my feet to the tune for the entire time I was in the exam room. I still put One More Time on repeat when I need music to help me zone out and work through something.
What Pirate Metal bands do you listen to? I can listen to Alestorm all day while programming. The only other I know is Swashbuckle and I find it distracting with their shorter songs.
Mainly Alestorm. I don't generally pick my bands but instead use Youtube playlists and Spotify radios.
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