Attention to detail

[SemiSalt]

I have found that engineers and naval artichokes are no longer required to learn how to draw properly. I have had to red line drawing's which were impossible to understand, with the wrong line weights and linetypes, poor spelling, poorly arranged views and more. For the money they are paying to go to school you would think a few drafting classes would be included.

We're having these same issues in the Architectural Engineering world. Back when I was in school, we had to take hand drafting courses prior to moving to CAD. Having to pre-layout a sheet of vellum prior to putting any pencils to it made for a well though out and coherent set of drawings.

Those learned lessons have carried through my career to today and I do my best to drill it into the young engineers who come to work for us. Unfortunately, some don't quite get it.

+2. The easier it is to go back and change a set of drawings, the less thought goes into their design up front. A well thought out foundation seems to be lost in the 'DO IT NOW!' world we live in. People throw absolute junk on paper and no one goes back through to check it.

For the most part, programmers no longer flowchart for mostly the same reasons. I'm sure there are projects so complicated that flowcharts are required, but I doubt they are as detailed as they once were (mostly before my time). The reason they were so necessary back in the 1950s was that machine time was scarce, and it was more important to prevent bugs. These days, a programmer can run a test with every three lines of code. I never flowcharted anything. Sometimes, I felt a task was complicated enough to plan in advance, and ended up with a couple of wiggly lines on a page.

[kdh]

The "DO IT NOW!" part is combined with the liberal use of the "delete" key and spelling/grammar checkers/correctors to convince folks that nothing is "final" and they aren't responsible for it being correct. One of Wayne's biggest challenges in training new shipwrights is getting them to measure things accurately. He has found that if they are playing music in their earphones while measuring, they make serious errors. So there is that problem as well.

I do a fair bit of coding in R. I can't imagine working with headphones on my head typing away. There's a lot of code out there that works but is inelegant garbage.

I write code the way I write mathematical proofs: compactly, that is structured conceptually, and so it can be understood when read (at least by a future me when it has to be enhanced).

[Orestes Munn]

I do a fair bit of coding in R. I can't imagine working with headphones on my head typing away.

One of my postdocs, one of my research assistants, and my own daughter all write modeling code in R. All three wear headphones whenever they're at their desks and results suggest they manage very well. I think it's a generational thing and an adaptation to the open office environment.

[VALIS]

I've done some of my best coding listening to music on headphones. The code was Verilog (a hardware description language used to design digital integrated circuits), and also C or C variants. The headphones drown out the external distractions that are fatal to the "flow". I listen to music that I already know quite well, since listening to the radio would be distracting and counterproductive. When I am coding late at night and early AM I can also escape the distractions without needing headphones.

[BeauV]

I agree with Paul's point about drowning out the background noise. For that I literally use "white noise" - yup, static. When sent through my noise canceling headset, it's quite calming. But music, I just can't ignore that. I find myself singing harmony and wondering why the performer did a certain thing or two.

[VALIS]

But music, I just can't ignore that. I find myself singing harmony and wondering why the performer did a certain thing or two.

That's why I listen to music that I know by heart, deeply. This is music that I can recognize within a fraction of a second -- often from the tone of the first snare drum hit. I'ts comfort music, no surprises.

[kdh]

Interesting. I work in a quiet community in a quiet office, with a door, so I guess it's not an issue for me. There is also always a bit of droning from the HVAC system.