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The cost of interrupted work (2023)

(blog.oberien.de)
282 points _vaporwave_ | 17 comments | 23 Aug 25 21:45 UTC | HN request time: 0.002s | source | bottom
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Waterluvian ◴[23 Aug 25 23:25 UTC] No.44999915[source]▶
Some days an interruption will throw me off my train of thought, and I spend the remaining six hours collecting discarded bottles and railway ties for hopeful use somewhere, somehow, sometime.

Other days an interruption costs me pretty much nothing.

I’m still trying to figure out how to tell which of those days I’m going to have and whether to just not log into Slack for the day.

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karmakaze ◴[24 Aug 25 01:26 UTC] No.45000493[source]▶
I've found one thing that minimizes interruption cost: pair programming. At one startup we pair programmed all day, every day. Resuming from an interruption was almost seamless. Can't explain it, only experienced it.
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SoftTalker ◴[24 Aug 25 02:00 UTC] No.45000671[source]▶
If only I wouldn’t prefer stabbing myself in the leg with a rusty knife over pair programming.
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dylan604 ◴[24 Aug 25 02:05 UTC] No.45000690[source]▶
I've never done official pair programming, but I get frustrated when I'm not on the keyboard as I find others think slower.
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1. kmoser ◴[24 Aug 25 02:40 UTC] No.45000842[source]▶
Have you tried plugging in a second keyboard and taking over where necessary? I do a lot of remote work in which my colleague and I work on the same computer and it's quite useful for either of us to jump in with our own keyboard (and mouse). It does take a bit of occasional verbal negotiation to agree on who really knows what to do (and can do it fastest) but if you communicate well then it's pretty easy.
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2. bn-l ◴[24 Aug 25 03:08 UTC] No.45000983[source]▶
Damn I wish I had a relationship with someone like that.
3. karmakaze ◴[24 Aug 25 03:30 UTC] No.45001098[source]▶
Right I only call using the same computer pair programming. Now working remote (with Tuple app) it's still two keyboards/mice on one computer (sometimes mine, sometimes theirs), though it's infrequent for specific tasks.
4. Waterluvian ◴[24 Aug 25 04:55 UTC] No.45001516[source]▶
The wildest thing I experienced once was this experimental “two cursors, two highlights, two clipboards” setup. I badly wish that had caught on. It was like Google Docs but Local Multiplayer.
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5. nine_k ◴[24 Aug 25 05:18 UTC] No.45001604[source]▶
One of my previous employers, Dynaboard, built approximately that.

The Show HN post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30261598

6. ustad ◴[24 Aug 25 05:41 UTC] No.45001693[source]▶
Can you say more about your setup? Does it require extra hardware/software?
replies(1): >>45006625 #
7. EagnaIonat ◴[24 Aug 25 05:48 UTC] No.45001724[source]▶
There is evidence that two people on the keyboard can increase productivity.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kl6rsi7BEtk

replies(1): >>45005314 #
8. stevetron ◴[24 Aug 25 13:29 UTC] No.45004116[source]▶
What about an editor that is designed for multiple people to edit the same document? Tie the second keyboard, the second mouse, and a second cursor as resources together and independently edit?
replies(1): >>45005212 #
9. goosejuice ◴[24 Aug 25 15:41 UTC] No.45005075[source]▶
Tuple.app does this. It's pricey but an excellent product.
10. el_benhameen ◴[24 Aug 25 15:54 UTC] No.45005212[source]▶
I do this, but with a second monitor and second machine, and then we use git to synchronize our work
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11. rubslopes ◴[24 Aug 25 16:06 UTC] No.45005314[source]▶
Of course I knew which video it was before even clicking.
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12. konsalexee ◴[24 Aug 25 17:46 UTC] No.45006166[source]▶
If you enjoy Tuple, we just silently open-sourced Hopp (one of the maintainers here), we are still in Beta era, but would love some feedback!
13. godelski ◴[24 Aug 25 18:18 UTC] No.45006400[source]▶
Just a reminder for everyone, you can do this with tmux. So you could even just sit next to each other (or not) and be on your own machines.
14. kmoser ◴[24 Aug 25 18:47 UTC] No.45006625[source]▶
We're just using TeamViewer. I connect remotely to my colleague's computer while they are sitting in front of their keyboard.
15. karmakaze ◴[24 Aug 25 19:11 UTC] No.45006815[source]▶
I sometimes wish the separate clipboards could be turned off, or have a way of pasting from the other's clipboard.
16. dcminter ◴[24 Aug 25 20:31 UTC] No.45007501{3}[source]▶
I was rather expecting it to be this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnJnejHhjtI
17. tstenner ◴[25 Aug 25 05:21 UTC] No.45010478{3}[source]▶
With VS Code and IntelliJ you can even do it in the same documents at the same time