A brief observation that there surely cannot be a better album to code to than the original soundtracks from the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. Debugging becomes a thing filled with drama and orchestral grandeur. Perhaps as whatever god you believe in fully intended it to be? Check that playlist.
In quieter moments, such as designing UI, I can highly recommend endless repeats of Kind of Blue. My record is 3 days straight.
That is all.
While “Kind Of Blue” is an amazing album, and surely serves for this purpose, my coding-ears also like more electronic stuff… ever tried something by Squarepusher or Amon Tobin, Aphex Twin?
When debugging more “powerful” sounds can support your angry with your programs not working :D, like The Prodigy or Rammstein
That’s, however, just to not ruin your copy of that Miles’s album, three days is a lot :P
My favourite album to code to has always been the soundtrack to “Sneakers” — nothing else I’ve heard keeps me in a heavy coding mood as well.
My favorite is also Pirates (I listen primarily to 2 and 3). I also listen to other soundtrack music, including a couple of the songs from The Lion King, also composed by Hans Zimmer.
In addition, I listen to Requiem for a Dream’s Lux Aeterna.
I listen to a lot of Progressive Metal when I need to crank a lot of code out (anything fast, widdly and complicated).
I was kinda shocked to see we share the Kind Of Blue album as a good design/thought process CD.
Progressive Metal is replaceable by bepop or nutty ‘widdly’ classical like Wieniawski or Paganini, but of course that is just me.
I have found I can’t listen to new music when I am concentrating, and I have to stay away from the songs I know how to play really well otherwise I tend to pick up the guitar in the office and play along which does bad things to my productivity.
I have to admit that I’m extremely surprised to find that someone else in the Mac development world has found the secret of Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue to be perfect for extended programming sittings. It’s unusually perfect for this kind of repetitive task, and I’ve been trying to find other music that fits the bill this well. So far I’ve only come up with Rodrigo y Gabriela’s self-titled album, but nothing else! Anyone have an idea about more perfect music for coding?
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