Music for coding
January 25th, 2007 |
It’s amazing to me how much the music I’m listening to defines my energy level and output. Couple that with the open office environment we have at Palantir, and I end spending a good portion of the work day listening to music on my headphones. I often use different music for coding than debugging, as the tempo of the two activities feels very different to me. As my coworkers know, I’m a total beat-head and lover of drum machines, but even within that, I like to mix it up a bit. Here’s a quick list of the internet radio I like to listen to while coding:
- HBR1 - the crazy Germans at HBR1 give us Psytrance on tap, probably the most driving of all the genres. The I.D.M. Tranceponder Stream stream is pretty consistently driving and great to code to.
- Proton Radio - really good house music. Probably the best on the web. Consistently good to code to, slightly less energetic than the HBR1 pystrance streams. [stream link here].
- SomaFM - an grand old institution of internet radio, SomaFM is operated out of San Francisco and has streams for every taste. People like Brien, who like things a bit more chill, love their famous flagship stream, Groove Salad. Their trance stream, known as Tag’s Trance Trip is similar to HBR1’s channels, but slightly less psy and a bit more classically trance-ish. There’s a are 11 different streams coming out of SomaFM, all worth checking out.
- Digitally Imported Radio - they have a whole bunch of streams, without fancy names, split by genre. I’m personally a fan of their house and breaks streams, but there are many more.
- BreaksFM - Breaks out of the UK. This station has some great underground, really big breaks. Occasionally, there’s a little too much talking by the DJ over the stream, but the music so exceptional, it more than makes up for it. Stream links: Channel 1 Channel 2.
nice! I totally know what you’re talking about. I’m not a heavy techno/house guy by any means, but for some reason that genre is quite apt for programming.
Also, I’ve noticed the time of day plays in as well. Techno is good in the late evening, but as it gets toward 5 or 6am it wears off, and you need something a little more mellow….. it’s funny, parties are like that too. I guess you run out of energy for keeping up with the fast music.
January 25th, 2007 at 9:33 pm