BusyFlag, the project I previously wrote about here and here, went live last month (update: now defunct!). This post is a collection of miscellaneous thoughts about getting the project developed and released, promotion and a few thoughts about the future of this project.
Category Archives: BusyFlag
Building BusyFlag with Python and Django
For most of my career as a software developer I’ve worked with the Microsoft development stack, starting with Visual Basic and then moving to C# when .NET came out, and using ASP.NET and MVC for web projects. But for my own projects, I tend to be drawn to other languages and technologies. I’ve built a couple of things with PHP, have dabbled in Ruby and I’m currently working through SICP using Scheme.
My current project is BusyFlag, based on the idea I posted a few weeks ago. I’ve decided to implement this in yet another new (to me) language: Python, using Django as the web framework. I feel like I’m pretty late to the Python party! It was first released in 1991, and I first heard about it around 2000 (and completely ignored it until now!)
Idea: BusyFlag
In one section of Peopleware, they talk about how destructive interruptions are to the state of flow, and how important uninterrupted time is for getting work done. They describe what happened at one of their client sites after they started measuring the ratio of uninterrupted hours to time spent in the office (what they call the “E-Factor”):
…there was a nearly organic phenomenon of red bandannas on dowels suddenly sprouting from the desks after a few weeks of E-Factor data collection. No one in power had ever suggested that device as an official Do Not Disturb signal; it just happened by consensus. But everyone soon learned its significance and respected it. Continue reading