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Interesting thoughts on a Friday morning....
I spend most of my time at home these days coding in a converted dining room. It's just off the kitchen at the front of the house, has two large 6 foot windows facing the front yard (THAT OPEN - think fresh air), and full of furniture. 20 years ago, I got a deal on a large solid oak lawyer style desk plus a credenza (new would have been $4k+, I got it for $800). At the time, I had a 6' folding plastic table and an itty bitty metal workstation for the monitor.
Setting aside the fact that I'm dancing with retirement, I'm in the planning stages of turning it into a real work area. Suitable for s/w and engineering development with the necessary desk space to spread out various pieces of hardware, sufficient network connectivity and power. Lawyer desk is going... As a side part - since I'm dancing with retirement, I want to be able to use it as a hobby space. For a home office, probably the most expensive issue is power (means running a couple of dedicated circuits from the breaker box). Anyway...
I dusted off this old article from Joel on Software written in 2003 - Bionic Office – Joel on Software[^] and I'm using it as a general guide as to what I want.
I'm working with 120 square feet. It's a 10x12 dining room. So you know, when I bought this house, I had seven children, so a formal dining room was out of the question. Even so, when I go into customer locations, I am APPALLED at cubicle sizes and overall conditions. Maybe 8x8, and the only way they get away with it is modular furniture. The s/w area I go to on occasion is actually better - we need more room to spread equipment, but the entire design is "office" and not workspace. It doesn't help that the building manager who did the redesign was a cheap bas$$$$$. 15 years after this, a memo just came out asking if anyone wanted new chairs.
Is it any wonder why people don't want to go back to the "office"?
My plan is at least 2 walls with large floating work surfaces, outlets flush with the surface as well as a strip outlet under each surface. Wall mount locations for monitors to keep the work surface clear, under surface drawers and a couple of rolling file folder cases for the paperwork I cannot seem to get rid of and a place to put one printer.
Did I miss anything? What one thing would you change in your home office, assuming you have one?
Charlie Gilley
“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
Has never been more appropriate.
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When the weather's nice my preferred office is either on my front porch or my back patio in an Adirondack reclining chair. I have small tables on either side of the two chairs and a chair desk for each as well. My wifi reaches both with a good strong signal.
The chair in the front has the benefit of being in the shade all day. During COVID I was out there working one day and my 20 lb cat was lying at my feet like a dog. A delivery truck stopped and the driver got out, pulled a package out and then stood at the end of the driveway working on his tablet. He finally looks up at me and asks "Is your dog friendly?" My reply was that my cat's a chicken and will be inside before he gets halfway up the driveway. Sure enough, Hunter (my cat) panicked and darted into the house.
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I don't need much more. (I live in a small apartment)
I need a slightly bigger desk for a 2nd monitor (yeah, I'm old school) and a proper drawer unit to hold my computer (now it's on a chair!)
CI/CD = Continuous Impediment/Continuous Despair
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At first I was confused by the shoe closet 
Charlie Gilley
“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
Has never been more appropriate.
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"80% of success is showing up." - Woody Allen.
No matter how you interpret his quote, you won't be successful in anything if all you do is sit around at home all day (although in today's age that's exactly how you make millions with YouTube, OnlyFans, Twitch...).
Personally connecting with people builds trust and relationships that can help you get ahead.
At the office you pick up on things.
I've had plenty of instances where I was stuck and a coworker asked me how it went and I explained the problem and they helped me or even someone who overheard was able to help me.
People also come to you with their problems, giving you new insights.
Of course it "hurts" productivity, if you measure productivity by lines of code.
I have a sort of 50/50 rule for my employees, but I'm a flexible employer.
My employees don't mind, we have fun at the office, they have a nice desk with plenty of space, they get work done, and it's a lot easier asking questions.
I'm convinced that a healthy mix is the best for everyone.
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I'm going to tend to agree with you on the showing up part. I need to get into cube Ville a few days a week. I just don't like the pig sty.
A few years ago, it would rain in my office.
Charlie Gilley
“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
Has never been more appropriate.
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For my "VR/AR" and other "adhoc" gear, I have a "kitchen cart" so I can wheel things around for whatever reason. Everything won't fit in all the right places.
The "standard office" in my experience was 10x15 feet. Yes, a cubicle could be 25% of that. I had the basement finished when I bought my house. My office is the basement. Mind you, the basement celing is 9 feet with bigger windows (a cheap extra at the time; when it was being built; but no one seems to think of).
"Before entering on an understanding, I have meditated for a long time, and have foreseen what might happen. It is not genius which reveals to me suddenly, secretly, what I have to say or to do in a circumstance unexpected by other people; it is reflection, it is meditation." - Napoleon I
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Save space for your 3D printer and filament feeds!
If you start doing hobby stuff, you will want to print/assemble all the time.
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Moved my home office a few months ago to a slightly larger room in a 100+ year old house. Painful process after 20 years accumulation of stuff™.
Furniture and layout largely the same, traded some bookshelves for cupboards.
Main work space is a 180x80cm desk, with a 22cm shelf across the back, 25cm up.
The one big change I made was power distribution. I (and probably most of us) have lots of things that don't draw much, but still require an outlet.
One "master" distribution board ("tradie" type) running 2 x 4 outlet and 2 x 6 outlet boards. Surge suppressors all over, a couple of kJ rated capacity.
No extra extension leads.
So, off one 240V 10A wall outlet, I have a total of 20 downstream outlets, more than half of them committed:
Server
Monitor for server
2 printers (inkjet, laser)
Weather station
Cordless phone
Internet/phone modem-router
Laptop
External monitor for laptop
Speakers
Desk lamp
4 assorted chargers (in switched outlets)
Software rusts. Simon Stephenson, ca 1994. So does this signature. me, 2012
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Yeah, like mine used to be, until the cooling bill became to expensive. 
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How do you change the date?
Gus Gustafson
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Quote: Did I miss anything?
I have same space. I will send you:
30 year old cheap computer hutch.
3 bookcases
2 file cabinets
printer stand with B&W laser printer
plastic drawer stand with scanner
Old, small library table with assorted junk and large monitor for Pi
3 Workstation computers with an expensive ergo keyboard and 34" monitor.
2 very old laptops, one W8.1 and one 9 yo MacBook
2 drawers CD/DVD
drawer of diskettes
4 drawers full of IoT stuff, including Pi's, Arduinos, Photon2 and Beaglebone.
Beer making stuff, including my last batch bottled a week ago.
(enough so far? I have more)
>64
It’s weird being the same age as old people. Live every day like it is your last; one day, it will be.
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For me the most important piece of equipment is a really good office chair. Don't skimp on that. Beyond that I'm minimalist. No printer - why would I want to print stuff, when I can see it on my monitor. No fancy power stuff - just a 6-way extension lead. And my desk is 24" x 48".
That minimalist approach, means I can easily move between my summer and winter offices. In the summer, I use a large, west-facing, unused dining room, which overlooks my back garden. The concrete floor means that it is always cool - even on the hottest of summer days. In the winter I move up to a tiny bedroom - which means I can keep warm without breaking the bank.
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We took our home office space and put in a built-in desk wall to wall on one side (14 feet long). Printer at one end, network stuff at the other.
I have three monitors, work laptop, and a small stack of instruments on the desk.
I am so happy to not be in the office (I got remote status and moved away). The new office cubicles (company got a new building) are only wide enough for two monitors with walls only to the top of the monitors and the cube depth is enough for the monitors and a keyboard. Still that's better than the original plan of long tables with monitors and no walls.
Anyway, being in the office would not change how I work. My coworkers are in Malaysia and Poland. Project manager is in Austria. Product manager is in Brazil. I am not collaborating with local workers, anyway. I am much more productive at home.
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Greetings!
I have a laptop with an Amazon Basic Docking station running 2 27" monitors. also have a wireless keyboard (Logitech K350), wireless mouse, multi-function printer /scanner/fax/copier, a couple of moveable shelves, a stand that the keyboard slides under that supports the two monitors and the docking station. An amazon echo for background music, 2 power bars plugged into an APS unit (650 watt) plus a PC-100A multi-switch to control the flow of power from the APS to the rest of the equipment. Also have a Linux (Mint 21.1) box as a backup for all the stuff (3 PC's) with 8TB of storage and 16GB Ram.
All in/on a built-in desk that is 8 feet long (2.8. meters) with drawers and storage space.
Pretty? Not Really
Functional? Yes
Cegarman
document code? If it's not intuitive, you're in the wrong field 
Welcome to my Chaos and Confusion!
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concur on the chair. 10+ years ago I got tired of the crap the customer was supplying and bought a posturpedic for that office. I have a high end gaming chair for the home office.
The other thing about workspace is high quality displays.
Charlie Gilley
“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
Has never been more appropriate.
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Now that is a distributed team. Where are you located? And what type of software do you develop?
Just curious.
I have one 12 foot wall that is begging for a floating desk. Power is on this wall and next to it, so I can easily wire everything I need. The wall to the left has two 6 foot windows in it, so a bit of a design challenge there.
I went in to the "office" - customer space where I have worked for the last 20 years, and the conditions are sad. Very skilled people working in a junky space. At least there are cubicle walls, but there is no daylight, the lighting is overhead fluorescent (yuck), no fresh air, etc. I know I'm whining, but I am excited about re-doing my home office.
Charlie Gilley
“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
Has never been more appropriate.
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Hi Charlie,
I am on the east coast of Florida. The company's head office is a 4 hour drive away. I haven't made that trip since I moved here (very happy to be where we are now - great community).
I develop and maintain our test software (hardware testing - thus the stack of instruments).
Power is good on my new desk. Under the desk (screwed to the side wall of my sitting location) are 2 surge protector/power strips. One for items that are always on (the aforementioned network gear) and one with the switch near the front so I can easily turn the monitors/laptop power/etc. on and off. There is another surge protector on an other circuit for the printer and instruments.
---
Rob Cole
Programming long enough to have built processor boards with wire-wrap.
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Is not that amazing? I've been supporting a customer in Mexico, their server is in the NE USA, and I have a meeting with people from Connecticut, Iowa and sometimes India weekly. It almost becomes surreal at times.
A very long time ago, I really, REALLY wanted to move to Melbourne, FL (I like to sail). I spent a week in Coco Beach at a training class and fell in love with that place - I love the old times kind of homes. I don't need or do fancy.
Charlie Gilley
“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
Has never been more appropriate.
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| 64
Charlie Gilley
“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
Has never been more appropriate.
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I have 32KB of flash, and 2.5KB of RAM. I have one 128x32 monochrome screen.
Over half that flash, and I don't know how much RAM is taken up by keyboard firmware.
In what's left over some friends and I are making a Tamagotchi game.
Talk about tricky.
Now normally, to dynamically draw to a monochrome screen without readback capability, you have to hold a framebuffer, which takes 512 bytes in this case. We didn't want to use that RAM.
The method we're using is to embed RLE compressed entire screens in the screen's native framebuffer format. That way we don't need any RAM at all to display a screen as it just spits the entire screen from flash. The RLE compression in my tests shrinks the final image size to about 1/3 of the size. Each screen, uncompressed is again, .5KB.
Not sure if we'll be able to do it still, but it's fun.
Check out my IoT graphics library here:
https://honeythecodewitch.com/gfx
And my IoT UI/User Experience library here:
https://honeythecodewitch.com/uix
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