Agreed. I personally work well in an open office. Half way through the article, or really it was just citing other peoples research with no other analysis, I got mad.
It just comes back to -- if you want to prove a point there will be data out there to help you justify it. This article is trying to pretend to be objective, but really is just citing a slew of studies that, presumably, had really small sample sizes. /rant
There is no one answer. IMO an ideal office would have both options.
To me, the real problem is noise, not the lack of an office. I work very well in libraries, which are generally very quiet. I don't work at all well in open offices where people are constantly having phone conversations[1]. The "quiet room" that was provided at Sun Micro that I described in a post below also worked very well for me. Interestingly, I also work well in coffee shops, provided that there are no audible cell phone conversations (again, person to person conversations just aren't that distracting to me).
Overall, while I agree with you that it's not a one-size-fits-all situation, I think it's fair to say that loud noisy offices where developers are put next to a manager or marketing worker who is on the phone all day are generally harmful to a developer's productivity.
[1] These seem to be a worse distraction than person-to-person conversations. I've read that this is a common reaction, probably because people try to "fill in" the unspoken words, causing a greater cognitive impairment.
It's my first start up job. This is great advice. Gonna continue working hard, have a talk with them, and start shopping, but this time for not a supporting role.
