I admit that it is probably an age bias but this has always seemed nutty to me.  Bill Gates has stated that one of the best things that he ever did for Microsoft&#x27;s productivity was to give all his programmers offices.<p>Sure you can use headphones but I am most productive in absolute quiet.  I can just imagine having headphones on with a low level of annoying white noise and I am deep into a difficult problem and then someone taps me on the shoulder.<p>I&#x27;d leap up pulling the laptop with me until my headphones jerked off.  Somebody would ask me do you know where they put the coffee?  I&#x27;d answer that I don&#x27;t drink it and then spend another hour getting back to where I was before only to have someone else tap me on the shoulder, arrrgghhh.<p>I am willing to bet that the best programmers Facebook has got are hunched in the stairwell or a janitors closet getting work done.