I've always felt that I was superbly productive at night, but when I measured how much I actually got done, I was working 3-4 times more slowly than I do in the morning or just before dinner. Sleep deprivation does weird things to your perception of time; it's easy to think that you've been busily coding away, only to find that you've written about 2 functions and it's 4 hours later. So without hard data, I'm a little skeptical.
I do find that having nobody around me is a huge boon to productivity, enough that it can sometimes offset the nighttime effect. It's not just the lack of interruptions: I've found that the mere presence of people makes me concentrate on the work less, whether they're talking/IMing me or not.
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I've always felt that I was superbly productive at night, but when I measured how much I actually got done, I was working 3-4 times more slowly than I do in the morning or just before dinner. Sleep deprivation does weird things to your perception of time; it's easy to think that you've been busily coding away, only to find that you've written about 2 functions and it's 4 hours later. So without hard data, I'm a little skeptical.
I do find that having nobody around me is a huge boon to productivity, enough that it can sometimes offset the nighttime effect. It's not just the lack of interruptions: I've found that the mere presence of people makes me concentrate on the work less, whether they're talking/IMing me or not.