I am in agreement with Travis. The workplace is a place of work. But the Developer should be comfortable and for the most part the environment should not be forced to be sterile. My cube is messy, my files are in disarray, I have piles of stuff on the desktop, and I have personal pictures and stuff on the walls. I put us the wallpaper I want on the computer and install any software I think I need. I listen to my music all day long and take a walk when I need to no matter what time it is.

I use to have hair to the shoulder, a long full beard and have had a mustache for the past 40+ years. I wear jeans to work and have not worn a tie for decades. For the most part I am a reformed 70's West Coast Developer. We use to play catch with a football in the office, smoke cigars at the desk, played basketball with a paper ball in the computer room, and worked over 70 hours a week developing software people did not even imagine could be developed. We often slept either on the couch in the break room or on the computer room floor. We yelled in fun and fury and worked on code as if it were the passion of life. We broke ground in some of the most challenging areas of the field with primitive tools that could barely do the job. It was and we were wild.

Over the years we were reformed, changed, we "matured". But many lost the vision, the dream faded and they stopped developing and soon retired or quit. Many walked out of the profession and into oblivion and have not been seen since. But some changed and modified their behavior and conformed to the "civility" of the office. But we still have the glint in our eye!

I really miss Billy the Kid!