nastygibbon

I work as a developer at a large company in a large open office. We have many scrum teams and communication via Slack is normal. My coworkers frequently walk up to my desk to start conversations. I would like to encourage them to use Slack instead at certain times such as when I'm under pressure with a project but I'm not sure how to signal this to them. I have too many colleagues to simply ask them kindly not to distract me at certain times so asking the people around me not to distract me if I have headphones is ineffective.

Do you have any strategies signalling to your colleagues (many of whom you might not know) that you would prefer not to be distracted at certain times?

I had a disagreement with an experienced colleague today. I argued that following the changes and developments of a particular technology or language and learning about their history if you are new to them is helpful. It can give you an idea about why the language changed and for what reasons and the direction it was or is trying to move toward. He completely disagreed with me and asked me to name one example of where knowing about a change in the language was beneficial. I gave my answer but it didn't seem to convince him. What does HN think?