"On the subway, I'm missing a lot of my normal setup [...] I don't even have an internet connection"

There is no cellular data in the NYC subway? I had to look it up online and apparently there is but coverage is quite patchy. That's very surprising to learn, NYC being one of the most developped and richest cities in the world. By comparison, and from my experience, the Parisian metro has excellent coverage.

I love to program on my commute. When I took NJ Transit bus, when I took NY Ferry, when I took MetroNorth.

But I’ve never felt comfortable opening a laptop on the NYC subway. It wasn’t about the safety that OP describes. It was about the culture and the physical configuration (facing middle with strap hangers vs facing front/back). It just didn’t feel right in the subway.

I do miss the MetroNorth Bar Car! I could drink and code and it was jovial.

A couple of weeks ago I was in Copenhagen, and had to take the metro back and forth a bunch of times throughout the day. I noticed some guy riding the "Cityringen" line, which goes in a loop, working on his laptop - coding in some CLI editor. Noticed the same guy a couple of times throughout the day, sitting in the same spot.

Figured he just used the metro as his workplace.

30 minutes is enough? I hope this person doesn't complain about "flow state" when I interrupt him by dropping by at his desk then!

I have always enjoyed it. I have even gotten comments "can you really do anything in such a short period of time" but i have found that even 20 min sessions on a commute can be effective. For a major project I did the final push on such a commute just hoping the push could complete before the train reached the tunnel without coverage, and it did

I switched from a 1h30 of commute by bus to 15 minutes by car a while back ; then I switched jobs and now have 1h total commute. It's kind of annoying that I can't do anything of substance during this time because I'm driving. I used to read on the bus and while I don't miss the bus, I certainly miss the reading.

I've done a lot of programming in public transport. It helps to shut out the environment with blasting black metal, pick an album that is almost entirely screaming tremolos, and then run a script with a sleep or Process.send_after or something that throws up send-notify bubbles when it's about time to pack up.

Reminds me of this metafilter thread [0] where people asked/shared less usual work locations. Hotel lobbies are a great one, as have laundromats sometimes been in the past.

An intercity train with wifi/cell service (and tea!) is an incredible focussing function as well. You got 3 hours and a beautiful not too distracting view. Go!

P.s. I also suggested to Stephen that he gets a Nathan Fielder “laptop harness” for his subway work..? Has anyone tried this?

[0] https://ask.metafilter.com/316039/Ideas-for-workspaces-pleas...

I've done this! https://a.co/d/80C2EQ5 is the harness I use for it. It's main problem is you look like a total dork, but picking up potential partners on the subway is a faux pas anyway, so that's less of an issue, but still.

I once had an 1.75 hour commute each way, 3.5 hours daily. I had to program during the commute---otherwise there weren't enough hours in the day to get my work done. There were periods of laptop-closed thinking, but no daydreaming or looking at the scenery. No Internet connectivity, so I had to plan carefully.