Programming is usually a lonely job. Yes, I know a lot about XP and pair programming and all, but still I insist: programming is a lonely job most of the time. By definition.
You need to be deep in the context of what you're trying to do in order to do it well. You need concentration and little or no distractions to write the code. It's even more true when debugging, scratching your head why the hell the thing you just typed is doing some sh*t instead of working as expected.
You need to feel the keyboard and the screen as natural extensions of your body. You need to twist your brain to think like the computer, mentally executing code and creating and freeing object graphs in your head. Incoming mails, phone calls or a dude sitting next to you eating crackers and sipping Coke do no good.
So more often than not, when you solve a tricky problem, when you finally, after hours of debugging and cursing compilers and frameworks, make the code right and the thing just starts working, you're still alone.
So don't be shy, tap yourself on the back and tell yourself how well you did it. Say it: I am a f*cking ROCKSTAR!
But do it mentally unless you are sitting in a dark room surrounded by mountains of pizza boxes and beer cans and nobody could see you. Otherwise people will think you are a jerk. They just won't understand.
