True. But cubicles don't completely eliminate noise either. If you're working in a space with people, some noise is inevitable. Unless you have your own complete closed office, which is just really unrealistic in most cases.

@ericd If you're working for a small company, and that company can actually find an office space setup like that, good for you. It will not work for larger companies because the real estate footprint would be unwieldy. I have yet to work at a company for which closed offices for everyone was even remotely possible, given the fiscal and office space availability constraints.

The companies I'm describing range from fortune 500s to research organizations to small startups. They didn't have it for 100% of people, but they did for every dev/researcher that I could see. They don't have to be huge offices, and two to an office was fine, it's really the full walls/lack of noise that mattered.

How are offices unrealistic? I've worked at a number of companies where I either had my own office or I shared an office with one other person. It requires spending more on office space, but it's not a huge expense compared to dev salaries.