I think pg makes some excellent points, but this is also why I mistrust his conclusions sometimes. Quite often, some dysfunction gets explained away as a trait of being creative. Seems a bit too easy. The NYTimes writer seems to be aware of this temptation as well.

There are lots of other reasons to hate meetings, and not all reflect so well on the 'makers'. Many meetings just waste time, of course. But programmers sometimes do need to be dragged to a table to commit to an estimate, make some difficult decision, or justify their progress. None of which is pleasant.

There's a lot of empirical studies showing that interruptions are pretty damaging to knowledge workers' productivity. I don't know of any study that shows an hour-long meeting really has to mess up the rest of your day, or that one cannot focus in small time increments. I know it's harder, and that I personally find it difficult, but to me this seems to be within the scope of human possibility. Something tells me that if it was literally a matter of life or death, I would find some way to be useful during a three-hour window.