I agree completely. I prefer the open office layout a hundred times over, compared to a private room or a cubicle. Maybe it depends on your coworkers, you have to trust them not to be too loud or bothersome, and you have to be fine with being in the same room as these people for 8+ hours a day for a long time.
At my office, the "Dev Room" has 10 engineers in the same room, as well as open desks for anyone else to join us. The rest of the office has rooms with 1-3 people working in them, but we requested to take this large room. Whenever anyone from the rest of the office walks into the dev room, they always have to remark "Wow, it's so silent in here." And it's true, it's a different world once you walk in here. We even have our own conference room only accessible through this room.
But because everyone here are friends, it's easy for us to ask questions, have fun, play around. Right now as I type this, two developers are drawing Chinese characters and playing with the new Google Translate app. The rest of us have headphones on. It's on you to ignore distractions and get your work done, but everyone does, and everyone helps each other and laughs while doing it.
At my office, the "Dev Room" has 10 engineers in the same room, as well as open desks for anyone else to join us. The rest of the office has rooms with 1-3 people working in them, but we requested to take this large room. Whenever anyone from the rest of the office walks into the dev room, they always have to remark "Wow, it's so silent in here." And it's true, it's a different world once you walk in here. We even have our own conference room only accessible through this room.
But because everyone here are friends, it's easy for us to ask questions, have fun, play around. Right now as I type this, two developers are drawing Chinese characters and playing with the new Google Translate app. The rest of us have headphones on. It's on you to ignore distractions and get your work done, but everyone does, and everyone helps each other and laughs while doing it.