I think in the best case scenario there should be a framework that doesn't need dedicated plugins - just using e.g. jQuery ones (because it has gazillions of them (plugins) already) - that would be wonderful
How many people in one room makes open space? I work with 8-10 people in one room and found a moderate distraction till I've turn my desk to the wall and I have everyone behind me.
I'm using mostly my e-mail (I was into "inbox zero" before it was a thing to be honest). I have couple dedicated folders for archiving tasks etc. If I have something in my main inbox - it means that it is related to some task that is not finished (and it motivates me to finish it). Normally I have 0-5 messages in my inbox.
I'm Polish and I've learned English by taking a 1-1 class for 1 year and.. Playing games in English, watching movies with eng. subtitles, writing a blog in English - now I've started to learn Chinese in the same way - but it's a bit harder due to learning the alphabet (but it's easier that You've might think about it)
I've found my own stack of choice - requirejs+jade(pug)+npm scripts(to parse requirejs and ES6 with babel) just do my job - no matter if it is a front-end or mobile one.
I've also add to it Express.js if want to build something full-stack - no front-end frameworks, just jade(pug) and own way of files organization etc. Sometimes I have worse day and think that I'm behind new hyped stuff but then I realise that my way just works without any fancy setup..
in addition, I've took a look on react/ember/angular etc. but it just doesn't fit me - but at the same time I've took some principles from every of them and use it in my projects (e.g. code modularity)
