In 42, the school presented in the article too, is constant open-spaces full of people. It's noisy but students get the habit of working in that kind of environment and get in the flow even with distractions. Some other French IT schools, like Epitech or SupInfo are the same (or close to).
Even if I agree that it's not ideal, it can work.
Although, I assume that most of people are not used at all to this kind of environment.
Well, you can do programming with one hand tied to your back too, but that doesn't mean it's an optimal or encouraged practice. There are multiple papers proving that noisy environment impairs cognitive abilities, so it seems logical to me to avoid working in such places when concentration is required.
It depends on the type of work you're doing. If you're bit fiddling, then sure maybe you need an office or some noise cancelling headphones. If you're an application developer in a team, the communication benefits of sitting in an open plan group can overcome the cognitive issues (which aren't so bad since you're just gluing components together).
