I'm lucky enough to share a room with 3 other people at work. One of them, a senior programmer who's very talkative in general, tends to ask me various questions throughout the day. While some of them are surely ' legitimate', many questions could have been answered by putting in just slightly more search effort on their part.

I really don't mind be asked stuff, and I can also cope with beginner questions, but this is seriously interrupting my flow. I clearly remember Joel talking about how private offices increase productivity because they prevent too easy questions from being asked.

How should I deal with this situation? Getting a private office is out of the question, sadly. It's difficult to approach him directly, and he blissfully ignored the slight hints I tried to give.