When I first saw the photograph of the interns' office, I thought that the article was a joke. I really don't understand how anybody could program productively under those conditions.
Lots of communication is good for that.
If they needed to do any deep thinking, I hoped they would have been allowed to work from home for a day.
Exactly my experience for my first internship, though it was far from that crowded. We picked up C# and a large framework (and some, a second language) well enough to be productive in a week and a half. (my top-level comment has more details)
Probably not quite as much fun though.