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Ask HN: Programs that saved you 100 hours? (2022 edition)

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Re: Ask HN: Programs that saved you 100 hours? (2022 edition)

#351

Post by risos »

nullandvoid wrote: post #261
jmcgough wrote: post #149

Anki - I don't know how I'd prep for the MCAT without this. Open source with desktop and mobile clients, syncing via cloud. It's flashcarding but uses gradual intervals so you see things less often once you've retained them. ChatGPT - I use this as a private tutor (it's great for biomedical stuff) to check my understanding and ask it to correct me if I'm wrong.

I can't think of a single piece of software that has cloud syncing, for free, with no option for payment. I'm not sure who is running it (hopefully some well funded academic group), but it restores me faith in humanity a little every time I press sync and don't get CTA'd to sign up for some subscription. Amazing tool, kudos to the devs, and if there other comes a time where payment is required, I would be happy to ch…

AFAIK anki is primarily funded by sales from the iOS app

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/ankimobile-flashcards/id373493...

Re: Ask HN: Programs that saved you 100 hours? (2022 edition)

#352

Post by flobosg »

kondor6c wrote: post #211
kklemon wrote: post #151

Vimium. Vim-like shortcuts for the browser. I can't name any other tool or extension that gives me anywhere near the productivity boost of Vimium. I spend probably half of my work day plus a few hours a day in my spare time in the browser, and it makes navigating the browser feel like butter. When I'm tired and don't want to be glued to my desk, I can relax and surf with one hand which just feels incredible. I quickl…

There also is quite browser, which is similar (not an extension though) it has some very cool features like domain conditional proxies and other settings

Do you mean qutebrowser? https://qutebrowser.org/

Re: Ask HN: Programs that saved you 100 hours? (2022 edition)

#353

Post by punkspider »

KiranRao0 wrote: post #205

I feel like I have a unique one here. The chrome extension: "Replace Youtube's Home with Subscriptions" It has easily saved me over 100 hours by preventing me from continuously scrolling through youtube recommendations. https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/replace-youtubes-h...

I use Pocket Tube [1] and I absolutely love it. I started using it 1 month ago so can't really estimate how much time it's saved me.

Before that I always found YT frustrating and never cared about subscriptions because, and correct me if I'm wrong, the subscription system is disorganized. It doesn't make sense to me. I found myself having a hundred subscriptions that I didn't know how to follow in an organized manner.

With this extension now I've organized subscriptions into groups, which get integrated into the UI in the sidebar, and you can set notifications for whichever group you'd like. It has more features - like the "Deck" feature, where you add a few columns of either playlists/groups/channels. You can also view all the latest vids from each subscription group, or all your subscriptions and filter them by groups.

I'm quite happy that I suddenly noticed I had this pain point and quickly found the perfect solution. It's one of my favorite extensions.

  [1] https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/pockettube-youtube-subscr/kdmnjgijlmjgmimahnillepgcgeemffb

Re: Ask HN: Programs that saved you 100 hours? (2022 edition)

#354

Post by bondolo »

Flexelint. The compilers have gotten better over the years but I wouldn’t consider doing C/C++ development without it.

It has saved me hundreds of hours of debugging since I first started using it in 1990. The very first day it found a ‘write past end of array’ in some code written by a Pascal programmer which was doing a[sizeof(a)] = ‘\0’; that would have stymied us for days.

Re: Ask HN: Programs that saved you 100 hours? (2022 edition)

#355

Post by joshmlewis »

mtwshngtn wrote: post #266
KiranRao0 wrote: post #205

I feel like I have a unique one here. The chrome extension: "Replace Youtube's Home with Subscriptions" It has easily saved me over 100 hours by preventing me from continuously scrolling through youtube recommendations. https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/replace-youtubes-h...

can you not just click 'subscriptions' in the left sidebar on the homepage? Or direct?: https://www.youtube.com/feed/subscriptions

The extension redirects the home path to the subscriptions path so that is what it's doing, just automatically.

Re: Ask HN: Programs that saved you 100 hours? (2022 edition)

#356

Post by jmiserez »

alexchantavy wrote: post #68
namuol wrote: post #32

Seeing a lot of “fiddly” software being listed here. Stuff that lets you configure and tune a workflow endlessly. It’s ironic that this is the sort of thing most of us will think of, since it doesn’t really account for time saved so much as time spent fiddling… Keeping an eye out for software that you barely use, as this is the kind with the most potential to truly save me time.

From that perspective, using Ctrl+R and Ctrl+S for reverse-i-search in a shell saves me so much time from writing commands especially big Kubernetes ones.

Give hstr a try: https://github.com/dvorka/hstr

It's saved me countless hours over the years as it's just so much better than regular CTRL-R. I also find it to work better than fzf.

Re: Ask HN: Programs that saved you 100 hours? (2022 edition)

#357

Post by patrick451 »

actinium226 wrote: post #57

Not a program, but the concept of functional programming and pure functions. It makes it a lot easier to think about code, and also makes it easier to test and parallelize code. Although be warned, it can also have the "side-effect" (functional programming pun!) of making you somewhat insufferable as you try to convince everyone around you that functional programming is amazing.

It's so curious to me that functional disciples wear this as a badge of honor. In nearly all other facets of software development, we get badgered that it's better to produce code your entire team understands (code is read more often than written and all that) than code which only makes sense to you. If I ran around talking up the zen of single letter variables, my team would shoo me out of the room, and almost nobody on HN would applaud me for it. But for some reason, functional programming tends to get a pass, despite it just not clicking for a large swath of team mates.

Re: Ask HN: Programs that saved you 100 hours? (2022 edition)

#358

Post by hermitcrab »

manv1 wrote: post #141
towawy wrote: post #135

Microsoft Excel. Manipulating tens or hundreds of thousands of rows, including cross-referencing across tables, is just so satisfying and much faster than doing it with a DB or code. Alternative spreadsheet software do some things better, but they don't come close as a complete package, I don't regret paying for it myself for the first time in my life. It such a life saver in a pinch. Obligatory Spolsky intro to Exce…

Excel gets my vote for one of the top 10 software programs ever. It's crazy how useful it is.

Excel, the second best program for any task. ;0)

Re: Ask HN: Programs that saved you 100 hours? (2022 edition)

#359

Post by hermitcrab »

systemvoltage wrote: post #303
towawy wrote: post #135

Microsoft Excel. Manipulating tens or hundreds of thousands of rows, including cross-referencing across tables, is just so satisfying and much faster than doing it with a DB or code. Alternative spreadsheet software do some things better, but they don't come close as a complete package, I don't regret paying for it myself for the first time in my life. It such a life saver in a pinch. Obligatory Spolsky intro to Exce…

Pssh... adults use JMP ;-): https://www.jmp.com/en_us/software/data-analysis-software.ht... Trivia: JMP stands for "John's Macintosh Project". Also, the entire semiconductor industry depends on JMP just like the entire pharmaceutical industry depends on Minitab.

The JMP buy page doesn't even give you a price. How expensive is it?

Re: Ask HN: Programs that saved you 100 hours? (2022 edition)

#360

Post by Shorel »

ThomasMidgley wrote: post #163

Windows. I used Mac OS X a few years. But in my opinion Mac OS X is (or was, back in this time) PITA. Switching back to Windows has definitively saved me hundreds of hours!

That sounds so strange...

I use Windows every day, and I know shortcuts and tools for many things.

But for work I use Ubuntu, and for writing code it is a much more efficient environment.

So it is actually hard to imagine an environment less productive than Windows.

Now, if your work is done in Office (which I only use to write emails), or Photoshop, then I understand. But I am still intrigued.

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