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Ask HN: What are your favorite developer-efficiency tips?

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Re: Ask HN: What are your favorite developer-efficiency tips?

#231
post #81

Obs studio. I record myself while coding anything. I pretend to be a bigshot coding streaming sensation (even if its just for me). Its fun as well as very helpful in so many ways. 1. It helps me stay focus on the task at hand. One recording for each task 2. It lets me practice how to articulate stuffs. Its like blogging but ephemeral (because i wont upload this) 3. It helps me get motivated. Cant let my "thousands" o…

ha, I do this too, thought I was the only one

Re: Ask HN: What are your favorite developer-efficiency tips?

#232
post #206

The biggest boost in productivity I've had in recent years is switching back to a statically typed language. TypeScript in my case. You can absolutely refactor and change course _so_ much quicker and with virtually no regressions at all. Just the other day we realized a feature I was building didn't handle an important case, and I had to really change the approach. Doing it in a JavaScript would have been dramaticall…

Same realization here, but from JavaScript to Rust. I'm still a bit more productive in JavaScript but I now regard it as technical debt to be rewritten in TypeScript/Rust as soon as possible.

Re: Ask HN: What are your favorite developer-efficiency tips?

#233
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which one do people here recommend?

I use keepassxc. Has nice native desktop and Android apps. Also a Firefox browser extension available, though I have not tried it.

+1 for KeePass. Native apps have been great on all platforms (I recommend Strongbox on iOS).

Re: Ask HN: What are your favorite developer-efficiency tips?

#234

I can't say enough good things about a multiple clipboard manager. Not only is it useful to copy/paste multiple items in sequence, but it's a game changer to be able to quickly retrieve a code snippet, or URL, or CLI command you used recently; and/or, to trivially stash one just in case you'll want it later. (Primary downside: using a computer without multiple clipboards feels broken. What do you mean it "forgot" the…

I used to have Glipper installed in Gnome, but it looks like that's been a dead project for the better part of a decade now. Does anyone know a modern equivalent? I did enjoy having a clipboard manager

I guess one potential downside is that I use `pass` to manage passwords and I don't terribly want my passwords all stuck in my clipboard history...

Re: Ask HN: What are your favorite developer-efficiency tips?

#235
post #206

The biggest boost in productivity I've had in recent years is switching back to a statically typed language. TypeScript in my case. You can absolutely refactor and change course _so_ much quicker and with virtually no regressions at all. Just the other day we realized a feature I was building didn't handle an important case, and I had to really change the approach. Doing it in a JavaScript would have been dramaticall…

Same realization here, but from JavaScript to Rust. I'm still a bit more productive in JavaScript but I now regard it as technical debt to be rewritten in TypeScript/Rust as soon as possible.

If you like rust you may love ReasonML

Re: Ask HN: What are your favorite developer-efficiency tips?

#236
post #27

A couple others have mentioned shell tricks. One of my favorites is using Alt-. (in Bash and Zsh) to insert the last argument of the previous command. Press it multiple times and it will cycle through the last argument of all previous commands. It's great for when you want to, say, `ls thing` and then `vim thing`. Yesterday I went looking for a similar key that would insert a copy of the last argument on the current…

One of my favorite bash tricks is that I have this alias in my bashrc file:

   function goto {
      cd -P ~/.links/"$1";
   }

And then in the `.links` folder I have symbolic links to directories I need to go to often.

Then getting to a frequently used directory is just a `goto X` away.

Re: Ask HN: What are your favorite developer-efficiency tips?

#237
I keep two diaries, both MS Word documents. In one, I write summaries of what I read about -- papers, blog posts, books, and articles that interest me, along with the google search term, authors, URL, quotable quotes etc. In the other, I put together a free-form running log of projects I am working on, along with feature ideas, benchmark results (and the parameters used to get it),etc.

Why MS Word, you ask?

I am ordinarily an avowed plaintext person, and I have tried everything from various wiki formats, org-mode, markdown of every shape and stripe (even bought a few markdown editors), but they haven't worked for me. The reason is lack of WYSIWIG

WYSIWIG is a huge efficiency booster. Inline images, doodles of my own, colors, fonts, tables, inline math, greek and other symbols, all of it is right there in the original (not in a separate render), and is searchable.

Having all of it in one file is not really a problem performance-wise; I have had one file for the last 8 years. It is easy to back up and the chronology is clear, and it is easy to generate a table of contents.

Finally, having it on a google drive means that it is available/convertible to google doc if I need to access it from elsewhere. I do not rely on google docs to be the primary copy, because i don't want to rely on a working internet connection all the time. Offline works better for me.

Re: Ask HN: What are your favorite developer-efficiency tips?

#238
post #93
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same. Learn to type ~100 words/minute, I was surprised by how much more productive it has made me. Using a touch type trainer for a minute or two can also be a little mental break from writing software for hours.

I can touch type but can't get much faster than 60-70 WPM. I've been practicing for years. Any tips for speed?

There is a difference I think between typing speed when you are transcribing vs writing your own text.

I find that I get pretty slow speeds when doing typing tests, but most of the time it's because I need to stop every word to figure out what the heck it is wanting me to type.

When typing out my own stuff, I don't have that break because I already know what I want to say.

Re: Ask HN: What are your favorite developer-efficiency tips?

#239
post #206

The biggest boost in productivity I've had in recent years is switching back to a statically typed language. TypeScript in my case. You can absolutely refactor and change course _so_ much quicker and with virtually no regressions at all. Just the other day we realized a feature I was building didn't handle an important case, and I had to really change the approach. Doing it in a JavaScript would have been dramaticall…

> The investment you have to make to really grok static typing is quite large. It took about 2 years for me to be really comfortable in TS.

That sounds a bit exaggerated from my experience. If anyone interested in TS got discouraged reading your comment, it took between like 2 days and 2 weeks for my team to be really comfortable in TS. If you already know JavaScript and if you already have some experience with statically-typed languages, TS is literally JS with static types.

Re: Ask HN: What are your favorite developer-efficiency tips?

#240
post #220

Node.js: you can share code between client and server side. Typescript: you don't need to remember the arguments of a function or return types. Easy to refactor. Just no brainier. I also use it for all my config like webpack config with ts-node or ts-node-dev for auto reload. Auto format all your code with 1 command. Prettier or lint fix. But that's basic. Don't ever write global css. Use emotionjs or styled componen…

> If you notice all my tips helps you to reuse the code you write.

> Don't ever write global css.

Global CSS is a form of code reuse.

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