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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?

#391

Post by jonnypotty »

bbarn wrote: post #333

This is a bit of a departure from the question you asked, but I'm always amazed how much people tend to hyper-tune their dev environments, when in reality, most of my time is spent thinking how not to write code. I get just as much work done on a completely vanilla macbook with VS code installed on it as my editor-obsessed peers with obsessively optimized setups can. How much actual code are you writing? I'd be reall…

For the most part I agree with you, but it got to the point at work where I could regularly type faster than eclipse (usually some shitty background tasks messing things up but still) this actually slowed me down as well as making me angry, which is probably the way to make me least productive and ranty. Like, how can this be the case that in 2020 I can type faster than a computer displays text in a professional IDE. Jesus christ. Oooo calm. Using sublime text now and just using eclipse for the debugger. Calm. Calm.

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

#392

Post by edwinyzh »

sriram_malhar wrote: post #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 ordi…

Hey! What do you think of my WritingOutliner (http://writingoutliner.com) then? Basically it turns Microsoft Word into a powerful outliner.

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

#393

Post by edwinyzh »

edwinyzh wrote: post #392
sriram_malhar wrote: post #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 ordi…

Hey! What do you think of my WritingOutliner ( http://writingoutliner.com ) then? Basically it turns Microsoft Word into a powerful outliner.

Or the new DocxManager (https://docxmanager.com)

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

#394

Post by dd82 »

jikciraz wrote: post #376
Joeri wrote: post #360

The things I've benefited from most are not tools but practices. - Question the work Always be questioning whether the thing you're doing really needs to be done. Is there a way to not do it? Is there a way to do something better instead? - Park downhill Before putting a project or incomplete task away, make notes of what the next thing was that you were going to work on. This lets you bypass that 10 minute orientati…

Regarding the todo list, I find that having a text-format todo list for the current day can provide structure and sense of accomplishment (especially at the end of the day). After completing a task I would put a checkmark emoji in front of it. Such a list can also bring me back on track after a lunch or a mentally-demanding task. If I know that I won't be able to do a certain task today, I put it in advance for the n…

This is similar for me, except I integrate that into a daily log via a running google doc. Lists off the tickets I did, meetings, conversations and action items to follow up on. We have two week sprints, and sometimes around retro its really easy to forget things that happened the week before that would be useful to call out.

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

#395

Post by jonnypotty »

winrid wrote: post #245
afc wrote: post #156

Probably an unpopular opinion but... Write your own text editor. I've been working on my own ( https://github.com/alefore/edge ) as a side project and using it exclusively for about six years. I don't expect it to be very usable by other people (it's very customized for my workflows, I suppose; e.g., it's mostly useful for writing C++ and Markdown files) but, because I know it inside out (and I've invested in making…

A better way to put it would be "know your editor and environment"

I agree. So many times I've blamed software for not doing a thing, then _actually_ read guides and documentation and find out it's me that's the idiot, not the software Devs. Over and over again.

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

#396

Post by jonnypotty »

fxtentacle wrote: post #311

Purchase a good IDE. It'll provide similar benefits as writing your own text editor (which was suggested here). It can also provide type hints and type checks for dynamically typed languages, thereby making them more like statically typed languages (also suggested in here). Plus a good IDE will speed up searching as well as index the source code to make things click-able, thereby making large code bases or dependenci…

I think I've tried most java ides and they all suffer from the same issue which is that they're slow, unwieldy, and the benifit they bring (apart from debugging) are mostly not benifit at all. Learning how to write correct code without and IDE auto fixing everything you get wrong with a right click has been very valuable to me. Learning my build tool outside of crappy IDE integration has been an education too. Basically getting rid of my IDE has made me a MUCH better developer although I admit they do powerful and useful things.

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

#397

Post by dugmartin »

Joeri wrote: post #360

The things I've benefited from most are not tools but practices. - Question the work Always be questioning whether the thing you're doing really needs to be done. Is there a way to not do it? Is there a way to do something better instead? - Park downhill Before putting a project or incomplete task away, make notes of what the next thing was that you were going to work on. This lets you bypass that 10 minute orientati…

Semi-related to “park downhill” is something I do at the end of the day if I’m still working on a piece of code - I’ll write a simple next task in a non-comment so it breaks the syntax. Then the next day I can dive in and “fix” the code which, at least for me, helps get in the groove.

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

#398

Post by nicoburns »

jikciraz wrote: post #376
Joeri wrote: post #360

The things I've benefited from most are not tools but practices. - Question the work Always be questioning whether the thing you're doing really needs to be done. Is there a way to not do it? Is there a way to do something better instead? - Park downhill Before putting a project or incomplete task away, make notes of what the next thing was that you were going to work on. This lets you bypass that 10 minute orientati…

Regarding the todo list, I find that having a text-format todo list for the current day can provide structure and sense of accomplishment (especially at the end of the day). After completing a task I would put a checkmark emoji in front of it. Such a list can also bring me back on track after a lunch or a mentally-demanding task. If I know that I won't be able to do a certain task today, I put it in advance for the n…

Apple notes is surprisingly nice for this style of todo list if you use a mac.

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

#399

Post by LeonB »

nicoburns wrote: post #398
jikciraz wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regarding the todo list, I find that having a text-format todo list for the current day can provide structure and sense of accomplishment (especially at the end of the day). After completing a task I would put a checkmark emoji in front of it. Such a list can also bring me back on track after a lunch or a mentally-demanding task. If I know that I won't be able to do a certain task today, I put it in advance for the n…

Apple notes is surprisingly nice for this style of todo list if you use a mac.

You can access your apple notes on a windows computer too, either by visiting iCloud.com or downloading the iCloud app from the Microsoft store.

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

#400

Post by Scarblac »

TuringNYC wrote: post #283
vatotemking wrote: post #266

Use procrastination against itself. So basically, when procrastinating, we tend to justify our inactions: just 1 more minute on Twitter, just one last scroll on my newfeed, lemme just check this subreddit really quick. With reverse procrastination, you trick your brain into doing your intended task: Ok lemme just open Visual Studio Code and edit this one file then im good, I'll just change this one line of code, I'll…

Why not use both together? I tend to browse Twitter and HN in-between builds, unit-tests, model mini-training, and simulations. If the blocker is small enough to not be worth a context shift to another work-task, then Twitter/HN are a great mini break.

The problem with that (for Internet addicts) is that that short break then always turns into one and a half hours.
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