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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?

#501

Post by owl57 »

whoisjuan wrote: post #130
chadlavi wrote: post #50

KEEP NOTES. Write everything down. Write down what you were thinking about, how you felt about decisions, things you tried for bug fixes. you never know when this stuff will be useful to you again. I keep really basic markdown notes in a git repo, roughly one file per day with an ISO date name, but some things I give a separate file name (still with the iso date, but with some descriptive words) for things that might…

A similar idea I practice. After I solve a complex problem I usually leave a big comment at the top of the main file, explaining how I arrived at that solution, the caveats, how it works, and how it interacts with other files and dependencies. If I need to, I also use Monodraw to produce ASCII character graphs and add them to the comment to explain concepts. It helps to cement the solution in your brain and it's a sy…

> I don't think co-workers would appreciate an essay with exhibits at the top of a file, lol.

Why? I don't really have an experience of being a co-worker, but I have always appreciated such essays in free software.

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

#502

Post by andoma »

xenihn wrote: post #339
andoma wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 3. Learn how to use emacs in a tight code and test loop. Came here to say this. Having a build delay for an average incremental change (edit a single file / compilation unit) be less than 2 seconds is extremely important for my productivity. Whenever I happen to do mobile development (this goes for both Xcode and Android Studio), having to wait 5+ seconds for the app to launch makes me lose focus.

Do you have a link to a guide or anything that would let me replicate your setup for Xcode? This is definitely something I could really use right now.

Sorry no, I've only done this for Android yet.

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

#504

Post by PaulRobinson »

jokab wrote: post #332
thoughtstile wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alternatively, if you don't care about having an audience, you can just do private livestreams directly to YouTube via OBS. After your stream is concluded, it saves the livestream as a VOD. With this method, you don't have to worry about storing large video files when recording yourself. Also, because it's YouTube, you inherit all of the benefits YouTube provides. You get the added benefit of having closed captioning…

I also considered this in the past but sometimes, I slip into procrastination mode unintentionally and might check my bank account (or pornhub) once in a while. So thinking my video is uploaded to somebody else's computer gives me the shivers.

It seems the point of doing this is it stops you procrastinating, because you're pretending to be a hot shot twitch streamer. If it were a live stream, you wouldn't start watching porn, you'd stay focused.

Basically the productivity tip is to pretend you're already productive.

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

#505

Post by maerF0x0 »

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.

> to not be worth a context shift

who says Twitter/HN doesnt constitute a context switch? In my experience, though very boring, sitting and waiting for the tests to pass is much more productive than even the slightest diversions. I believe this is due to focus and memory.

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

#506

Post by jasonpeacock »

bhelkey wrote: post #480
jasonpeacock wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've using this site for improving my touch-typing: https://www.keybr.com/ Slow is smooth, smooth is fast.

I am unimpressed with this site. It seems to use a large number of made up words (risittle, ...). The words it chooses can even be one letter off of a common word (itsell -> itself).

It literally says that it uses random words, and explains why, in the website description:

> Instead, Keybr.com generates random, but readable and pronounceable words using the phonetic rules of your native language. These words look almost natural, and often they really are. Typing sensible text is much easier than repeating random letters, and it helps you to remember frequent key combinations. The latest point is very important.

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

#507

Post by ric2b »

mekster wrote: post #372
kortex wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Used to love Python. Now, unless it has type hints, not so much. Used to hate static types, or at least I thought I did. Really, I just hated C++ and Java. Go is Bae, trying to learn some rust. Computers are rigid. The more rigid the lang you talk to them, the less you get bitten. Untyped python, bash, javascript, just not worth it imho.

It seems type hinting is coming to Ruby 3, which im looking forward to.

Not in the source code itself, it will be in separate files according to Matt. If you want it in the source code you can use Sorbet today.

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

#508

Post by mekster »

ric2b wrote: post #507
mekster wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems type hinting is coming to Ruby 3, which im looking forward to.

Not in the source code itself, it will be in separate files according to Matt. If you want it in the source code you can use Sorbet today.

Sorbet syntax is like a hack bolted on... I'm not really a fan of it.

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

#509

Post by tmaly »

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…

I read this book on micro tasks by the guy that started the one pushup challenge. I have been doing pushups every day for over a year now. It takes a while to make it a habit, but it does work.
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