Productivity Tips for Programmers

http://blog.interviewstreet.com/?p=603

by rvivek • 16 years ago

49 16 16 years ago

blog.interviewstreet.com

gkoberger• 16 years ago

It's down now; here's a cache:

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?sclient=psy&...

satyan2• 16 years ago

Seems down.. Can also view a copy here.. http://onsoftwareandstuff.com/2010/10/12/productivity-tips-f...

rvivek• 16 years ago

Apologies. It's up now. You can view the post at the original link -> http://blog.interviewstreet.com/?p=603

antileet2• 16 years ago

While it was well written, and with best intentions, I don't think there is any real significant "tips" to increase "productivity". All things aside these are just some best practices sprinkled with some examples. This is similar to when your parents tell you to brush your teeth and floss daily.

I haven't been programming a lot but here are some ideas that I've found, in similar vein to the parent article.

1. Watch Bram Moolenaar's talk or read his notes - http://www.moolenaar.net/habits.html . Essentially learn how to use your text editor, as that's the thing you're going to be spending a good deal of your time in. In three steps, his suggestion is - Find what you're doing repeatedly, automate it and bind it to a key, make it a habit.

2. use a good version control system. Use a DVCS like git/mercurial/bzr and make lightweight branches for even the tiniest little features. That'll allow you to multitask like crazy! If you start properly using branching, you can write more code quickly and safely and switch between contexts.

3. Make sure your build system is optimal. If you spend too long waiting for builds to take place, maybe you can explore options to make it better.

4. The most important productivity secret imo - ACTUALLY WRITE CODE. Don't think about writing code, don't read blogs about writing code, don't follow twitterers who write code. Most importantly, don't get distracted and idle away when you're trying to write code.

I have some amount of mastery over my text editor, my language, my OS, etc. But none of that compares to the mastery and discipline of sitting down, concentrating and not letting your mind wander too much - something that I am trying to attain, but it's harder than I would like it to be.

sp2hari• 16 years ago

Hi, I agree with you that these points are basic, but at times we forget the very basic stuff and miss out things there..

Totally agree with your 4th point. Unless you actually write code, nothing will help you..

cdavid2• 16 years ago

You have to write code at some point, but you also have to think about what you are doing. Especially in time-constraints environments, there is a big risk doing a lot of code which ends up totally useless because it was not well thought, and did not do what was intended, etc...

More important than unit test and all that trivial stuff, what matters a lot in my experience is the ability to write for changes. That's really what's difficult about most programming tasks: how to deal with changing specs, change of deployment environments, etc...

hjalle• 16 years ago

So basically, premature optimization sucks. Don't search for a solution of a problem that doesn't exist. If you spend lots of time writing the same code: optimize that. If you dont do that, dont optimize it. I think lots of people belive that its some kind of magic that made Sergey, Larry and all the other successful programmers successful.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZV-AFnCkRLY <-- There you got productivity by Notch (Minecraft creator for those who dont know). Its like three seconds of twitter, 30 minutes for food and some sleep, for a total of 48h. Actually that makes me take back the idea of the magical thing, since the magic seems to be complete dedication to the task you are supposed to do.

dirkgadsden• 16 years ago

One thing I'd add to the to the list is have someone to talk to. When building large systems it's always important to have the big picture in mind, and being able to get another person's input on what you're doing can often be invaluable. I've saved hours upon hours of time from stupid mistakes just by spending thirty seconds to get another perspective.

markkanof• 16 years ago

Absolutely, even if that person is just there to listen.

I often find that just the process of explaining a problem with spoken words forces me to think about it in a different way. Sometimes I even talk through a problem with my non-programmer girlfriend. She's nice enough to listen, but doesn't really understand what I am talking about. It just doesn't really matter though because often I don't need another persons perspective I just need to talk through the problem which allows me to come up with a different angle of attack.

leftnode• 16 years ago

Great points. I even wrote a little script that blocks sites I commonly visit that prevent me from getting work done. It's called get-shit-done: http://github.com/leftnode/get-shit-done

antileet2• 16 years ago

Have you considered using these extensions:

https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/laankejkbhbdhmip...

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/4476/

lukev• 16 years ago

I don't know about you all, but for me, any productivity problems I have are strictly dominated by laziness, lack of motivation, and being easily distracted.

Even when I'm in the zone and getting shit done, my actual editing ability and low-level coding skills are never the bottleneck - I spend most my time strategizing. Actually banging out the code is trivial, but that seems to be what most people on HN fetishize...

froo• 16 years ago

Productivity tips for programmers: stop bumming around on HN and go code something.

lelele• 16 years ago

Not very insightful. Nice try, though. Here is the classic: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000043.html

Productivity Tips for Programmers

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