What to do when waiting for an application to compile?

Question

I find that local builds will some times take 5-10 minutes of an application we are working on, but I always feel a little icky about going on line during that time... kind of like now ;).

What do you guys do when waiting for your application to compile?

Answer 1

Answer 2

Sword fights in the hallway ofcourse! :D

http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/compiling.png

really I just check my email or something like that...

Answer 3

Your mileage may vary of course, but probably the best thing a person can do is get up and walk around. Stand up, leave your cubicle/office/immediate area, and go for a short walk. Maybe clear your head, maybe talk to someone else who's not actively working on something (but do be careful not to bother people who are busy, even if they're not actively typing away), etc.

I mean, if you have some other task you should be doing then of course look into doing that. But a short break now and then does wonders for overall productivity and morale and health, and there's no more appropriate time than waiting for a task to complete.

Answer 4

Browse StackOverflow :)

Answer 5

I've got no problem with going online - sites like this are a good way to use those 5-10 minute gaps to expand your technical knowledge.

Answer 6

Just out of curiosity what language and how are the assemblies setup. We use C# where I work and recently started combining assemblies. Each former assembly is now a folder and sub-namespace in a bigger assembly. This cut our compile time by more than half.

I'm sure you wanted an amusing answer but perhaps there really is a solution to the Compiling time issue.

Answer 7

What I recommend:

• Do some stretching.
• Drink a glass of water.
• Wonder what can be done to make a better world.
• Tell a joke to your colleagues.

Answer 8

I guess there would likely be some room for improvement of your build process if you have to wait for this several times on regular days while you are not working directly on the release build process itself.

So I'd suggest to do some research on how to optimize the build environment during the time you have to wait. Or at least write some emails to whoever it might concern to ask for a faster workstation or a SSD instead of a hard disk.