Typing fast is important to programmers. I've seen great programmers who instantly have an idea formed in their head of what they want a function to look like (or, for example, a class skeleton in Java). Then they spend a good amount of time just typing it in. This greatly decreases productivity, as your brain rather shuts off when you'r...
We've had this question already, but I want to narrow it down to already high-speed typists. The original poster had hit a barrier of 75 WPM and wanted to increase his speed. I'm at a barrier where I can reliably type around 130, and I can sometimes hit 150, probably depending on the distribution of words in the text. I feel that met...
Hi All I am a developer with a BS degree in Computer Engineering, with around 6 years of chronological experience. I have been in a company which has seen changes and twists and turns. Unfortunately all of the projects I have been involved have either remained incomplete due to change in focus of the group or have been abandoned becaus...
I was very surprised to find out that printer could help a lot for some programming tasks. But first it was very unusual and I had to think a lot on how it could help. So how do you use printer to improve your productivity? P.S. I post my answers below. ...
Once I am "in the zone" I am extremely productive and code just flows out of me, often I can get 2 or 3 days coding done in 1 day. But I find that often its hard to get to that place, I find myself procrastinating, getting distracted by other things (SO for example). Is this experience common? How do you force yourself into that state...
I have a large base of code to play with written in two programming languages [C++,OTCL], it is not well documented and I have to modify parts and add new modules. I found that reading the code is the best practice [the mailing list= many questions+very very few answers]. Do you have any tips for making my reading more effective ? Ha...
For people who do real actual programming from home, either part time or full time: What are some of the most important requirements, for encouraging productivity? Other factors to consider, for a home with a family and the normal distractions. Assume this is web application development, but open to comments for other types of systems ...
There are a number of great Javascript libraries\frameworks out there (jQuery, Prototype, MooTools, etc.), but they all seem to focus on DOM interaction and AJAX functionality. I haven't found any that focus on extending the built-in data types (String, Date, Number, etc.). And by "Extending" I mean methods to solve typical work-a-day pr...
How do you feel about VS making you hunt for a tab that you used just minutes ago when you have a bazillion open tabs? What about constantly dragging tabs around to keep the ones you use close together? Oh, so you think AARGH, too? Then read on. I work on a piece of software with dozens of projects and hundreds of files. It's really ea...
What books should someone who manages programmers read? This includes supervisors, internal customers and project managers. Vote for what you think or add it if it doesn't exist. ...
Sometimes, I think that coffee does nothing more than help me to write bad code really fast. What are your experiences? Does a can of Coke or a cup of coffee actually improve your productivity when writing software? Programming requires both logical and creative thinking, and both of these suffer when you are tired. I have a feeling tha...
What is the optimal productivity stack for developers? When deciding what to include in your personal productivity stack, what criteria do you use? ...
Can anybody have good answer when should be database driven development be used and when should domain driven development be used. These both development approach have their importance in their respected areas. But I am not so clear which approach is appropriate in what type of situation. Any recommendation? ...
I think everybody who had to program using a standard German (or any other international) keyboard layout on Windows (or Mac) will complain about the conundrum of either having all special characters ( [ ] | { } / etc. ) needed for most programming languages "at the fingertip" and "losing" the language specific characters (umlauts ä ö ü ...
Sometimes it takes about a minute or two to fully compile an application. Believe me, that's a long time. You've obviously just looked at the code and just waiting to see some results, etc. I was wondering, what do you do during that 1 to 2+ minutes? ...
My boss just sent me a Dilbert cartoon. It was a good one, so I saved it in my archive. While I was there, I noted there are 349 cartoons that I collected over the years. The Daily Dilbert is one of the things I look forward to in the morning. Our group enjoys them, and we have discussions about the truths behind them. It is a moral...
In code complete, there's a nice table listing how productive a programmer is depending on language. Jeff Atwood has a nice blog post about it. This chart is at least 4 years old by now. I'm curious: have there been any more recent studies done on this? (insert standard anti-flamewar boilerplate here... we're all adults) Update: I...
I am doing Java web development on WindowsXP. At any given time, I will have open all of the following windows: Eclipse, Outlook, Firefox (with 3-4 tabs), IE (with 3-4 tabs), Putty, 2-3 File Explorer windows, SqlDeveloper, 1-2 View Source windows, SmartSVN, a music player, an IM client, Google toolbar, etc., etc. I use all the area o...
Is there any measurement technique that takes into consideration not only how many artifacts were generated (i.e. lines of code, use cases, etc), but also considers the quality and effort involved? What is a good measurement that we can deploy that will not hurt the developers? Every now and then there is a client or a manager who want...
Keyboard shortcuts can definitely improve your productivity. But first you have to learn them... What do you do to become shortcut-master? Do you just try to remember? Use a tool similar to KeyTraino? Have a .txt file with shortcuts you're trying to learn? Have a ton of posters with shortcuts hanging on a wall? How is that working for...