Hot answers tagged workflow
14
The pitfall to learning with an IDE is that there's stuff it does for you under the hood that otherwise has to be done manually. For example, in C (don't know RoR at all, sorry), Eclipse will handle compilation/linking for you. Given a command line, you would be hopeless. What's GCC? What's a makefile?
Using an IDE most of the time is fine, you just have to ...
9
A smart worker is one who gets the job done within specific deadline most of the time. Most of the time his boss can rely on him to get the job done (try to build this impression to your boss). According to me here how one can be a smart worker:
Always always do some sort of research upfront before starting a task. Researching is the best way to save time ...
7
This is a very broad question with no right answer. But to mention a few other aspects not mentioned in the other answer:
You need to be able to work in teams and be familiar with the basics of software development methodologies, such as Scrum and agile development. This is especially so if you aspire to be a team leader.
Learn design patterns to know how ...
7
I used to have a guy who worked for me as a management analyst who was the king of "how can I come up with a better way to do the job". He would take 40 hours to come up with a way to do a job in an hour. Unfortunately the job would have only taken 10 hours to do using the intial method proposed and was a one-time task. He missed every dealine and other ...
6
I use the Pomodoro technique when coding and found that the 25 minutes was a bit short, so I doubled the times. I have a 50min working time and 10min break, I've found that gives me long enough to get in the flow, get some work done and then take a break. I know it's not the approved / text book approach... but my view is that it is only a technique and as ...
5
Regarding programming there are a lot of different formal methodologies for how you should go about it. But a lot of those assume you are already knowledgeable in the programming language and coding task at hand.
There's also a lot of differing ideas on how to best learn things. But most of these are geared for pure learning, and don't really address the ...
5
Let's look at it from another perspective. From past experience, do you know which of the two methods you present works better for you? From my experience, I know that I learn programming best from ~doing~. I started learning Java last year. I had a 500+ page textbook that was completely daunting, and I just could not focus on the content. I wanted to ...
5
The main features of an IDE are:
Code completion
Building/executing
Debugging
I would say that it is very useful to learn how to build, execute and debug your software from the command line. IMO, that is the most useful skill you learn by not using an IDE.
Once you know how to do that, try out Ruby IDEs and see if one of them suits you better than using ...
4
A couple of ideas:
Use a personal wiki (like Wikidpad if you're on Windows) to write your articles and organize them hierarchically. Add a dynamic tag to each one to indicate which edit step it's on, and then use the sorting features of the personal wiki to get the forest-level view of where you stand. (Wikidpad supports this.)
Use a combination of a ...
4
"Measure 3 times, cut once."
When I'm assigned to build an application, I don't go and open my development tools.
I grab a pencil and paper and then I think about the application & the problem. I analyse it to it's core; I write down the list of problems I have to solve; I list requirements of the application. In this stage I determine exactly WHAT has ...
4
Early optimization is the root of all evil. -Donald Knuth
My approach is to just get things done, and then see if something could (and should) be improved. If you can program a computer, you know that 90% of the time is spent on 10% of the code. Optimizing anything other than the key 10% is usually a waste of time and effort.
4
Reading between the lines, I'm guessing that you are being unproductive because of procrastination: you distract yourself with non-work to avoid finishing the projects. Perhaps the root cause, in your case, is your fear of failure or fear of success. If this is true, a good way to force yourself to finish the details quickly may be to "burn the bridges ...
4
You might enjoy the book Pragmatic Thinking and Learning: Refactoring Your Wetware by Andy Hunt.
The book covers a lot of subjects on improved learning and creativity. It's well-researched. I virtually guarantee that there's a trick or technique in there that you haven't heard of. I had heard of about 10%.
3
Remember the Milk (rememberthemilk.com) is a multi-platform task management system, and it allows you to assign tasks to other people (I don't know too much about how well it works as I haven't used that functionality much myself). See: http://www.rememberthemilk.com/help/answers/sending/sendtask.rtm
3
If you are doing something that gets you into the flow pomodoro breaks can indeed stop the flow. To work around this I generally use pomodoros just when I'm doing something that is somewhat unpleasant or uninteresting or when I'm finding it difficult to concentrated ie. when attaining the flow is very rare anyway. Those times pomodoros help because you know ...
3
I've recently written about some rules for problem solving on my blog. My 8 year old son and I have figured them out to help him tackle his maths homework, but I've found that they work for other things, too.
These rules are:
Adopt the right physical posture
Don't guess
Look for patterns
Take regular breaks
Other rules I've yet to cover:
Make space ...
2
Other answers are really good, I just want to point out one truly important thing:
When you are too focused on a task you are following your path and you usually overlook other possibilities. When you break you have time to
Rest your body from the (usually) sitting position
Rest your eyes (truly important)
Break from the work and flow you were in
When ...
2
This may not resolve all your requirements if they very sophisticated but it is worth to consider full use of google calendar. Sometimes it is only matter of proper thinking what you want to achieve and structure your problem that it can be resolved in easy way. Google calendar has many advantages:
It can be run on every platform
Easy enough, so everyone ...
2
I believe this was the most useful book I ever read about writing. I liked his approach because although the process description is very specific about mechanics, it is also clearly based upon fulfilling the expectations of the audience and completing the project on schedule.
Writing Under Pressure: The Quick Writing Process (Oxford paperbacks)
by Sanford ...
2
We're writing and preparing posts for a blog and social media almost in the same way as you do.
To prepare the post we've tried several co-editing services and now using Trello.com to manage projects and Rizzoma.com to manage and create content with designers, illustrators and writers.
2
There is a tool called Tasktop Desktop that could be worth having a look at.
The tool generates task contexts that link an active task to whatever you do while it is active (e.g. opening documents, visiting web sites etc.). When switching to a previous task you are also switching the context and have all the documents available that you worked on before on ...
2
It seems like you need to break down those "too big to chew on in one bite" tasks into smaller pieces and go through those instead of one huge chunk of task. One-off huge tasks not only look and feel daunting, they are also harder to gauge progress and can often feel like you haven't done much.
If you are using source control, another benefit of smaller ...
2
I'll just leave a list for you here. All of these do task management, have a contacts list and allow assignment and communication of things between people, and having a free version of some type. I've used all of them at least briefly, and I came away with a positive experience. I currently use Doit.im on a daily basis for myself personally, but ...
2
I use voice memos for this almost exclusively.
I almost always have my phone (or tablet) with me. Neither is conducive to typing, but both have either EverNote, with both voice and voice-to-text notes, or general voice recognition, if I have connectivity.
I find this substantially faster than either writing by hand (which I enjoy) or typing on either ...
2
You could carry your laptop around with you all the time. Okay, kidding.
Do you have a smartphone, tablet or a similar device? You could use that, if the software has a version for your device. If not, you could either try finding a software/service that you can use with your portable device.
But if you want to use your laptop for the writing, you could ...
2
Plan-Do-Check-Act would be a process I'd highly recommend putting into place in your work so that you review what you are doing and make adjustments on a regular basis to what you do. While the first couple of times you do something there will be a learning curve, the key point is how well do you apply what you learn going forward. Have points in time to ...
2
The reason to use notepad or the like is that you don't rely on autocomplete as you learn. This makes you more attentive to syntax and method names.
It also gives you more understanding of how the tooling works. In the cases of Ruby on Rails, how do you generate code, what commands, what controls you have, etc.
2
This is a great question. I attended a conference a while back where BJ Fogg presented (http://www.behaviormodel.org/) - my biggest takeaway, and one that changed my life - was to commit to doing something very small every day. Like write for 5 minutes - and assume that it will be something you throw away.
By doing this - I get myself in the position to ...
2
If this is the first language you're learning or you've never worked with a similar language in the same environment, than using basic tools will help you learn a lot (the answers above bring numerous advantages).
But if you already know other languages, and you can do without an IDE when using them, I think you needn't start from basic tools again. This ...
2
If the things you have open in tabs are articles you want to read later, save them using Pocket. Its basically a bookmarking system which deletes the bookmarks after you read them (or rather archives them). It has tagging and a nice clutter-free article view.
I use it to save interesting links I encounter, but do not have the time to read right now (e.g. if ...
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