Archive for May, 2010
Limit Your Time Coding
By limiting the time you spend coding, you must choose the essential. Often times when you have a big project and you are tasked with 40,80,120 hours for a component, you start coding right away. But before you do that I ask you take a step back and re-think those estimates. Think to yourself, what [...]
Don’t Use Frameworks
How many times have you heard that Framework fill_in_the_blank will save time and prevent developers from doing things their own way. Or Frameworks save time by eliminating some of the redundant work on application development. These might be true, but how many times has a the same framework been proposed for creating a 5 page [...]
Use Simple, Not Loose, Coding Standards
Many times when starting a project you will get a request for some documentation on coding standards for the project. Why? So you don’t get a bunch of coding cowboys and end up with an application that looks completely different from source file to source file. On the other hand, if you end up with [...]
Use Multiple Languages
Using a language exclusively for all your programming task is not productive. While knowing the all the secrets of one language makes you proficient in that language, writing a 100 line Java class to do something a 15 line Ruby script or 20 line PHP script is a waste of time. Here is my current [...]
Use An Application Launcher
How much time do you spend using your mouse to open programs? I use the application launcher called “Launchy“. When I combine this with simple .bat files I save boat loads of time and don’t need to use my mouse for much.
Use A Virtual Machine
I have often found that one machine just isn’t enough, especially when testing my code or wanting more functionality. I primarily use two virtual machines. Windows XP – IE6 Testing, Software Installs, Developer Sandbox Ubuntu Linux Server – Scheduled Jobs, Bash Scripting, Build Testing, etc. There are many virtualization solutions on the market, I use [...]
Use A Code Generator
If you need to create a bunch of code and don’t have a lot of time. One technique I use is to use a code generator to do most of the programming for you. I have used this process many times generating wire-frame HTML mock-ups or generating stubs for Struts or JSF applications. By following [...]
Use Multiple Editors
Most people only use 20% of the features of any given program to perform 80% of the work.
Looking for opportunity? Start with problems!
Back in 2007, I wrote of searching for a problem. It seems that in the two and a half years since, I’ve only come to this realization again; the realization that any business begins with problems, not with solutions/products. If you are starting a business there are a few ways to decide what business to [...]