Productivity killer, startups and aliens, and build times
Today we have the main developer productivity killer, startups and aliens, and build time.
Context-switching is the main productivity killer for developers
When I am coding I really benefit from being able to focus for long periods of time with no meetings, messages or interruptions. The article claims that every interruption that causes a context switch costs 23 minutes of productive work. That may be on the high side but there is a definite impact.
I have been following this blog for a while. I really like how he uses the Drake equation (the likelihood of extra-terrestial life) to illustrate what needs to align for startup success. He also gives a few ideas on how to reduce the impact of some of those areas.
Build Times: The Most Important Developer Productivity Metric
The impact of a slow build on developer productivity is often underestimated. One of my teams uses Scala and I can’t believe how slow the build process is compared to other languages - and in turn how it changes their workflow.