I’ve spent the last few days integrating my new math library into the Windows project I started coding it for. Yesterday morning I was ready to try running the integrated copy, but I had some kind of problem starting it up. I couldn’t track it down very easily though, due to how long it took [...]
Archive of posts filed under the Productivity category.
Taming MSVC’s Intellisense
Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 (i.e. v8) is a decent compiler, with a decent IDE. But there’s one “feature” that I dislike passionately: Intellisense. The idea behind it is a good one: that the IDE scans your source code every so often and figures out how certain things will be compiled so that it can tell [...]
Decisions, Decisions…
One of the repeating items on my to-do list is cleaning off my office desk. It’s something I committed to recently, to try to keep my working area tidy; so long as I keep on top of it every few days, it only takes a few minutes each time. But I’d found myself putting it [...]
Triple Monitors!
As a programmer, I’ve always found that the more monitor space you’ve got, the more productive you can be. And multiple monitors are even better than a single huge monitor, in a lot of ways. When you’re referring to online documentation while you’re programming, for example, it’s a lot easier to just glance from one [...]
“Is Antivirus Dead?”
I’ve mentioned before that I no longer run antivirus software on most of my Windows machines, but Bruce Schneier has just posted a persuasive argument in favor of it in most cases, despite the flaws. But persuasive or not, it doesn’t change my opinion or my stance on the systems I control. Antivirus is generally [...]
“Capstone projects and time management”
Joel On Software, on one of the few similarities between student projects and professional ones: It’s taken me a while, but I finally learned that long-term deadlines (or no deadlines at all) just don’t work with professional programmers, either: you need a schedule of regular, frequent deliverables to be productive over the long term. That [...]
“Proving a Computer Program’s Correctness”
It sounds great, but isn’t viable in practice.
Know Thyself: Context
If you’ve been following the Know Thyself entries in recent months, you’ll know that I’ve had trouble pursuing my goals in the last few years. Thanks to a few articles on StevePavlina.com, I’d tracked the problem down to a lack of purpose and context, but I didn’t know how to move forward from there. Trying [...]
Know Thyself: Goals, Context, and Purpose
A few months ago, I thought I’d found the answer to my motivation problems. A tweak to my purpose, thought I, and all would be well. As usual, things weren’t that simple… it helped, but after the initial surge of enthusiasm wore off, I discovered that it didn’t make enough difference to keep me moving. [...]
“Read It Later” iPhone App — Excellent!
I’ve been using the free Read It Later add-on (RIL from here on) for Firefox for quite a while now. It’s really great for marking pages that I want to read, but don’t want to take time out from whatever I’m doing when I find them. It’s also very nice because I often have my [...]