Ask HN: Name a specific issue that slows productivity while coding?
Looking for specific things while actually working in a code base...ie "tracking through code libraries/hierarchy"..."remembering variable names"...
1. Interruptions and context-switching
2. WTFs that are now everywhere, in language syntax, in libraries, etc.
3. Incomplete or inconsistent libraries, with unexpectedly high learning curves (e.g. due to lack of good documentation), recursive dependencies, etc. Half the time goes into just wiring things together, whether code or data.
2. Library incompatibilities (Eclipse I'm looking at you).
3. No code search to find specific methods across the entire code base.
4. No here's what you were just working on list (especially important if you get context switched out to go fix fires and forget exactly what you were up to).
Hey, it's true. I was happily coding along until I felt the need to check HN.
Not periodically getting up and moving away from the task for an hour or so, to gain some perspective on the project and a bit of distance from the minutiae of coding solutions to many tiny problems.
Any number of times I have taken a break from coding, only to realize I was crafting the wrong solution by being too immersed at too low a level in the code.