Coding can be a long, lonely endeavor, with so much time spent on debugging, so it makes sense to make it as easy as possible.


While Microsoft Visual Studio can be pretty efficient, there are various tips, tricks, and tools you can use to improve your productivity when coding.



1. Forget Being Efficient, Be Energetic

While efficiency is important, it cannot be achieved without having something “in the tank.” This means getting plenty of sleep, food, and exercise, maintaining a healthy lifestyle, and being able to apply yourself with focus and passion.


Sure, pulling 18-hour days or 50 hour weekends might sound good on Twitter or Reddit, but they will kill you sooner rather than later. Worse still, if your current project is unlikely to develop into something useful at the end, you’re putting your body under unnecessary duress and while simultaneously being inefficient.

And when you lose, your employer or client loses, too.


Be energetic first, efficient second. You’ll soon find they’re very close.



Reducing the number of tools you use is a great way to maintain efficiency in any field. When it comes to software development it is worth reducing yourself to a single calendar app and an IDE (integrated development environment). But there are exceptions.


If you use Microsoft Visual Studio, Visual Assist is a time-saving plugin that introduces a collection of productivity boosts into your development process.

A number of key features are included in Visual Assist that can super-power your efficiency, from the ability to easily open a new file or corresponding file (that is, one most related to the current open document) to easily finding references, symbols, and indeed anything related to that symbol.


Furthermore, files can be quickly queried to list methods, implementations can be jumped to, and hashtags can be added to comments. These are essentially bookmarks that can be navigated, allowing you to jump between them throughout your code.


Perhaps the most effective feature of Visual Assist, however, and certainly the one you’ll use the most, is code correction. Visual Assist will correct errors as you make them, like the auto-correct feature in a word processor.

Throw in support for Unreal Engine 4, code inspection and modernization for older code, excellent support for large C++ projects, refactoring for current and legacy code, and auto-completion suggestions, and it’s clear that Visual Assist is an unmissable plugin for Microsoft Visual Studio.


3. Time Management Is King

You’ve got the right attitude, the right tools, but what else do you need?


Time.

We all have the same amount of time to spend each day. The secret to success is to use that time effectively. But how do you do this?


Calendars were mentioned earlier, and that is one way to establish a routine. Plan your day or week in advance, remaining flexible to successes or failures along the way. Reduce boring tasks like email to two or three times a day and attempt to clear the list of messages in as little time as possible.

You should also use a pomodoro timer tool if you’re not already. This will allow you to work in user-defined periods of time (usually 30 minutes) that foster considerable focus on the task at hand.


Don’t Let Coding Get You Down

These tips and tricks can help you to stay on top of your current development work, and avoid the pitfalls of coding. Maintaining a healthy lifestyle and being able to apply yourself to projects with energy and enthusiasm is important.



Meanwhile,

And with Visual Assist enhancing your Visual Studio projects, your development time is about to become more efficient.





We hope you like the items we recommend and discuss! MUO has affiliate
and sponsored partnerships, so we receive a share of the revenue from some of your purchases. This
won’t affect the price you pay and helps us offer the best product recommendations.





Should You Leave Your Laptop Plugged in All the Time?



Read Next








About The Author





Christian Cawley
(1591 Articles Published)





Deputy Editor for Security, Linux, DIY, Programming, and Tech Explained, and Really Useful Podcast producer, with extensive experience in desktop and software support.

A contributor to Linux Format magazine, Christian is a Raspberry Pi tinkerer, Lego lover and retro gaming fan.




More
From Christian Cawley














Subscribe to our newsletter

Join our newsletter for tech tips, reviews, free ebooks, and exclusive deals!

Click here to subscribe

Source: MakeUseOf

Powered by NewsAPI.org