This past week at CodeMash I sat in on Neal Ford's The Productive Programmer session, and am I ever glad I did!

This session shows you how to become a more productive programmer every day by using tools that you didn't know you already had.

I would describe the session as a fast paced cookbook-style run down of tips and tricks to help recapture minutes (or even hours) a day that you would normally spend doing a lot of really mundane tasks.

One of the best points Neal made was that our computers have some how turned the tables on us. Computers are designed for, and are really good at doing those simple, repetitive, and mundane tasks. We've lost touch with tools like the command line and have come to rely on the GUI far too much. To paraphrase,

Every time you click through a project's entire directory structure just so you can right-click and delete all of the backup and meta-data files that your version control system leaves lying around your computer laughs at you. What's more, you computer meets up with his computer buddies and tell stories about how their users are now doing the work for them.

I had no idea my computer was being such a jerk. So I figure I've had enough - and last night I installed Ruby! One of Neal's bullet points was that we all need to have a real scripting language.

I still don't really know what I'm doing when it comes to Ruby, but at least this way I can learn. So the next time I catch myself doing some simple task for the second time I'll stop. Fire up my Ruby editor (anyone have a suggestion for a good editor?). And script the task out in Ruby.

A few other bullet points/take aways (there were more, but I can't recall them):

• The mouse slows you down, so learn every keyboard shortcut in your IDE... and OS. Jon Galloway has even more to say about this.
• Use some type of desktop search (he suggested Google's brand).
• The command line (and scripting languages) is your friend.
  • use pushd and popd to navigate the command line's command history stack.
  • F7 shows the command history list
• Find a good text editor. Neal suggested JEdit, but I like Notepad++.
• Use a darker color scheme in your IDE - its easier on your eyes than the default black text on white background that many come with.

Like I said, there were a lot more tips that I can't remember right now - probably because I already use a good number of his tips. +1 for me!

Be sure to keep on the lookout for Neal's forthcoming book, The Productive Programmer, which the talk from CodeMash was based on. Also, he usually posts the notes/slides from his presentation on his site, so you should be able to grab them from there pretty soon.

Are there any tips/tricks that you'd like to share with the rest of the class? What little gems do you use on a daily basis that the rest of us should also be using? And remember, there is no tip too small. Cutting even a few minutes a day adds up to a lot in the end.