Developers know that proper time management is critical in delivering good code. In general, most of the development teams struggle with too much task loads and strict deadlines. There can be various factors that cause delay in project delivery:
- Complex project
- Incomplete project details
- Short deadline
- Delays in feedback and approvals
- No clear sitemap
- Unable to measure progress
- Lack of testing
Here are 10 quick ways to speed up the development software time that lets you focus on your code. You’ll learn how to quickly get clean code up and running from shortcut keys to utilizing HTML Editors. Let’s get started.
1. Use Shortcut Keys
Using shortcut keys is one of the key ways to improve development time. For example, the ability to not use your mouse and become keyboard-centric can speed up your coding time. Most editors have shortcut keys, and you should use them. Here are some basic yet important shortcut keys:
- Copy/Cut/Paste Entire Lines: ctrl + x, ctrl + c, and ctrl + v
- Toggle Comments: ctrl + /
- Open File Within Project: ctrl + p
- Find In File/Project: ctrl + f
- Indent/Un-Indent Lines: shift + tab
- Create New File: ctrl + n
- Create A New Line Below The Current Line: ctrl + enter
- Move Cursor Whole Words At A Time: ctrl + left arrow and ctrl + right arrow
2. Use a Proper Text Editor
There are many text editors; some are more optimized for a language than others—VS Code for Javascript, Pycharm for Python, Jetbrains PHPStorm for PHP, and so on. So you have to ensure that your text editor is in line with the programming language you are using to create your software. Text editor helps in handling complex web applications and hence reduces the time in delivery.
3. Utilize HTML Editors
If you’re a backend developer and want to create static pages, you don’t need to code everything by yourself. There are options like this HTML editor that can do the frontend work for you. HTML Editors will help you save time in coding as you can envision what you want and create it with no code. Using HTML Editors gives you complete control over your codes.
There are many benefits of using HTML Editors such as the codes generated through HTML editors can easily be translated into other languages. Such tasks take a lot of time and quite complex.
4. Using framework
Frameworks are useful tools for web developers in easing out the coding process and saving time. There are many client side frameworks like jQuery, Prototype JS, and YUI and server side framworks like CodeIgniter, CakePHP, Zend, or symphony (for PHP) etc.
Frameworks provide a common structure for developers so they don’t have to write the codes from scratch. They are reuse the provided code and hence save time.
5. Read The Documentation
Utilizing documentation is a crucial part of saving development time. Detailed documentation is a blessing to developers because we can just refer to the documentation if we get stuck on a step. It helps in troubleshooting and solving errors which takes a bit of time in the absence of right documentation.
6. Search for exiting code for reuse
Developers most of the times add features that they saw in other websites. In such cases, they don’t need to write the code on their own, they can search and find the code of the feature and use it.
7. Use of Integrated Development Environment (IDE)
Some developers prefer simple text editors like Notepad and FTP for creating web applications. But these are not the most time efficient options. One can use IDE (or Integrated Development Environment) application that has all the developers need to create and manage large and complicated projects.
For example, Dreamweaver is an IDE as it has the features like project management, debugging, syntax highlighting and built-in FTP. Such IDEs helps in reducing the project delivery time.
8. Expand team
If your work load is too much but deadline is short then expanding resource do help a lot. You can hire more developers for writing codes and you can divide work efficiently. Having an expanded team will reduce the working time significantly.
9. Tools
Using right tools for right task will help you cut the development time and effort. Below are some famous tools that most developers use:
- Chrome Developer Tools
- jQuery
- GitHub
- CodePen
- Angular.js
- Sass
10. Test Test Test!
Python has a library called unit test for testing. Developers might skip testing, but testing your code for all edge cases saves time. Testing your project on regular phases of development will save you a lot of time and efforts. Most developers opt for testing after coding stage but this can use in complicated bugs which will require a whole lot of time to find and correct.
Hence regular testing will limit the possibility of unforeseen bugs and errors.
Take away
In conclusion, the small things count in development. For example, we might take shortcut keys for granted, but it saves lots of time due to their keyboard-centric nature.
HTML Editors, while not coding themselves, gets you to worry less about content management and focus on other business logic. So now you can create some good and clean code.