Developer productivity is about shipping quality code without friction. These articles are written for software engineers and engineering managers, covering the software development life cycle, code review practices, technical debt, common programming errors and how to fix them, developer metrics, and useful dev tools. You’ll also find ways to reuse code snippets, commit messages, and test data so you spend less time retyping and more time building.
Developer productivity is better measured by outcomes than lines of code. Consider seven creative measures, including closed tickets, deploys, documentation written, code reviews completed, and conversations with others.
Great code documentation reduces development time and support requests over the long run. Find out what code documentation covers and see examples from Ruby on Rails, GoCardless, Stripe, and TextExpander.
Testing a website for keyboard users starts with checking tab order. See why keyboard navigation matters for accessibility, how to test the order of focusable elements by hand, and how to automate tab order tests.
High quality bug reports give developers the details needed to fix issues fast. Use three steps: add instrumentation to your app, capture each user's browser setup, and ask targeted follow-up questions.
Code review best practices help teams improve software without creating tension. Find out what code review is, why it matters, when to do it, who should review, and how to run reviews that feel natural and fair.
Code churn measures how much code gets rewritten or deleted soon after it's written. Find out how to measure it and how to address common causes like shifting requirements, prototyping, and indecisive developers.
Developers giving a technical talk have more to handle than the speaking itself. Find out what makes a talk good, which preparation tasks you can automate, and how a real-world example puts those ideas into practice.
Communicating technical work well means tailoring product changes to each audience. Get guidance and example messages for customers, sales and marketing, affiliates, support, and technical teammates.
Text-based stand-up meetings suit remote and asynchronous teams spread across time zones. See how to keep daily updates consistent, what else written stand-ups offer, and how TextExpander helps with the format.
