Contents tagged with Coding Environment
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Join the Dark Side of Visual Studio 2010
Hard to believe it’s been so long, but it was almost 4 years ago when I published Join the Dark Side of Visual Studio. That was when a lot of people were still using VS2003, and importing and exporting environment settings required a custom add-in, VSStyler, which has since fallen off the planet and is hard to find (link, anyone? Let me know). Three versions of VS later, and I’m still using and loving the dark side. Pleased, I am (haha). In fact, that article for one reason or another is still one of my most popular blog entries, thanks in part to a link from Scott Hanselman and a commenter on Coding Horror. I will point out selfishly that my article predates both of these :) But, yes, it’s sad when one of your top referrers is from a link in a comment on another blog. Not even the first comment, either.
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Visual Studio Tip: Disable F1!
Lately I've been using a laptop more often than a desktop to work in Visual Studio, and of course like most laptop keyboards, the keys are jammed close together. The most annoying thing I keep doing by mistake is hitting F1 instead of Escape, which of course begins the not-so-quick process of bringing up help. Every time I do it, I sigh, wait, and close it.
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What is your coding environment
Often neglected is the importance of your physical surroundings when you code, yet I think your environment can have more of an impact on your productivity than a fully tooled IDE. Do you like the lights full glare, half, or off altogether? Do you hate it when the office is cold? Do you use a space heater? Does your chair recline? Is your keyboard the natural type or are you standard layout junkie? Do you absolutely have to have dual monitors? Do you listen to music while you code? What kind?
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Join the Dark Side of Visual Studio
Visual Studio is without a doubt a powerful tool. With every iteration, it continues to improve upon itself. But as you happily hack away at all your applications, you are blistfully unaware of it's evil dark side that has been there since the beginning. It's true.
There are those of us who embrace the dark side. But we are out numbered...
You see, the dark side isn't how it comes by default. No... it comes all happy and bright and cheery by default, and like good little jedi programmers you accept those defaults. But the dark side is there, hidden away deep within the environment settings, reaching out and corrupting those programmers who are corruptible. Why some are corruptible and some are not is a mystery that may never be solved, but each and every programmer must give pause and consider the benefits it provides.