The Productive Programmer Book

Foreword     vii
Preface     ix
Introduction     1
Why a Book on Programmer Productivity?     2
What This Book Is About     3
Where to Go Now?     5
Mechanics
Acceleration     9
Launching Pad     10
Accelerators     18
Macros     33
Summary     35
Focus     37
Kill Distractions     38
Search Trumps Navigation     40
Find Hard Targets     42
Use Rooted Views     44
Use Sticky Attributes     46
Use Project-Based Shortcuts     47
Multiply Your Monitors     48
Segregate Your Workspace with Virtual Desktops     48
Summary     50
Automation     51
Don't Reinvent Wheels     53
Cache Stuff Locally     53
Automate Your Interaction with Web Sites     54
Interact with RSS Feeds     54
Subvert Ant for Non-Build Tasks     56
Subvert Rake for Common Tasks     57
Subvert Selenium to Walk Web Pages     58
Use Bash to Harvest Exception Counts     60
Replace Batch Files withWindows Power Shell     61
Use Mac OS X Automator to Delete Old Downloads     62
Tame Command-Line Subversion     62
Build a SQL Splitter in Ruby     64
Justifying Automation     65
Don't Shave Yaks     67
Summary     68
Canonicality     69
DRY Version Control     70
Use a Canonical Build Machine     72
Indirection     73
Use Virtualization     80
DRY Impedance Mismatches     80
DRY Documentation     88
Summary     93
Practice
Test-Driven Design     97
Evolving Tests     99
Code Coverage     105
Static Analysis     109
Byte Code Analysis     110
Source Analysis     112
Generate Metrics with Panopticode     113
Analysis for Dynamic Languages     116
Good Citizenship     119
Breaking Encapsulation     120
Constructors     121
Static Methods     121
Criminal Behavior     126
Yagni     129
Ancient Philosophers     135
Aristotle's Essential and Accidental Properties      136
Occam's Razor     137
The Law of Demeter     140
Software Lore     141
Question Authority     143
Angry Monkeys     144
Fluent Interfaces     145
Anti-Objects     147
Meta-Programming     149
Java and Reflection     150
Testing Java with Groovy     151
Writing Fluent Interfaces     152
Whither Meta-Programming?     154
Composed Method and Slap     155
Composed Method in Action     156
Slap     160
Polyglot Programming     165
How Did We Get Here? And Where Exactly Is Here?     166
Where Are We Going? And How Do We Get There?     169
Ola's Pyramid     173
Find the Perfect Tools     175
The Quest for the Perfect Editor     176
The Candidates     179
Choosing the Right Tool for the Job     180
Un-Choosing the Wrong Tools     186
Conclusion: Carrying on the Conversation     189
Building Blocks     191
Index     199