Hacks for Coding: Speed Up, Clean Up, Ship More
Want to spend less time fighting your tools and more time building? These are practical, no-fluff hacks I use every day to move faster and make fewer mistakes. Try one change at a time and keep what actually saves you time.
Quick setup hacks
Make your editor behave like an assistant: enable format-on-save, set up snippets for common code blocks, and map the few keyboard shortcuts you use most. Small keystroke savings add up—learn jump-to-definition, multi-cursor edits, and shell integration in your IDE. Use ripgrep or your editor’s fast search instead of slow file-by-file scans.
Use linters and formatters as part of your local workflow, not just CI. Tools like ESLint, Prettier, Black, or rustfmt catch style and simple bugs before code review. Add strict type checks where they make sense (TypeScript, mypy) to catch class-of-bugs that show up later on production.
Make sane project templates: a minimal repo layout, a working test command, and a simple README with the run/build/test steps. New feature branches should follow the same pattern so you don’t waste time figuring out how to run tests for each repo.
Debugging and testing tricks
When a bug appears, reproduce it with a failing test first. That locks the problem down and gives you a safety net so the fix won’t regress. Prefer focused unit tests that run fast—slow integration tests are important but save them for CI.
Use a real debugger for state inspection instead of scattering prints. Breakpoints let you step and change variables on the fly. When the cause isn’t obvious, git bisect is a lifesaver—find the commit that introduced the bug in minutes, not hours.
Profiling beats guessing. If your app is slow, run a CPU or memory profiler to get concrete hotspots. Optimize the hot paths and measure again. Often the fix is a simple data-structure change or caching, not rewriting everything.
Keep commits small and focused. Small pull requests review faster and are easier to revert. Pair on tricky sections to share context and spot edge cases earlier. Use code reviews to teach agreed patterns—consistency beats cleverness.
Automate repetitive tasks: script builds, test runs, and deployment checks. If you do it more than twice, automate it. Add pre-commit hooks for formatting and basic checks so most bad commits never reach the repo.
Finally, use AI code assistants where they help but verify the output. Autocomplete speeds up boilerplate; linting and tests catch logic issues. Treat these tools as accelerators, not replacements for thinking through design.
Pick three of these hacks and apply them this week: format-on-save, small focused tests, and one profiling run. You’ll notice fewer late-night bug hunts and more predictable, steady progress.
