Development and Productivity

There always multiple ways to increase productivity in development. The most simplest way usually means downloading a existing Tool or API to finish the job. Though what this also means is that this pattern will have to continue, unless the developer decides to create their own software to increase productivity. This begs the question, what is better? Downloading a tool on the internet that usually may be free, or requires some type of licensing, or purchasing to use it, is often the smoothest way to solve such productivity issues. Though creating your own software to help develop an application is suitable for maintaining control of the environment, not to mention, lessening the chances of licensing software. Finally, this seemingly goes against the idea of sharing code and working together to solve problems, which is ideally more freeing when innovation is truly collaborative.

However, Tech Republic says differently, https://www.techrepublic.com/blog/10-things/10-ways-to-increase-the-productivity-of-your-programmers/, they suggest to buy the software, that using free software tools would not increase efficiency.

"If they need the full version of a tool, buy it. Many of the tools that can help your team are not open source or freeware, for better or for worse. There are few tools on the market that cost more than a week's salary for a programmer, but there are many times when using the wrong tools or no tools wastes much more than a week. That means that you will need to occasionally purchase software for them to help them do their jobs. Get used to it, and try to make the process as easy as possible. It also means that instead of your team members trying to trick evaluation copies of software into functioning beyond the time period, they can get to work. "

Another interesting point, less apparent, is the use of code reviews. These are great for developer feedback, and help contain the spatial reasoning that needs to be understood about the project to complete it.

#10: Code reviews

"When does not writing code help you write code faster and better? When you are performing a code review. Schedule regular times to have code reviews performed. One of the best types of code reviews is when you have a good programmer who is only loosely familiar with the project looking at the code. When authors need to explain details, they learn their code better, and sometimes an outsider will see problems that the insiders all missed. Code reviews cost nothing but time, and often save much more time than they take to conduct."

Source: https://www.techrepublic.com/blog/10-things/10-ways-to-increase-the-productivity-of-your-programmers/

The cost differential is quite important to consider with the number of lines of code. The more lines of code, typically the cost increases. While the previous ideas mention ways to save time, this is about saving on capacity and/or actual written code.

"LSS are expensive to develop and maintain so that even modest software productivity improvements can lead to substantial savings. For example, it is reasonable to assume that 10,000 lines of code may cost a development organization $100,000-250,000. For larger systems in the range of 50,000 to 250,000 lines of code, the cost may climb by as much as a factor of 4-25."

Source: https://www.ics.uci.edu/~wscacchi/Papers/Vintage/Software_Productivity.html

All in all, consider the programmer's mind, what is required for them to maintain focus on long concentrated tasks, the more techniques or assistance for this type work should increase productivity for the developer or programmer.

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