The .NET ecosystem provides a variety of tools, and libraries designed to boost your productivity. However, there's invaluable insight to be gained from experienced developers who've honed their skills over the years.
To uncover these tips and tricks, we reached out to some of our seasoned Uno Platform developers. They've generously shared practical advice that has boosted their productivity—and can do the same for you
Dan Siegel - Microsoft MVP
Years of experience: 28 years writing code (14 full-time / professionally)
Dev Environment: Visual Studio on Windows
Favorite Library: Prism
Dan’s Top 3 Productivity Tips:
Step Away: Take breaks away from your computer. Many solutions to complex issues come to mind when you're not actively working on them.
“Honestly, you'd be surprised how many answers/solutions I come up with for things I'm working on when I walk away from the computer and go to lunch. I have even fixed bugs or come up with radical ideas for solving a complex issue while I'm on the dive boat. Software development is a creative process... and many times you need to get away from the computer to let your brain solve problems.Development is a team sport. No matter how good you think you can make something, you’ll make something better collaborating with someone else. Sometimes, the simple exercise of explaining it to someone else can lead to mind-blowing breakthroughs.
When you’re working with open-source code, don’t be afraid to look at the code. You’d be amazed at how many things you’ll have a better understanding of just by looking at the code, and how many possibilities that will unlock for you.
Follow Dan on: GitHub & Twitter
Martin Zikmund - Microsoft MVP
Years of experience: 15 years
Dev Environment: Visual Studio on Windows
Favorite Library: Uno Platform (of course 😁)
Martin’s Top 3 Productivity Tips:
Invest in workplace: If you have control over your environment, investment into everything you are using while working is a worthwhile investment. This means a quality PC to ensure its performance does not hinder your efficiency; comfortable chair to save your back; standing desk; and ergonomic keyboard and mouse. You are likely spending a lot of time at your PC, so any investments in this regard are worthwhile as they will return to you in both health and time.
Use PowerToys: Don’t get me wrong, Windows is a productive OS out of the box, however, you can make it even better by extending it with useful tools. And one of the best comes directly from Microsoft – PowerToys! It is a set of small modules that enhance the OS in ways that will make it hard to imagine your life without after you integrate it into your workflow. I am currently making a series of videos about this on my YouTube channel, if you want to learn more!
Know your shortcuts: Nothing can speed up your work as much as knowing keyboard shortcuts of your IDE and other apps you use frequently. Just not having to reach for your mouse and being able to keep your hands on the keyboard saves a surprising amount of time! So, find the list of keyboard shortcuts, print it out, and start learning them as you go. My trick to learn faster is to put your mouse on the side of your non-dominant hand for 30 minutes. Just the fact that the mouse is not where you expect it will make force you to think whether using a keyboard shortcut could be better for that specific task!
Follow Martin on: GitHub & Twitter
Steve Bilogan - Microsoft MVP
Years of experience: 8.5 years
Dev Environment: Visual Studio on Windows / VS Code on macOS
Favorite Library: unoplatform/uno.toolkit.ui
Steve’s Top 3 Productivity Tips:
Take a walk, every couple of hours or whenever needed: walk around the block, let your mind wander, decompress, and come back fresh.
Visual Studio CTRL+T Quick Search can search by just the capital letters. Example: Searching for RDP.xaml will resolve properly to RecipeDetailsPage.xaml
Open on GitHub - Visual Studio Marketplace Great extension for quickly opening the highlighted lines in the browser from the GitHub repo. Great for needing to quickly grab the link to lines that you are talking about when communicating on Teams
Follow Steve on: GitHub & Twitter
Youssef Victor - Microsoft MVP
Years of experience: 2 years
Dev Environment: Visual Studio on Windows
Favorite Library: NodaTime, PolySharp
Youssef’s Top 3 Productivity Tips:
- Master Keyboard Shortcuts: Learn to use Visual Studio's Quick Search (Ctrl+T) to navigate quickly through both your code and IDE features.
Leverage Multi-Caret Editing: Use your editor's multi-caret functionality in specific situations where it can significantly speed up your editing process. This allows you to edit multiple locations in your code simultaneously.
Consider using grep.app for advanced text searching within your codebase. It offers more powerful search capabilities than the basic search functions within your editor.
Follow Youssef on: GitHub & Twitter
Nick Randolph - Microsoft MVP
Years of experience: 30 years
Dev Environment: Windows (Desktop) + VS
Favorite Library: Moq for mocking interfaces for testing
Nicks Top 3 Productivity Tips:
- Better team work through focused, and frequent pull requests.
- Release when features are complete rather than try to hit arbitrary deadlines
- Don't spin cycles; If you're stuck reach out to someone for help.
Top comments (1)
These tips are super helpful! Regarding Martin Zikmund's advice on investing in your workplace, any specific gear recommendations you'd suggest? Thanks for sharing such valuable insights!