How long does it take you to get back into a project after a few days away?
1 comments
> Nothing told me why I was changing it
That arguably belongs in the commit messages or, in some cases, in code comments.
> or what I was planning next.
That arguably belongs in ./TODO or, in some cases, code comments.
Edit: TODOs in code comments obviously don't have a natural ordering, but i frequently look at diffs to help figure that part out, as they clearly mark the new/recent TODOs.
> Is there anything that actually works, or do you just accept the tax?
There will always be a tax for context switching - even brief interruptions during concentrated work often require longer than the interruption to get back into the work (that's a well-studied phenomenon, actually). There is no avoiding that unless, perhaps, one has eidetic memory (in which case the cost is _presumably_ low enough to be considered negligible (but perhaps someone with eidetic memory can enlighten us on that)).
> How long does it realistically take you to resume a project after 3+ days?
That depends entirely on the project and its complexity/scope. It might be 5 minutes, it might be half a day. i'll admit that i sometimes (okay, okay: often!) avoid going back to something i'd _like_ to work on because i know in advance that this tax is likely to be paid by an inordinately large portion of my current energy levels, leaving little for the actual work. Frequently, though, when _finally_ getting back, i discover that the tax is less than anticipated. Maybe that's an age/experience thing, though - refamiliarizing myself with older code seems to come more easily to me with age, for reasons beyond my ken.
That arguably belongs in the commit messages or, in some cases, in code comments.
> or what I was planning next.
That arguably belongs in ./TODO or, in some cases, code comments.
Edit: TODOs in code comments obviously don't have a natural ordering, but i frequently look at diffs to help figure that part out, as they clearly mark the new/recent TODOs.
> Is there anything that actually works, or do you just accept the tax?
There will always be a tax for context switching - even brief interruptions during concentrated work often require longer than the interruption to get back into the work (that's a well-studied phenomenon, actually). There is no avoiding that unless, perhaps, one has eidetic memory (in which case the cost is _presumably_ low enough to be considered negligible (but perhaps someone with eidetic memory can enlighten us on that)).
> How long does it realistically take you to resume a project after 3+ days?
That depends entirely on the project and its complexity/scope. It might be 5 minutes, it might be half a day. i'll admit that i sometimes (okay, okay: often!) avoid going back to something i'd _like_ to work on because i know in advance that this tax is likely to be paid by an inordinately large portion of my current energy levels, leaving little for the actual work. Frequently, though, when _finally_ getting back, i discover that the tax is less than anticipated. Maybe that's an age/experience thing, though - refamiliarizing myself with older code seems to come more easily to me with age, for reasons beyond my ken.
The code told me what changed. Nothing told me why I was changing it, or what I was planning next.
I ended up wasting most of the session just re-building context that had completely evaporated from my brain.
Curious if this is just me or a universal thing:
- How long does it realistically take you to resume a project after 3+ days? - What do you actually do to help yourself resume faster? (comments, notes, commit messages?) - Is there anything that actually works, or do you just accept the tax?
For what it's worth, my current "system" is writing a messy TODO comment at the top of whatever file I was in. Works maybe 30% of the time.