As a programmer what single discovery has given you the greatest boost in productivity?

Posted by ChrisInCambo on Programmers See other posts from Programmers or by ChrisInCambo
Published on 2009-03-14T02:47:16Z Indexed on 2010/12/27 18:58 UTC
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This question has been inspired by my recent discovery/adoption of distributed version control. I started using it (mercurial) just because I liked the idea of still being able to make commits at times when I couldn't connect to the central server. I never expected it would give me a large boost in general productivity, but a pleasant side effect I discovered was that making a new clone every time I started a new task and giving that clone a descriptive folder name is extremely effective at keeping me on task resulting is a noticeable productivity increase.

So as a programmer what single discovery has given you the greatest boost in productivity?

Extra respect for answers which involve tools or practices that aren't so obvious from the outside!

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