Ask HN: Tracking Coding Friction Points?

by batguano on 6/28/2024, 7:41:27 PM with 1 comments
I work with a stack that’s pretty brittle, and in a constant state of flux. As such, I spend most of my time fixing broken compiles, chasing down problems that are red herrings (e.g., my branch suddenly has a test failing, but it turns out that’s totally unrelated to my changes), etc. I spend only a small fraction of my time on the actual “business logic” (aka “useful work”).

I would love to be able to track this stuff, so at the end-of-the-week standup I have a better idea where all my time went.

I’m looking for a good tool to help me do this. Here’s the most important features:

1) Voice dictation, so I can say things like, “I’m now rebasing and recompiling the whole codebase, because test X is now broken and I haven’t changed anything that should affect it.” Taking text notes wouldn’t be a deal-breaker, but voice dictation seems like it would work better.

2) The ability to ask for an AI-based weekly summary. e.g.,

  - You finished the AAA refactor and got that installed.
  - you spent a full day and a half on spinning your wheels on BBB because of the change to CCC
  - you paired with Alice to debug DDD
  - you helped Bob fix his problem with EEE
  - while working on FFF, you found a problem with GGG and preemptively fixed it
I’m not a contractor working on multiple client projects, so this isn’t a billing thing. I just find at the end of the week, I’m disappointed in how much stuff got closed. I forget all the friction points and distractions that sucked up time—as well as lots of little wins!

Would appreciate hearing how others approach this problem.

  • by Jugurtha on 7/1/2024, 10:34:10 AM

    If you use version control platforms, you're probably creating issues/tickets and use tags. Use many, many tags. You can then have stats and notice where most of your effort goes.

    For example, you can use tags like "compatibility", "dependency", etc... Basically, words that describe the red herrings and why you're working on the codebase.