

Ask HN: What do you do while code is compiling? - orky56

Compiling code takes an annoying amount of time. Not enough time to do something worthwhile yet too much time to just sit around and idly wait. If we add up all the time we sit around waiting for code to compile, it would be a depressing number.<p>So what do people currently do while waiting? Any good ideas on what to do?
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trafficlight
I usually sword fight in the hallway with coworkers while riding on office
chairs.

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cperciva
_Compiling code takes an annoying amount of time._

Really? Unless I'm doing a complete build, I never wait more than a few
seconds for a build to complete.

What build system are you using?

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veyron
You can be developing other tools.

My builds oftentimes take a long time because there are a lot of cross-
language stuff (libraries include some boost stuff, which always takes a long
time to process) and cross-compiling (e.g. targeting tools for osx and for
linux -- why they changed the syscall numbers is beyond me)

You probably have a laundry list of scripts that should exist (e.g. launch
scripts, cron jobs, etc) but are low-priority. It's easy to work a little bit
on a script when building.

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wladh
The incremental builds are taking about 5 minutes, which is not really long
enough for me to do any big work, but I usually look if there are any new
issues in the queue, look at code reviews (not the ones I'm reviewing, but
what others reviewed) or try to do code review for smaller chunks of code.

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LarryA
Think of errors I had probably missed before I started compilation. Just about
any long process I think of the stuff I forgot to check before I initiated it.
:-D

Other than that I get up, take a break, I deserve it.

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urorbit
looking from a window , you wll see a life

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sixtofour
Today I saw poetry on HN.

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pktm
Usually, read another post on HN.

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OnesimusUnbound
research more on how to make the build process efficient :-)

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Detrus
try out Golang

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damoncali
Write some more ruby.

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chosenone1907
pray and wish it compiles without err

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whiterabbit
This.

~~~
merlins_hack
Echo.

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fleitz
What language do you use? / What kind of project are you working on? embedded,
kernel, iphone, web, etc?

There are usually tricks to speed up your compile process, copy the code to a
RAM drive before compiling, etc, also try using testing and create a small
program that monitors your src dir and will recompile and test automatically.
That way as soon as you save it's automatically recompiling and testing, then
you just look over at the terminal window and see the results.

Also, split your code into libraries so that only a single lib needs to be
recompiled, etc.

The drive to speed up iterations usually pays off in spades and you end up
doing stuff you really should have been doing anyway, like writing tests,
modularizing code, etc.

If it absolutely can't be sped up, document your code while its compiling,
Doxygen, etc.

