Why checking your builds is killing productivity

Build systems are essential to software development, but meanwhile they are a horrible productivity drain. In the world of modern software development, a build system is always in place. Tools like GitLab, GitHub actions, Jenkins are industry standards. What a lot off developers do after pushing our code, we ignore the build. Opening our dashboards feels like a hassle. And companies have attempted to solve this by making build dashboards mounted on office walls.

Context switching kills developer productivity

There are many examples of the real pain of context switching. Research shows that there are many examples of context switching problems: link, link link. Studies show that we need about 23 minutes after we regained focus.

The Real Cost of “Just Check the build”

Let’s say a build checkup takes you only 2 minutes, if it’s successful. This assumes that your build has already completed once you check it. Add 23 minutes to your 2 minutes check, and you have lost 25 minutes of work. To us this does not sound acceptable.

But it’s just a small check?

You could be skeptical, how could a quick dashboard check cost 25 minutes?

Example of the active checker: Push code -> Switch to browser -> Navigate to CI/CD host -> Find Repository -> Open build page -> Wait and refresh repeatedly -> verify your build.

Meanwhile you are distracted by waiting on your build, or even browsing for new gadgets ( I did that ), checking email, etc. And you’ve lost context.

My personal favorite way to work, Ignore the build. Push code -> ignore build -> continue to work.

The most of the times I ignored the build, and this let to my coworkers frequently bothering me with: “The build broke”

Once again, loss of context. I needed to stash my current work, fix the build, and remember where i was.

Do we want this?

Clearly not!

At Zippy we believe build systems should with your development flow, not break it. It is time to bring the build feedback directly in your development flow, in real time. Right in your terminal. The elimitnation of context switching and being directly responsible for your own work is a breath of fresh air.

Ready to optimize your development flow?!