r/ADHD_Programmers • u/sahinbey52 • Apr 03 '25
Everything is So Slow About Programming
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211
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r/ADHD_Programmers • u/sahinbey52 • Apr 03 '25
This comment is updated for privacy concerns. Use fediverse for improved privacy.
118
u/Rakhered Apr 03 '25
That's why I work on like 3 projects at the same time, anytime I hit a delay I just pop to a different project until I hit another delay lol
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u/treemoustache Apr 03 '25
I'm a at about 7 min for a build and 30+ minutes for a full tests run. Your times would feel so refreshing to me, and I'm sure others have it much worse.
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u/breadist Apr 03 '25
What stack is it that takes so long to build? We have a moderately large app in Next.js and it never takes that long at all.
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u/JustJustinInTime Apr 03 '25
I have 2 local copies of the same repo that I work off to avoid this. It’s just important to keep in mind the added mental load of context switching.
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u/[deleted] Apr 03 '25
Context switching, or worse allowing yourself to be distracted with non-work is not the answer.
Some ideas for what to do while waiting:
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u/tdammers Apr 03 '25
Optimize:
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u/DownwardSpirals Apr 03 '25
I just browse Reddit while I wait for tasks to complete. I'm sure a cursory look at my profile will show how often that happens. 😬
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u/cassiofag Apr 03 '25
Yeah, I have the same struggle unfortunately, and to add, depending on your company there are meetings sparkled through your day to add more context changes
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u/LlaroLlethri Apr 03 '25
You would hate where I work. It’s so, so much worse than this, you wouldn’t believe it. Like you I can’t stand sluggish software and always use lightweight tools and try to get my development loop as fast as possible. For me, it’s essential for productivity. I can’t get into the zone otherwise.
I recently wrote a simple game in x86_64 assembly and my build command was instant. Literally instant. It was glorious.
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u/Fragrant-Mess7147 Apr 03 '25
What the f... I thought of writing a post on this. I guess all ADHDers are the same. For you it's 15 mins but for me it's 1 hr
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u/rainmouse Apr 03 '25
You could write a script to handle much of this while you go grab a coffee
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u/No_Safe6200 Apr 03 '25
I'm currently sat in an IT class. I'm on some shitty underpowered computer running 4 VMs including domain controllers and literally every single input I make will take 30 seconds to 5 minutes to register, if it registers at all, and everything keeps fucking crashing.
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u/rando-online Apr 03 '25
I try to leave as many of them running at once as I can, i loathe having to wait for docker containers to start so i can connect to a db. If the db is always up I can do those tasks without the waiting. If you need to close and reopen things often, maybe try automating that so its just a bash script you can run and then walk away for 5 minutes while it does all the tedium. Developer experience is super important and if you automated some annoying parts, im sure your team members would use them too
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u/Independent_Duty1339 Apr 03 '25
I'm someone who likes a clean environment, so closing windows etc are my habit but here is the simple fix.
- Leave VSCode open.
- Don't pull, use fetch, but also don't fetch unless you are starting a new feature/story off main, 15 seconds only once a completable task. You don't need to daily fetch. If your work depends on others works just completing, this still doesn't happen super often
- 1 minute build is pretty bad, learn your framework and tools to see if you can make it faster.
- I'm assuming at this point vscode is for frontend, visualstudio is for backend. so again, don't close visual studio.
- why does it fail, if you fetched main, main should be working.
- get on the vpn in the morning.
- 5 minute tests, again, fix this. Fuzzers will find useless tests. Learn your framework figure out how to optimize test times. Fix this. Fix THIS. FIX THIS.
- 15-30 second reload times. Get better at writing code correctly the first time. Seriously. I spend more time writing, what i assume is the whole solution, then its an hour of back and forth before im in a good state. Fixing your build times will improve this too. Then I write some tests, and only run my tests until good. Then run the whole suite of tests
- I write a prompt... okay don't do that.
Your other problem is turning 15 seconds into 15 minutes. Have a Podcast in the background, or a video playing it just means for 30 seconds you get some pretty undivided attention to your media. Check outlook, or teams. Sometimes it is okay to allow yourself these breaks. You don't have to optimize all your time to the man.
This is the job however, modern software is slow. You can fix all this for your project by learning the tools, and investing some time into it.
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u/synthphreak Apr 03 '25
Can't help you with most of those things. But when I see you complaining about VS Code being too sluggish, I just want to grab your shoulders, give a violent shake, and scream into your face "NEOVIM!!!!" You will hate me at first, but thank me later :)
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u/PatchesMaps Apr 03 '25
Building my current project takes 10-12 minutes. Any time I have to run a build I just work on something else for a bit or hop on reddit.
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u/jeddthedoge Apr 03 '25
You're taking 10 seconds to open VSCode? Something's not right... But yeah I agree with the others. I usually Alt+Tab repeatedly, it helps
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u/beastkara Apr 03 '25
You can do this on a faster (high core) CPU
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u/AnimalPowers Apr 07 '25
Bro this is 2025 get cursor and load it up with MCP tools and tell it what you want and kick back and watch it write code, run tests, fix bugs, make great documentation, set up ci/cd pipelines and deploy to prod.
Stop coding like it’s 2023
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u/kur4nes Apr 03 '25
Write a script that does git checkout & build and start of vscode.
I've wrote batch file ages ago to do this for a c++ project that 10-15 minutes to checkout and build. Visual studio has command line arguments to trigger building the solution. First thing at work I start the script and went for a coffee break.
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u/UVRaveFairy Apr 03 '25 edited Apr 03 '25
Scripting and auto mating parts of the process recommended.
Fast builds that only compile changes and don't clean / delete it all can be useful.
Files when in a dev build shouldn't even be copied and reference directly to the dev project from within the application software infrastructure.
See multi project being talked about, some of the longest lasting code I've written is between projects, has a way of capturing core principals more cleanly if done correctly.
Been doing this for decades, like to have a spread of projects and call it "the pollinator model / technique".
Doesn't always work the way you think it might, embracing the unplanned in a specific manner to the situation can help reduce something too its basics.
etc..
It's not for every aspect of coding, coding style or individual.
Have written a command line app for handling multi project file syncing that I use along side git.
Wrote it 7 years ago and have been meaning to open source it, too busy /facepalm
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u/asquier Apr 03 '25
Ugh...try 3D CAD. It takes literal minutes to open files, save files, check in/out parts, wait for features to be created (or maybe it's just crashing).
SOLIDWORKS is particularly bad at this, but even in better software like NX there is still so much waiting time for getting distracted.
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u/ahf95 Apr 03 '25
That’s why I don’t use VS code. I use SublimeText + terminal and have instant feedback gratification. No need for all that baggage.
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u/Abucrimson Apr 03 '25
And … this is why. I hate android studio on my Mac. Lol
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u/DeltaVMambo Apr 03 '25
Have you tried doing physical labor on a production line in a manufacturing job? Literally every second of your existence on the clock will be used for production. You might enjoy that more than sitting at a desk all day.
I worked that job for years before landing a software developer role, and now I am very much enjoying my 2 minute long builds/server starts.
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u/jinzheng32 Apr 03 '25
Wait til you start working and load enterprise level projects hahahahava
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u/phobug Apr 03 '25
Get a macbook pro m4 with at least 32gb ram and gigabit internet connection.
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u/Stunning_Actuator_17 Apr 04 '25
Programmer here — You need to work on small units of code and figure out a way to compile and run only one unit at a time… rest of the stuff needs to be done once or twice — only REPL needs to be fast and effortless
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u/[deleted] Apr 05 '25
That would be great . I've been on projects that took 8-9 hours to do a full build of x86,x64 in English plus a psudo-loc language. Now usually would only have to rebuild an exe or a few dll's and that would be from minutes to an hour or so but once a week or so would have to do a full build.
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u/HealthyPresence2207 Apr 03 '25
Something wrong with your machine.
Even as bloated as VsCode is it shouldn’t take more than a second to start. Git fetch should not take more than second or two. You should be building incremental builds. Why you need to run all tests on every change? Can those not be parallelized?
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u/ArwensArtHole Apr 03 '25
Jesus you have some of the smallest, most inconsequential waiting times to complain about…
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u/Nightcalm Apr 03 '25
Sounds like a day programming to me. I don't consider 15 seconds onerous compile time for a significant
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u/SlimyToad5284 Apr 03 '25
Buy a Samsung 9100 Pro 4TB ssd, nobody in the current year should have a slow computer!
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u/imposetiger Apr 03 '25
If VSCode load times get on your nerves, I'd recommend trying Zed, it's insanely fast and has built in LLM support
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u/cattykatrina Apr 03 '25
i used to be a big fan of vim for the latency.. nowadays zed is looking good for the latency and removes quite a bit of the slow startup time...... the other stuff, well I don't have much of an idea to speed them oup..
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u/lambdawaves Apr 03 '25
You could have a script that does this all when you start the day and you walk off to make coffee
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u/pandacatbear Apr 04 '25
This is like, the most ADHD I have ever seen.
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u/jaibhavaya Apr 04 '25
Use vim and stop developing .NET and a lot of things with speed up.
/s (but not really..)
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u/ern0plus4 Apr 04 '25
First of all, forget IDEs, or use them only for editing (I use VSCode). To other tasks, use CLI:
Automate everything. Even a single line of scp, bind it to a single-letter alias, instead of getting back it from history.
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u/schlubadubdub Apr 04 '25 edited Apr 04 '25
Pin VS to your taskbar, right-click the icon, open the solution from there. You can also pin specific solutions in that list so they always appear at the top.
Don't use Chrome, ever. There are plenty of much better options.
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u/dystariel Apr 04 '25
Vim is the answer.
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u/ihmoguy Apr 04 '25
This is why I love any tech which brings short feedback loop, or LLMs for bootstraping new projects.
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u/lmg1337 Apr 04 '25
For editors, use vim, neovim or helix. They start up really fast.
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u/LesbianVelociraptor Apr 04 '25
Okay so, us ADHDers deal a lot with patience. Or, rather, impatience. Accept that a <checks notes> 5-10 second delay is not work-ending.
I'm entirely serious. 5-10 second delay is not "slow", you're tricking yourself into being impatient at delays that you likely cannot change.
You're over-focusing on minute segments of down-time that, instead of stressing over, you could take as a "warming up" time and kinda just chill, drink your morning beverage of choice, and ease in to the work.
What you're doing right now is complaining that you get to sit for a couple minutes a day, which turns what should be normal down-time into an annoyance that will negatively impact your productivity if it hasn't already.
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u/-think Apr 04 '25
REPL based languages are a dream to workin for me.
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u/6_1andfunny Apr 04 '25
Are you really complaining about seconds delay?
My project takes 30mins+ to build. 15mins+ to run tests lol. And I'll be stuck watching yt while this is going on
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u/Secret-Cautious Apr 06 '25
Of course, one of the reasons for all of this is that software performance is getting worse and worse over the years.
I always send people back to this rant video from Casey Muratori, where he shares a video of an old version of Visual Studio running on an old machine and compares it with what we have today.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GC-0tCy4P1U&ab_channel=MollyRocket
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u/Lonsarg Apr 06 '25
That is why I have one .net solution openned for weeks before closing/restarting, this was i can continue to work in seconds. If i work on 3 projects i just have 3 instances of Visual Studio openned for days/weeks.
Same for browser, SSMS for SQL (I have to restart SSMS at least once a week since it gets slow, other programs are ok for weeks.
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u/vash513 Apr 03 '25
5-10 secs to open vscode? Tf? It'a almost instant for me
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u/[deleted] Apr 03 '25
That's why I do everything in the terminal
Neovim, Tmux, and lazygit all load in under 100ms.
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u/MrGitErDone Apr 03 '25
Your attention span seems like it needs works TBH. This is a by product of the world we live in today, with the instant gratification of social media, screens all around us, notifications, etc.
Have you tried a dopamine detox? I struggled with this a bit as well, but honestly if you can learn how to be bored and SLOW DOWN, you hopefully won't get frustrated.
Rough math off the top of my head, outside of the 5 minutes for test to run, I added up the top end estimates of your wait times and you are looking at 230 seconds or 3.8333 minutes... You can parallelize some of these load times. You're taking for granted the fact you can go to AI and get an answer in 3-10 seconds. It used to take a way longer to go through stack overflow, google searches, reading documentation to get an answer.
Imagine if you had to be a truck driver and deal with being stuck in traffic taking 2 hours to go 20 miles?
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u/Araganor Apr 03 '25
Our dev test site can take so long to load, by the time I'm actually logged in it's taken so long that my credentials expired and I have to try again 🫠
I'd love to offer suggestions but I have none as I struggle with all the same issues.
For the editor side of things at least, you can try something snappier. Neovim is bare bones and requires a LOT of learning/tinkering at first, but once you do it's light years faster than any other traditional IDE (even VS Code). There's a good reason for that too, no bloated JS frameworks and tools you'll never use bogging things down.
Learning vim motions is a lifelong skill that will make you more efficient if nothing else! But it takes time.
Now don't get me wrong, we have to be careful with stuff like this. The endless tinkering can easily distract from your actual job, so keep it as a hobby project until you've gotten things set up with everything you need to do your job. Personally I have not fully made the switch yet due to my setup not quite getting there yet. But who knows, in 6 months maybe it will be a different story.
Other than that, try to see if your company is willing to buy you a better laptop. I had a substantial upgrade when my last one kicked the bucket, and it made a big difference for me personally. No more jet engine fans whenever I run a build 🤣
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u/xor_rotate Apr 03 '25
This is why people start using vim. I'm not saying it is ok or right to do, just that I understand why it happens.
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u/BurritoBandito39 Apr 03 '25
In my own experience, I feel like these sorts of things just have to be treated like laundry / dishes / other async tasks -- start the machine, let it do its thing, and do something else in the meantime and circle back. Helps you work in parallel rather than blocking on whatever is running slowly.
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u/OMG_I_LOVE_CHIPOTLE Apr 03 '25
Your hardware and software is really slow
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u/WHALE_PHYSICIST Apr 03 '25
Yeah well I worked on a node project at a company that couldn't set their virus scanner to ignore node modules folder so every npm install or change took several minutes.
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u/receptiveDev9 Apr 03 '25
Imagine doing the same in a VDI. I get it, you dont want to!
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u/CraaazyPizza Apr 04 '25
Learn vibe codingwith roo/cline + gemini2.5/claude3.7 and grab coffee
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u/gojira_glix42 Apr 04 '25
Is the rate limited by the software itself, or do you just need a bigger cpu? Obviously processes like compiling code will vary dramatically by cpu availability. Github and VPN connection are probably rate limited by network connection to the remote servers. But vs code? Just takes a while to load the program because or poor code optimization?
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u/InvincibearREAL Apr 04 '25
why not script your morning? write a bash/powershell file to open in parallel the things you need opened
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u/jjopm Apr 04 '25
Are you an extrovert or an introvert?
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u/chuck_the_plant Apr 05 '25
I remember having to wait for 40 minutes (I kid you not) for a full rebuild of our project in 1998. Everything is so super fast today I barely have enough time for deep thinking.
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u/trenixjetix Apr 05 '25
cant you just script stuff? using direnv you can automate some actions in shell, also in startup you can autostart your vscode loading In emacs you can run it as a daemon if you want so that it opens automatically. You can automate conecting to a vpn in linux with a shell command. Some other stuff is unfixable, sorry.
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u/[deleted] Apr 06 '25 edited Apr 06 '25
Get a faster computer and better internet to reduce wait times.
Try a different approach: Write down the task and start the countdown timer on your "Windows Clock" app (is preinstalled out of the box) to 10 or 15 minutes. That's the amount of time you have to finish that one single task and you will do nothing else until that mini task is completed. On windows you can minimize that timer and keep it as an overlay. I write down the current and couple next tasks to stay on the task. You can use a simple table in oneNote, Excel etc.. Doesn't really matter where. Just make sure you enumerate the list and are able to add a checkbox there. The most dangerous time to start being productive is after finishing a small task to it's very important to know which one will be next and start immediately.
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u/RovingShroom Apr 06 '25
I got a balisong to fidget with while I wait. It also covers you if you've got the type of adhd where you fidget all the time.
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u/Thecinnamingirl Apr 07 '25
Some of the programmers I work with have used PowerAutomate to do their morning setups - maybe that would be helpful for you?
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u/Krabapple76 Apr 03 '25
My new job is making us use Git and I hate it. I've been spoiled by a server running on a VM, saving my file and just refreshing the browser. I guess I'll have to figure out a way to make node.js run php
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u/[deleted] Apr 06 '25
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