Code Obsession

Finding the correct code to edit is essential. Here are a few shortcuts to make that easier: Ctrl+I => Incremental search. Just hit the keystroke and start typing. Your cursor will move to the next match. Ctrl+F => You better know this one! Ctrl+Shift+F => Find All. F3 => Next match. Ctrl+Shift+F7 => Highlight usages. Esc clears the highlight. Use it more than once is you will see it is a stack. Alt+F7 => Find usages. Excellent for detecting the scope of a refactoring. Practice these until they are burned into your fingers. I honestly had to execute the command and watch my fingers.

I've read a couple times that the difference between the apprentice and the master performing a the same task isn't one big thing, it is many, many small things that together make a big difference. To that end, I am going to share the small things that help me work more efficiently under the title MicroTips. Here is the first of (hopefully) many: ReSharper is a very powerful add-on for Visual Studio that improves the way one develops .NET code, but only if you know how to use it. (To see a ReSharper Jedi in action, go here .) One of the primary ways it improves one's ability to express thought in code is to eliminate the need to context switch from keyboard to mouse for navigation. First of all, you need to configure the keyboard shortcuts. Do yourself a favor and learn the IntelliJ IDEA shortcuts now, because you will eventually find the Visual Studio flavored shortcuts are inefficient as they each require 2 keystrokes for common activities while the IDEA shortcuts only r...