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BooksFor a long time, I used my mouse rather than my keyboard as a primary means (with exception to the basic keyboard shortcuts) to move around in Visual Studio. Obviously I knew that this was not efficient even though I’d lie to myself and say to colleagues I was just as fast with my mouse and my few pile of shortcuts as with anyone who used keyboard shortcuts as a primary means to navigate around windows or code. Since then I’ve picked up a ton of shortcuts and realize just how fast it really is. The time you take to drag your mouse, click, and then open a window alone is just really inefficient. But you won’t see this until you start using shortcuts more and more.
If you are a developer who wants to improve your skills, do not just think of code & syntax. Have you ever been in front of a team lead or architect lead and they look like magicians when they code and you feel embarrassed when you pick up your mouse? I know I have. Well, it’s not really anything fancy. They are not musicians even though it’s intimidating when you are not that fast with the keyboard; it’s just that they have accumulated skills throughout the years by building first and foremost on their shortcuts. Just like what you type is second nature so will the shortcuts be. In fact, have you ever tried to ask one of your star programmers what shortcut they just used when you see them flying across the screen? Chances are they can’t tell you because it’s become intuitive.
I used to think it was a hassle to have to learn all those shortcuts. But when you just take a few and work with them, you’ll be surprised how fast they become second nature. My advice is take 5-10 a month. Build on it. After you start to know those 5 without having to remember, then move on to the next 5. Eventually you’re productivity over time will just improve like you cannot believe. The trick is not to try to master too many at one time.
Like anything skills build rapidly on top of each other. And we spend enough time navigating, that it’s really not fair to ourselves when we think that’s suffice. You think you are just as quick with a mouse and I can tell you stop kidding yourself and get working on your keyboard skills now! One of the first things as a developer starting out would be to master your keyboard shortcuts, especially in Visual Studio. It’s one of the best gifts that you can give to yourself so make it a plan to start that as a new years resolution if you have never taken them seriously for 2009. Your time is valuable from the time you start work till the end of the day. Why not shave some time off every day that you are programming which leads to faster completion of your projects.
One of the best books out there right now is Sara Ford’s new book. I have this and I can say she starts out with basics. Basics everyone that you’ve seen knows. Every architect you see probably knows every single shortcut she is talking about (Ctrl X, Ctrl L, etc.). I highly advise this read if you have not invested in it already.
It’s a very easy read and you get instant results from this book:
Also visit her website which deals mainly with improving your productivity with shortcuts. However, this book has the most commonly used shortcuts out there so it will save you time rather than search her entire blog or the hundreds of other blogs out there.
