Programmers should experience building their own development tools

Background

In 2009, I was working as an IT manager/software developer/computer engineer in the middle-east. During that period, I developed business software applications for the company, applications like Human Resource System, Purchase Order System, Cheque Writer and web applications. Being a lone software developer my goal is to deliver software in less time with zero or minimal defect. One day, after completing a software project I realized that the code I wrote is almost identical to the previous one and this give me an idea to create a tool to code generate the SQL statements into C# codes.

My development process that I automate

For the sake of brevity, I will remove some other processes from the development life-cycle and focus on the part that I code generated.

My development process start with database design and from here we copy the SQL statements to generate the code.

Code generation tool video demonstration

Conclusion

Typing similar or the same codes over and over again is insane. We cannot call that programming. It is called typing with style. We have to utilize our time solving problems and business logic design. You can become a more productive software developer if you start creating software that builds softwares. I am sharing this story to encourage software developers to go build tools that will help them and their team to become productive. Since building this tool in 2009 I build other tools and libraries that for some people find it strange.

Posted in Tagged Developer Productivity

Originally published at https://johnpili.com on March 1, 2020.