According to software engineer Will Keleher, a significant portion of daily engineering productivity comes from small nuggets of specialized knowledge that don’t require extensive supporting context.
These tips span multiple domains. For terminal workflows, Keleher highlights that while most engineers know ctrl+r searches command history, tools like fzf enable fuzzy searching, and atuin replaces shell history with a searchable SQLite database. Per-directory-history allows switching between directory-specific and global command searches.
Database techniques include using SELECT without a FROM clause to test functions or verify specific behaviors, and leveraging EXPLAIN ANALYZE in PostgreSQL and MySQL to run queries and gather detailed performance information.
Regular expression knowledge matters too—the word boundary assertion (\b) simplifies searching for word beginnings or endings. For metrics, logarithms can reveal value distribution: using Math.floor(Math.log10()) to bucket data provides insights without storing raw numbers.
Modern JavaScript supports increasingly useful features like Array.flatMap, Object.entries, and Promise.withResolvers. In Node.js, creating an https.Agent and passing it to fetch requests keeps connections open to external resources, potentially delivering dramatic latency improvements.
Git workflows benefit from specialized commands. “git log -S pattern” (git pickaxe) reveals all commits that added or removed a specific string—particularly valuable in older codebases. “git checkout -” checks out the previous HEAD, similar to “cd -” for directories.
Command-line tool selection matters: most find commands can be replaced with glob patterns like **/*.md (requiring shopt -s globstar in bash). Keleher suggests ripgrep (rg) often outperforms grep, ack, or ag.
Beyond technical tricks, company-specific knowledge carries high leverage: knowing which data source debugs a particular problem, identifying subject-matter experts, locating documentation, or understanding when manual scaling is needed.
Keleher notes that sharing one trick daily with an engineering team—mixing technical and company-specific knowledge—proved effective without overwhelming colleagues. Even when team members knew most tricks, the occasional unfamiliar technique could save significant time and spark useful discussion.
Key facts
- Small, focused programming knowledge significantly impacts daily engineering productivity
- Tools like fzf, atuin, and ripgrep enhance terminal and search workflows
- Database techniques include SELECT without FROM and EXPLAIN ANALYZE for optimization
- Git pickaxe (git log -S) finds commits that added or removed specific strings
- Company-specific knowledge about debugging, experts, and procedures carries high leverage