The top productivity hack in software development is to build foundations that are dependable enough that you can keep building on top without having to go back and modify them as you go. 100x time saver.
This is extremely hard to achieve. You get there not via clever code by via clean abstractions.
"I have solved X in a dependable and generalizable way, I won't need to go back to that problem and add random hacks to my solution to address things I didn't see coming" is pure bliss. Peace of mind.
This is also the source of large productivity discrepancies between software engineers. Being able to get it mostly right the first time has exponential compounding effects.
You're always building C on top of B, itself on top of A. When you have to go back and add hacks each time (the complexity of which also compounds), the task is exponentially harder and more time-consuming than when you're able to treat each component as independent.
Productivity is not "I'm familiar with more frameworks" or "I can type faster". It's almost entirely "I can develop abstractions that I generally don't need to revisit after introducing them". That's it.
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