Long Build Times Are Quietly Stealing Developer Focus and Productivity

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Software developer Serguey Asael Shinder argues that slow build times have a hidden cost beyond the seconds they consume. When developers wait for builds to finish, they habitually fill the gap with distractions like email and chat, fragmenting their concentration. Repeated dozens of times a day, these micro-interruptions compound into significant lost focus. Shinder urges developers to measure their actual build loop duration and treat excessive wait times as a defect worth fixing. Where waits are unavoidable, he recommends intentional breaks rather than reflexive context-switching.

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