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What's the biggest factor in developer productivity? | The December 2022 Build

The Build is a newsletter for software engineers dedicated to sharing useful technical content on effective development and collaboration techniques. In each release, we’ll share what we’re reading this month, open source projects we’re inspired by, and more news from the DevOps community. Read the December 2022 Build below, and subscribe to receive The Build every month right in your inbox.

Why you need to think about internationalization before you start developing software

Starting a new project is exciting. There’s so much to think about — like how to make it scalable, reliable, maintainable, and secure. With so many moving parts to juggle, internationalization — or the process of designing software so it can be translated into many languages — is often not your first priority. Today, Mattermost is shipped in 21 languages. The entire Mattermost project contains more than 64,000 words in 9,500 sentences.

Introducing Our New Guide: How to Build Your Open Source Productivity Stack

It’s no secret that open source software is an important part of many development teams’ daily workflows. But does that include productivity tools? Oftentimes, development workflows get shoehorned into the same productivity tools used by nontechnical teams—but these tools can be a poor fit for the needs of developers.

What's the key to measuring developer productivity?

Developer productivity metrics are an important part of any engineering team’s growth and improvement; the right metrics can help you better forecast project timelines, understand where to allocate resources, and manage your team’s workload. But measuring developer productivity has been challenging, and, when incorrectly applied, can seem to all but wring every last line of code from overworked developers.

Is your team using too many productivity tools?

Everyone has experienced it at some point. You’re sure that your teammate shared that key bit of information with you somewhere…but was part of a Jira issue? A comment on a Figma mockup? A long-lost DM between you, your teammate, and someone else a few months ago? If you spend more time hunting down the right information than you do actually using it, you may have a tool overload problem.

'Digital by Default': A collaboration model for modern developers

When I joined Mattermost at the end of 2019, part of the allure was the unique experience of working at a 100% remote company. Little did I know that within three months, the whole world would lock down and countless companies became remote practically overnight.