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Andrew Mason
Andrew Mason

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How do you organize development projects on your computer?

I have tried different methods to keep development projects on my computer organized but between work projects, open source, side projects, issue reproductions, demos, and little test projects, it gets tough. I did a quick peruse through my computer and counted over 100 repos (some on GitHub, some not). They are all over the place, and I have only had this computer for 3 months! 😱

Top comments (46)

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evanplaice profile image
Evan Plaice • Edited

~
Code

  • contribute <- forks
  • deprecated <- archived repos
  • legacy <- EOL repos
  • personal <- my repos
  • vanillaes <- org
  • vanillawc <- org

Sites

  • somesite.com
    • _assets <- raw images, etc
    • content
    • public
    • server

Work

  • _assets
  • work repo

I tried many complicated systems to separate by content type, language, platform, etc. They always ended up becoming aggravating over time.

Ironically, this more-or-less reflects the 'feature based' directory convention I use for web dev.

I aggressively curate this; as well as my GH repos.

I never fork a project unless I'm going to contribute to it or I neeed a custom fork. Custom forks should -- ideally -- be killed as soon as I find a workable alternative.

I don't hold on to forks of all the projects I've contributed to. Best case scenario, it becomes a big pile of outdated trash. If I want to look up something I worked on in the past, it's all recorded and reaadily available online.

I don't keep a collection of snippets either

My motto is...

"If it's not in production, it's not maintained. If it's not maintained, it's probably not worth using."

I'd rather master the ability to quickly and efficiently locate info on anything. Than be a master archivist of bit rotten code that only I care about.

Digital hoarding is still hoarding. I treat my local setup like a desktop. Keep it as free of clutter as possible so I have more (mental) space to work.

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mpkarlo profile image
Karlo E. Meléndez Peña

I might borrow from this method. Currently, I store everything by language, but that always gets unwieldy after a while as you have said.

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tamouse profile image
Tamara Temple

I hear you on the digital hoarding— it's a hard habit to break since it's mainly invisible

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andrewmcodes profile image
Andrew Mason

Incredibly helpful, thanks for a detailed response. I caught myself with lots of forks and created a ruby gem (Dishwasher) to help me bulk delete them.

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franznkemaka profile image
Franz Nkemaka

Thanks for sharing your insights Evan.

I totally agree, the feature-based convection is really cool and easy to use.

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danciupuliga profile image
Dan Ciupuliga

I am definitely borrowing this method. Thanks sharing

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alexdhaenens profile image
Alex Dhaenens

I have different folders on my C drive: ‘Projects’ for my work projects, ‘Side projects’ for my work related side project, ‘Personal projects’ for my personal projects and sonon. Each project has a root folder (named after the project) inside the allocated folder(e.g. Personal projects), which contains ALL the files related (git, src and other files) to that project (since I’m a web dev, it also contains the webroot of that site). Then every root project folder has a different icon (for clients it is the client logo, otherwise it is a related icon). Hope this helps you out!

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andrewmcodes profile image
Andrew Mason

The icon trick is a good idea - I’ll have to try that. I had a similar structure at one point that quickly fell apart. I probably need to figure out exactly why it fell apart and address that. And I probably need to delete some projects I have hanging around

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alexdhaenens profile image
Alex Dhaenens

Yeah, the icons are a great help and the folders are quite okay, the only issue is that aside from tons of files I have alot of services running per project (a db, an indexing servie, iis website etc) which fry my pc alot, the way I solved that was to by default not start the process (classic windows config) and I crated a star script which I run when I start a project. In the future I might create a ui for this.

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felixdorn profile image
Félix Dorn

Take a look at Docker. I had the same problem and Docker was the solution.

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codemekathy profile image
Kathy

Great idea about the folder icon! Thank you! I take a similar approach, but I house all named sub-folders in one Dev parent directory on my hard drive.

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mpkarlo profile image
Karlo E. Meléndez Peña

Icons? Where do you source them from?

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alexdhaenens profile image
Alex Dhaenens

I download them onto my pc, but since I am a Webdev I often pick the favicon of the project as it is more recognizable.

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mpkarlo profile image
Karlo E. Meléndez Peña

Ah! Makes sense, being primarily a data developer, I don't get so many...

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alexdhaenens profile image
Alex Dhaenens

You can also use some default windows icons if you don't have any yourself

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idoshamun profile image
Ido Shamun

I usually try to keep it simple. I have a Development directory with all the repos and projects. Sometimes I add another dir in-between for projects with more than one repo.
I usually navigate with terminal and I've oh-my-zsh installed with fuzzy completion, so it's enough to remember even a tiny bit of the folder name.

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andrewmcodes profile image
Andrew Mason

Do you use ‘Z’? Honestly, the only reason I can find anything is because I use this tool. It’s definitely something that I can’t do without at this point.

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idoshamun profile image
Ido Shamun

Not sure if I heard about it. Could you please send a link?

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andrewmcodes profile image
Andrew Mason • Edited

github.com/rupa/z

It’s zsh plugin to help you navigate your files via the command line by learning the ways you want to access a certain folder and providing that shortcut.

For instance, when I want to go to CodeFund’s codebase on my computer, I type z code in my command line and cd’s me right to the project, which the real path is ~/work/gitcoin/code_fund_ads (I think, I’ve accessed it with z since day 1).

I have a GitHub action for rubocop and a demo app for trying to recreate bugs people report for it which I can get to with z rubocop action and z rubocop playground respectively.

It’s an amazing tool and I can’t imagine not having it at this point. Let me know if I can say more! 😁

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andrewmcodes profile image
Andrew Mason

It’s also perfect for me because I can never remember where anything is. Whether it’s a folder on my computer or my car keys, I can lose anything. Z helps me not lose things on my computer. As for my car keys though... 😬

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idoshamun profile image
Ido Shamun

Thanks for sharing! I'll give it a go

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ioveracker profile image
Isaac Overacker

I keep all of my projects in ~/Source/ organized in the same way that they're organized on GitHub: ~/Source/${organization-name}/${repo-name}. Everything I work on ends up in a private or public GitHub repo, so this makes it simple to find what I'm looking for and to remember where it exists on GitHub. For temporary projects / scratch space, I put those under ~/Source/tmp/ and clear it out frequently to keep it from getting out of hand.

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hopsoft profile image
Hopsoft
~/work/COMPANY_NAME/PROJECT_NAME

I use this pattern for everything. Primary work projects, consulting projects, personal projects, github forks, etc... Namespacing via company/user + project seems to cover pretty much everything I've encountered.

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voanhcuoc profile image
Khoa Che

Zen on minimalism. I have 2 directories: projects for anything I work on and git for any repo I cloned to use. I try to name my projects smartly so the autocomplete works, and just delete any repo I'm not working on for a month from now, I can clone it again any time I want. Test projects are in ~/temp dir which is completely fine to be deleted, if some are crucial, put it in a repo that makes use of it.

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j4ng5y profile image
Jordan Gregory

I basically follow the GOPATH structure for everything because I like it.

I usually have an Engineering folder in my user directory, under that, folders for languages, under those, at least a "src" folder, under that, the root VCS name (e.g. - GitHub.com), under that, my user name at said VCS, under that, my repo names.

It feels awkward at first, but it's been the only thing that has stuck with me.

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xanderyzwich profile image
Corey McCarty

I keep a 'workspace' directory in my user directory so that work computer migrations will pick them up. It is then broken down by team name, with my github account name as a team. Everything fits into this for me. If you have too man (I only have around 20) then you could break down by various means such as language or framework.

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nicolasbrousse profile image
Nicolas Brousse

I use ~/Projects as root for all my devops/web projects, like I saw in some other comments.

.
├── _archives
├── _forks
├── _sandox
├── _scripts
├── _tmp
├── ...
├── nicolas-brousse
└── pantographe
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First folder (all who start without _) is always "organization" mainly its a client name. I do the same inside _forks that contain GitHub project I contribute. The inside an "organization" folder its the project name (ex: pantographe/website).

I also have a p alias to quickly go into a project.

p () {
    cd ~/Projects/$1
}
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I try to take time to move older projects in _archives, then after some time, I move them to my NAS or delete them to free some space on my laptop.

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madza profile image
Madza

Same here, actual coding is the easiest part.
Hardest part has always been setting up projects and keeping them organized.

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andrewmcodes profile image
Andrew Mason

Absolutely. I find myself fighting tools much more than I’d like.