Search Trumps Hiearchies

I wrote a while back about Pervasive Search, and how it changed the way I find things. I find myself using search more and more versus navigating hierarchies. As developers, we tend to create lots of files, in regular strict hierarchical structure (in fact, I've been blogging about namespaces vs. packages recently as well). File system paths are now too cumbersome to endure. Instead of walking through Explorer or the tree in my IDE, I'm using search.

I use search at 2 levels. Within the IDE, I use the brilliant feature in both IntelliJ and ReSharper to "Find File" (keyboard shortcut: Ctrl-N). This lets you type in the name (or partial) name of a file and open it in the editor. Better yet, it finds patterns of capital letters in names. So, if you are looking for the ShoppingCartMemento class, you could type "SCM", and "Find File" will find it. Highly addictive. And, it works equally well in IntelliJ and Visual Studio with ReSharper (and my Eclipse friends tell me it has made it there as well).

The other place I've been using search a lot is the filesystem, when looking for either a file on which to perform some operation (like Subversion log) or looking for some content within a file. Google Desktop Search has gotten better and better. You can now invoke it with the key chord of hitting Ctrl twice. And, you can download a plug-in that allows you to search through any type of file you want, including program and XML documents. Once you've found the file in question, you can right-click on the search result and open the containing folder. This is the only way to get to some file buried deep in some package or directory structure. My coding pair and I have started using this heavily, and it has sped us up. And, it eliminates annoying repetitive tasks like digging through the rubble of the filesystem looking for a gold nugget.