Today’s developer seems to be working with more tools than ever. Building a Node.js-based JavaScript application could require over a dozen tools at times to get code out into production. It's easy to get sucked down a rabbit hole and not stay focused. Debugging an application once in production can also be a challenge: You want as much context at your fingertips as needed while maintaining a reasonable signal-to-noise ratio.

Dan O’Brien, a software engineer for feature management platform provider LaunchDarkly, has a personal interest in how to keep from being distracted/staying in the flow when working on a new feature or any piece of code.

In this very latest episode of The New Stack Makers podcast, we ask O'Brien about the complexities he sees in today’s developer workflow, as well as some tips he has to stay “in the zone” when writing code. We’ll also discuss the tools that LaunchDarkly has that can help expedite application development. TNS founder and Publisher Alex Williams, along with TNS Managing Editor Joab Jackson, hosted this podcast.