What language do you use? / What kind of project are you working on? embedded, kernel, iphone, web, etc? There are usually tricks to speed up your compile proc

What language do you use? / What kind of project are you working on? embedded, kernel, iphone, web, etc? There are usually tricks to speed up your compile process, copy the code to a RAM drive before compiling, etc, also try using testing and create a small program that monitors your src dir and will recompile and test automatically. That way as soon as you save it's automatically recompiling and testing, then you just look over at the terminal window and see the results. Also, split your code into libraries so that only a single lib needs to be recompiled, etc. The drive to speed up iterations usually pays off in spades and you end up doing stuff you really should have been doing anyway, like writing tests, modularizing code, etc. If it absolutely can't be sped up, document your code while its compiling, Doxygen, etc.