As a programmer we sometimes might look like we are not doing much from the outside but actually we’re dead inside thank you
I honestly needed to hear this today, so thank you. I’m at work trying to work out someone else’s uncommented code and have just been staring at it mumbling to myself. I’m new to the position so I’m anxious my new coworkers will think I’m just dicking around… This is the validation I needed. Thanks everyone!
Say out loud to yourself, “What the hell is this?” or, “Why did they do it this way?” once in a while. Everyone around will think you know exactly what you’re doing.
@Yondoza@sh.itjust.works this is good advice
I can hear the vocal inflections in this comic.
exactly. like a former boss of mine said: if they are complaining, they are working!
From what I learned in my workplace, it seems that for most people the best way to appear competent is to continuously criticize the work of your colleagues
I don’t know your circumstances, but it is usually OK to just ask. Especially if the original author is around. Don’t do it all the time and you’ll be OK. Even can come with positive image out of it, if you ask the right questions.
Other than that, I found that the current llms like ChatGPT (and perhaps Claude) are very good at explaining code, most of the time, for some languages ;)
Hey, thanks for your concern. I’m asking tons of questions, don’t worry. Unfortunately the last 3 keepers of this code are no longer around to ask, thus the staring at code.
Sounds like, at the very least, a yellow flag to me. Be aware that there may be other stuff broken in their processes other than legacy code. :)
I find for coding problems it’s actually better to walk away and let it tick over in your mind.
You’ll often get a shower thought type moment.
Me, staring at my code, fiddling around, retrying it over and over: “WHY WON’T YOU WORK, DAMMIT?”
Me, late at night, trying to sleep, suddenly wide awake: “Oh that’s why!”
Me, the next morning, staring at my code: “…what was it again?”
Nothing more enchanting than when the answer to your coding problem literally comes to you in a dream. Had an array issue in C++ where I literally woke up saying "I don’t need a ghost array to search after all is said and done, it’s already sorted!"
Once, the answer to a problem that was stumping me came while driving in the middle of nowhere at 01:00am back from a weekend trip.
A true software developer will also raise their hands in celebration when they finally solve a problem that’s been plaguing them.
Even if you’re working from home, alone.
Mixed in with periods of
More of the latter than the former, unfortunately. But, well Boris met his demise with his hubris so perhaps imposter syndrome saves lives.
Sometimes I even stand up.
Granddads standing up, I’ve heard it all. /s
My personal favourite is to break from staring after 30 mins, exclaim, “Hang on, we’re going about this completely back to front!” then spend the next hour deriving from first principles, only to arrive back at the original problem, but now with slightly different notation. At which point I realise that all I’ve done is get myself back to my starting point… Then it’s back to the staring.
And this is why I moved to using white boards.
I wish I understood how to use them. I have half written scraps of paper and random text in random text files. Notebooks are about the best I can do. I can’t write very well on a vertical board. It is really really uncomfortable and I end up obsessing on how bad it looks over solving the problem. Sometimes drawing on my iPad instead works, but that is another place to look for things.
I do like using Markdown + Mermaid. Obsidian is a nice little note taking app once I got it configured. It just takes me forever.
They have smaller white boards you can just prop up at a nice angle on your desk. These are what I use. Bigger ones that have to hang are for scheduling because I also black hole anything more than a week away. Also the white board is just off loading my thoughts so people can’t interrupt me so badly. I still use note taking apps for tracking completed thoughts or things I have to come back to.
Aside from “learning to spell hypnotized or just trusting your phone knows better than you,” there are a bunch of tricks we use.
- Staring at it and going over the code path
- Talking to a proverbial duck
- Going out for a proverbial cheeseburger
- Sleeping on it
Half of these tricks force the brain to stop confirming and start seeing, which is our biggest error source. The rest of these tricks let the problem ruminate in our subconscious which is sometimes really good at solving shit.
1, 3 and 4 (in that exact order) have almost always gotten things moving again. rubber ducking it just feels “forced” to me.
I talk to myself almost constantly, even when not programming. Rubber ducking is second nature to me now. Though, IDK which came first.
You can just talk to one of your more inept coworkers.
Haven’t heard of the proverbial cheeseburger… gonna stare at this phrase for a bit.
If you don’t get it, go for a proverbial cheeseburger
I dunno, I don’t like unnecessarily interacting with strangers. I’m gonna go sit in another room and tinker with something else for now.
I used to work in an office with 4 other developers. It was a common occurrence to have the lights go off in the room, for energy saving.
Simone would wave their arm, then go back to staring.
God bless Simone
At least they’re moving. Sometimes it goes off and nobody reacts at all.
Sometimes figuring out what you’re supposed to do is most of the project.
True, true. Working in the dark was kinda nice on those days
I work in a dedicated room in my house (remote developer). During the day I don’t really need to turn the lights on—windows and a skylight. The sun sets and sometimes I really just don’t notice. My wife will come in at some point and scold me for working in the dark, claiming it’s bad for my eyes (as if staring at a screen all day isn’t already).
I actually rather enjoy that rather not-subtle marker of the passage of time and how entrancing “the zone” can be such that I fail to even notice that.
My math teacher in high school always said “math is 90% looking” and if you didn’t get the task directly: “look again” … Funny part is, that actually worked for most of the class xD
If staring at it isn’t giving the results you expect, try not staring at it. Math, much like photons, functions differently when observed.
What I do is I read over something, take a nap, and then read it over again. If I don’t get it after that I’ll ask someone for help.
100%. Really, just go do something other than what you’ve been focusing on, then come back to it. When I was coding, I would go take a walk when I’d get stuck. 9 times out of ten the answer would pop into my head when I’d stepped away. A few times I even dreamed of the answer while sleeping.
The unconscious mind processes what you were doing during REM sleep, so it’s really efficient way of getting things done.
First taking a nap and only then asking for help. I like this approach.
I refer to the process as “loading” and it helps so much when coding, debugging or even playing puzzle games
I had a theoretical math professor. He said something along the lines of, “Being a theoretical math professor is the best job in the world. You can lean back in your chair, put your feet on your desk and close your eyes, and no one can tell if you’re working or having a nap.”
Don’t ask him, he will be angry and mumbling something about “the zone”.
Tbh a good builder/technician will do this too when faced with a complicated fix
Same thing; every action has an opposite reaction, whether it’s code or physical engineering
I’m a carpenter, I do high end stuff for rich people with really expensive pieces of wood. I’ll stare as much as I need to on the issues I have or even before starting anything. Need to think about every way it could go wrong.
How do you prepare for “world ends in nuclear holocaust?” Seems a bit difficult to account for.
Cup of tea
