As a programmer we sometimes might look like we are not doing much from the outside but actually we’re dead inside thank you
ptogrammer, i think you mean
Shhh don’t tell my boss I’m a PTOgrammer 😎🍹
common mistake, the t is actually silent
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 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.
That works for pretty much anything.
Get up and do anything else for a while. School teaches us to sit at our desks and work on the problem. Stop acting like a sixth grader.
That works for pretty much anything. Get up and do anything else for a while.
This got me fired from the daycare
You were just staring at the kids. You were supposed to be changing diapers and feeding them. Insert obvious misunderstanding here.
One place I worked had a small park, so sometimes I’d go for a lap or two to think something through - the fresh air, mild exercise, change of scenery and lack of distractions wroked wonders.
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.
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.
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.
I often cackle maniacally when I solve something in a particularly effective way.
Sometimes I even stand up.
Granddads standing up, I’ve heard it all. /s
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
I refer to the process as “loading” and it helps so much when coding, debugging or even playing puzzle games
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
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.
I talk to myself almost constantly, even when not programming. Rubber ducking is second nature to me now. Though, IDK which came first.
1, 3 and 4 (in that exact order) have almost always gotten things moving again. rubber ducking it just feels “forced” to me.
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.
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
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.
Taking a break helps a lot. I like to multitask for this reason and to not feel like wasting time. Also, important to remember to eat. There’s an obvious drop in my clarity of mind right before lunch.
Don’t ask him, he will be angry and mumbling something about “the zone”.
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.”
If staring at it isn’t giving the results you expect, try not staring at it. Math, much like photons, functions differently when observed.
Whenever I’m asked for help by IT colleagues, I never say I’ll help solve an issue. I just say “Sure, I’ll come help stare at it for a while” - it’s the most I can really promise.
