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Ask HN: Have you ever “lost” a clever bit of code you weren't able to reproduce?

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Re: Ask HN: Have you ever “lost” a clever bit of code you weren't able to reproduce?

#11
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My father was the defacto Excel developer in his office and used to have vivid dreams that consisted solely of him writing out the code for some problem he'd been working on. Then he'd wake up and forget the lot.

this. the trick is when u cant remember to stop there, and dont worry or force it, about 10 mins later the answer will come to u.

sadly, i use this same technique on the toilet.

Re: Ask HN: Have you ever “lost” a clever bit of code you weren't able to reproduce?

#12
When I was a kid I wrote an ascii-art dungeon exploration game in BASIC on our Tandy 1000. I worked on it for months, maybe even a couple years, adding and adding. One day the floppy it was on failed.

I actually did rewrite it, and I remember noticing how much better the code was. I didn't have to think about game design at all, just about the code. In fact it was around that time that I finally understood what GOSUB was for. I wouldn't be surprised if it was that rewrite that brought the realization.

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