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What do you visualize while programming?

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Re: What do you visualize while programming?

#111

Post by JTyQZSnP3cQGa8B »

n0n0n4t0r wrote: post #71

I personally have aphantasia, and, funny enough, I don't visualize anything when I'm coding, or reading code: I just understand the concept more or less deeply, but always without any images: It's just the "concept" that I understand. It's really like if I had an interpreter in my head when reading and when coding, I do the opposite: I know the required sequence and I reverse engineer it to the programming language v…

I don’t have aphantasia but I visualize nothing when I code. Only words, verbs, and sentences (classes, variables, statements).

I also visualize me smiting the previous programmer who wrote the awful code that I have to work on but that’s another story.

Re: What do you visualize while programming?

#112

Post by deadlypointer »

ljdtt wrote: post #22
sinuhe69 wrote: post #18

When working on a hard problem, I often had to visualize how the algorithm works, data moving there, changing this, replacing that. When I debug a tricky problem and I still have not figured it out yet, I have two options: either systematically note down what the code is going through, or keep the problem in the back of my head and sleep over it. More often than not, the solution will present itself after a while if…

That really resonates with me! I’ve found that when I’m up against a tricky problem, the solution often pops into my head when I’m not actively thinking about it—whether I’m sleeping, going for a walk, or just doing something completely different. It’s like the answer appears out of nowhere after I’ve stepped away. I’ve always wondered why this happens. Is it just how our brains work in problem-solving mode? Does any…

There is a free coursera course I am doing, where exactly this phenomenon is explained as diffuse vs focused thinking by neuroscientists.

Here is the link: https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to-learn/

Re: What do you visualize while programming?

#113

Post by romanhn »

omani wrote: post #76

what is this new trend lately of having aphantasia? never read/heard this before from the HN audience. bots are increasing on HN it seems.

What is this new trend of describing recurring phenomena that one does not understand as bots?

The term aphantasia was coined in 2015, so yes, it is new. We aphantasiacs only heard this described relatively recently, and my mind was blown that apparently people can actually visualize things. A whole lot of things that we assumed were mostly wordplay or concepts ("imagine you're sitting on the beach") turned out to have much more substance than we've given them credit for. It's not that we've started having aphantasia, it's that there's new understanding about the range of human experience.

Edit: looks like half of your comments are about HN being overrun by bots, so I guess I'm unlikely to change any minds here.

Re: What do you visualize while programming?

#114

Post by n0n0n4t0r »

hobs wrote: post #107
n0n0n4t0r wrote: post #71

I personally have aphantasia, and, funny enough, I don't visualize anything when I'm coding, or reading code: I just understand the concept more or less deeply, but always without any images: It's just the "concept" that I understand. It's really like if I had an interpreter in my head when reading and when coding, I do the opposite: I know the required sequence and I reverse engineer it to the programming language v…

It's more like feelings that are not visual but much more tactile, itching, irritation, smoothness, grittiness, bad code like tasting dirty sand.

This seems like synesthesia, I've read that it may help excelling as you have several senses to use at the same time.

Re: What do you visualize while programming?

#115

Post by n0n0n4t0r »

swatcoder wrote: post #80
n0n0n4t0r wrote: post #71

I personally have aphantasia, and, funny enough, I don't visualize anything when I'm coding, or reading code: I just understand the concept more or less deeply, but always without any images: It's just the "concept" that I understand. It's really like if I had an interpreter in my head when reading and when coding, I do the opposite: I know the required sequence and I reverse engineer it to the programming language v…

Many of us work the way you do, more or less of the time, and I think the fair term to use for that is fluency . But I also think there are many working engineers, including some who have been in the trade for a very long time, that don't develop it. There are surely other roads to doing good work without fluency, just like there is when forced to work in a foregin language with only modest proficiency, but I can't h…

Yes, I think you've totally coined it with the fluency concept.

Re: What do you visualize while programming?

#116

Post by iman453 »

alfonsodev wrote: post #77
f7b5 wrote: post #74

When I was first introduced to mental visualization, I thought I couldn't do it because I struggled to clearly picture something as simple as an apple - or any other familiar object - in my mind. But with practice, the images slowly became clearer and more stable. Through continued practice, I was able to visualize more complex things, like text and even music sheets - which is kind of a cheat code, because you can m…

Thanks for sharing this! Do you have any additional resources that helped you achieving this? How long did it take you ? How much time did you invested ? If you can remember.

I haven't spent enough time on it but a good Youtube video I'd found was https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4xFVJTyJZg

Re: What do you visualize while programming?

#117

Post by hobs »

n0n0n4t0r wrote: post #114
hobs wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's more like feelings that are not visual but much more tactile, itching, irritation, smoothness, grittiness, bad code like tasting dirty sand.

This seems like synesthesia, I've read that it may help excelling as you have several senses to use at the same time.

I had to really consider it because while I am familiar with synesthesia I never really thought it would apply in my case, but when I got deeply into thinking about it the sensations are pretty much in the exact same case.

I think its why I might get a little too irritable at silly code!

Re: What do you visualize while programming?

#118

Post by stolenmerch »

I visualize some geographic location either in my home town where I grew up or in my current city. It's so vivid that I actually drive through some neighborhoods and can instantly recall what I was working on. I have a map with pins in each location I've visualized and what problem I was working on.

Re: What do you visualize while programming?

#119

Post by mcfunley »

In an extended chapter of Mythical Man Month, Fred Brooks described his practice of screening candidates for number-form synesthesia by asking “where is November?”

I have number form so when I was young and originally read this I thought it was pretty neat. But as evidenced in the rest of this thread, it’s an absolutely crazy practice since the majority of great programmers don’t have it. And I assume it’d be illegal these days anyway.

https://www.mattsencenbaugh.com/where-is-next-november/

Re: What do you visualize while programming?

#120

Post by LiamPrevelige »

For me it’s usually some context-specific, low-level DAG of functions/data flow. Maybe a higher level of C4 model depending on the scope of my work.

I’ve been studying this to build a VS code extension that visualizes my codebase as I work. Similar to Feynman’s point, there are many ways of visualizing the same task/section of code, but I’ve found some are more universally interpretable than others.

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