71–80 of 176 posts
Do you guys really have schema in mind??
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Yeah this is me too - which is why I enjoy turn based games while I’m coding, if I get stuck I distract my consciousness with 2-3 turns in Civilisation and the answer pops into my head while I’m playing. Turn based is excellent because always I’m mid-turn when the answer comes so I alt-tab out and keep going. My steam shows some ridiculous number of hours in game because it’s always on, nearly 24/7, in a window on my…
I don't think I can only play 2-3 turns of Civilization at a time.
Something else I learned is that mental imagery[1] isn’t limited to just visual experiences. As a musician, I use it to hear intervals, hear the strong beat, hear chords, different timber / sound textures etc. You can also "visualize" smells, physical sensations, and more. I clearly see it as a skill that improves with time and effort.
One nice trick is being able to visualize conversations, dialogues, interviews etc. I believe it dramatically helped me overcome stress in those situations, as well as in performance.
Nothing except when I'm working with graph-like data, which isn't that rare.
If I code too much all day and night and don't unwind before going to sleep, I dream code... just code text scrolling by endlessly in my dreams.
never read/heard this before from the HN audience.
bots are increasing on HN it seems.
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…
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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…
Yeah this is me too - which is why I enjoy turn based games while I’m coding, if I get stuck I distract my consciousness with 2-3 turns in Civilisation and the answer pops into my head while I’m playing. Turn based is excellent because always I’m mid-turn when the answer comes so I alt-tab out and keep going. My steam shows some ridiculous number of hours in game because it’s always on, nearly 24/7, in a window on my…
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…
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 help but suspect it's a much more exhausting experience.