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Developer's block

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Re: Developer's block

#81

Post by ashwinsundar »

dgan wrote: post #2

Rolled my eyes on "For experts only: don't do it yet". Shut-up already. I will do it right now because it will nag me forever and then surface will grow, and every time the new code interacts whith what-could-ve-been-optimized I will spend 5min thinking if I should already optimize it

This is like the #1 cause of spaghetti, unmaintanable, deadlocked codebases - a single developer who knows every “best-practice” and optimization technique, and will not hesitate to apply it in every situation regardless of practicality or need, as a way to demonstrate their knowledge. It's the sign of an insecure developer - please stop.

Re: Developer's block

#82

Post by darth_avocado »

Kovah wrote: post #4

There's so much good advice in this article. My number one point that i learned the hard way during two decades of writing software: take breaks when your body tells you to. It's an absolute killer if you force yourself to work on your projects just because there's stuff on your to do list, new issues on Github, or whatever. Just stop working if you don't feel it.

There’s so much good advice in the article and I think most developers know these intuitively to a certain extent. The problem with it though is that corporate culture tends to ignore these and is very unforgiving in my experience. When you have to deliver everything on time, all the time, you can’t take any of this advice and practically use it. Taking time with learning for example is something you can do only when your manager allows it, your peers (technical and non technical) won’t take any issue with it and the price of taking time isn’t going to be a negative performance review.

Re: Developer's block

#83

Post by siva7 »

coneonthefloor wrote: post #57

I suffer from this. I even get as far as nearly finishing a project, and then just decide to abandon it as the last 20% is just mentally exhausting, and I should have written the whole thing in language X using framework Y…

Haha that's the legendary 80/20 curve of a sidegig ;) As i grew older i just do the work when i feel it. When i don't feel it after a few days i stop working on it. The feeling may come back but i won't force it like my younger self would do.

Re: Developer's block

#84

Post by siva7 »

chrisweekly wrote: post #55
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #16

> Release early, release often I’m big on this. I find it efficacious to have an integrated product going as soon as possible, even if it’s a field of stubs. It’s my experience that I almost never know what the end product will look like, no matter how much upfront planning time I devote, so being able to test and iterate the whole system, as soon as possible, is pretty vital. It’s also one reason that I like to use…

Your linked post about test harnesses is outstanding; thanks for sharing!

I've skimmed the article and still have no clue what you guys are talking about. Is test harness another word for end to end testing?

Re: Developer's block

#85

Post by LeftHandPath »

esperent wrote: post #23
Martin_Silenus wrote: post #17

Sleep. Best side task for your brain. How many times has this happened to me? You struggle with a feature or a bug, you think about it, you weigh the pros and cons for hours... because you don't want to start something that will set you back. You're tired, but you don't want to go to sleep until you've at least made a decision for tomorrow. Go to sleep. Now. Then you wake up knowing immediately what to do. You hardly…

Also exercise. Sleep restores you. Exercise is the spark.

Hiking is my go-to when I need to figure something out. I think walking also helps chew on complex problems, more so than more intense exercise like strength training and running (though that's also beneficial).

Re: Developer's block

#86

Post by brettgriffin »

Martin_Silenus wrote: post #17

Sleep. Best side task for your brain. How many times has this happened to me? You struggle with a feature or a bug, you think about it, you weigh the pros and cons for hours... because you don't want to start something that will set you back. You're tired, but you don't want to go to sleep until you've at least made a decision for tomorrow. Go to sleep. Now. Then you wake up knowing immediately what to do. You hardly…

This is frustratingly accurate. I was just working on something, pulling 16+ hour days for days on end. Not because I had to, but really out of pure obsession.

The raw hours of work were certainly noticeable, but it was embarrassing how difficult tasks the night before suddenly became a breeze the next day.

Re: Developer's block

#87

Post by Stratoscope »

Martin_Silenus wrote: post #17

Sleep. Best side task for your brain. How many times has this happened to me? You struggle with a feature or a bug, you think about it, you weigh the pros and cons for hours... because you don't want to start something that will set you back. You're tired, but you don't want to go to sleep until you've at least made a decision for tomorrow. Go to sleep. Now. Then you wake up knowing immediately what to do. You hardly…

I've shared this before, but it seems relevant here:

Several years ago a Facebook recruiter invited me to interview with them. It mostly went well, except I bombed the leetcode algorithm quiz.

The next day, as I expected, they sent me a polite note thanking me for interviewing but they would be moving on with other candidates.

The morning after that, I woke up and before I opened my eyes I saw the complete solution on the back of my eyelids, about 20 lines of code.

I stepped through the code mentally and thought, "Yes! This will work!"

So I ran to my computer and typed the code in to test it. Other than one bug - this was old-school JavaScript and I'd forgotten one var statement, so there was an inadvertent global - it worked perfectly.

Re: Developer's block

#88

Post by jay_kyburz »

CalRobert wrote: post #33
Martin_Silenus wrote: post #17

Sleep. Best side task for your brain. How many times has this happened to me? You struggle with a feature or a bug, you think about it, you weigh the pros and cons for hours... because you don't want to start something that will set you back. You're tired, but you don't want to go to sleep until you've at least made a decision for tomorrow. Go to sleep. Now. Then you wake up knowing immediately what to do. You hardly…

If only my kids would let me..

Seems painful now, but in the blink of an eye they will sleep through the night and when you look back years later you'll wish you pick them up and rock them to sleep again.

Re: Developer's block

#90

Post by throwaway31131 »

jay_kyburz wrote: post #88
CalRobert wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If only my kids would let me..

Seems painful now, but in the blink of an eye they will sleep through the night and when you look back years later you'll wish you pick them up and rock them to sleep again.

“The days are long, but the years are short"

Couldn’t be more true…

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