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What do you visualize while programming?

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Re: What do you visualize while programming?

#91

Post by chatmasta »

bfung wrote: post #9

Layers of directed graphs where: * Nodes can represent code units (lines, functions, AST) or some low level thing, even hardware parts. * Can expand a node which contains other graphs * Can group graphs into simpler graphs to describe a high level system design * edges generally mean communications between graphs/nodes

This describes my perception as well, I think. Except for me it’s more of a spatial system than a visual one. I recall things by how I got there - whether that’s a reference on a webpage or a variable deep in a callstack, it’s sorted in my head according to the path that brought me there. And then I have some fast lookups for “things nearby,” like maybe I can’t remember the exact file with a definition in it, but I can remember the text around it and know what to search for.

Re: What do you visualize while programming?

#92

Post by illwrks »

JohnFen wrote: post #3

If I'm "in the zone", then I stop being aware of the monitor and keyboard and all I see is what's in my mind's eye: geometric shapes coming in and out of existence and moving in various ways that relate to what I'm doing. Then it feels like the code is just pouring forth on its own without me paying attention to it. It's seriously an altered state. Most of the time I'm not in that state[1], though. In those cases, I…

This happens to me also. I have an unfounded, loose theory that this is when my left and right brain are in sync with each other. Some days I'm more creative, others I'm more logical but when I'm in the zone I'm both of those things at once and everything 'clicks' together so easily, regardless of what it is.

Re: What do you visualize while programming?

#93

Post by plorkyeran »

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.

Until I first heard the term I had no idea that it was in any way unusual and I assumed that anyone who talked about visualizing things was being significantly more metaphorical than they apparently were.

Re: What do you visualize while programming?

#94

Post by butlike »

illwrks wrote: post #88

I'm a designer by trade, programming is largely a hobby for me. By default I see things as pictures in my mind, I always have. When I read something and it doesn't make absolute sense to me, I need to learn more about the context so that I can 'see' the whole picture and how it fits together. This means I can take a while to grasp something, but once I do I seem to have a better understanding of it than my peers - li…

Simplifying the complex is an invaluable skill. It lets you cut the cruft from the problem and see it as it truly is, which can lead to shrewd, sometimes genius implementations.

Re: What do you visualize while programming?

#95

Post by RaftPeople »

meta-meta wrote: post #48
RaftPeople wrote: post #32

I see semi-amorphous/semi-geometrical/semi-colored stuff that represent different aspects and components of system. I think it's similar to people I've talked to about what they see when they think of the year+months+seasons, many friends described similar-ish types of representations that seemed visual (e.g. a circular view of months, or a long ribbon, etc.)

If months are circular for you, in which direction do they progress? A few years ago I realized my mental model of calendar months goes counter-clockwise. No idea why. I'm also aphantasic, so it's a sense of space and movement but I'm not actually seeing a circle. NYE is at 12 o'clock, but January is oddly at 11. edit: here's the article that prompted me to reflect on this https://nrkbeta.no/2018/01/01/this-is-what-t…

> If months are circular for you, in which direction do they progress?

It's kind of circular and I'm kind of in the middle with them arranged clockwise. On my left is summer (but during summer I'm kind of more facing them then having them to the side of my vision). Fall is on top (but I don't look up, the whole things shifts down into my primary focus area as we move through oct for example), winter on the right and spring down at the bottom.

For me NYE is approx between 1+2 o-clock, the 4th of July is approx 8 o-clock (it's not exactly symmetrical but close), Halloween is a little past 12.

Re: What do you visualize while programming?

#96

Post by _ea1k »

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…

Honestly, I'm not sure that I do. It feels like I do, as the deeper that I get into a complex system, the more clearly I can see the whole and how all of the parts interact.

But if I try to draw it? Usually I'll lose state and can't really picture it as well. I'd have to rebuild state as a graphic representation to do that.

So... I don't really know how my mind is organizing it, tbh.

Re: What do you visualize while programming?

#97

Post by butlike »

sitkack wrote: post #26
etc-hosts wrote: post #12

I visualize the tent my family will live in if I get layed off.

You should buy a really nice tent now while you have cash flow.

Why spend the capital on a tent. A survival manual is magnitudes cheaper and accomplishes the same thing, ultimately.

/s

Re: What do you visualize while programming?

#98

Post by butlike »

andoando wrote: post #38
jampekka wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd guess few people have much image-like things in their head for data structures or control flows or such. Such can be conjured if one tries to explain something visually by e.g. drawing. But 2D/3D structure is very limited for thinking about abstract stuff like programming. I don't really have a recollection of or introspective access to what I experience when I focus on something like programming. And I guess man…

Id argue temporal/spacial reasoning encompasses ALL the reasoning we can do. After all, space time is the fabric of reality and encompasses all possible events

Only cause of the higgs field/higgs mechanism!

Re: What do you visualize while programming?

#99

Post by butlike »

plorkyeran wrote: post #93
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.

Until I first heard the term I had no idea that it was in any way unusual and I assumed that anyone who talked about visualizing things was being significantly more metaphorical than they apparently were.

Maybe that's why I'm such a slow programmer. I have to visualize (quite literally) the mechanism and how it works and translates to the problem before I can wrap my head around it. Almost as if the program was a watch, and each method was a gear or switch in the contraption. I think one of my deficits is I need to keep this all in my head or I kind of get lost with it.

Re: What do you visualize while programming?

#100

Post by butlike »

jumping_frog wrote: post #47
audidude wrote: post #7

Nothing, I have aphantasia.

Imagine not having a voice in your head. How are you gonna do rubber duck debugging within your head? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u69YSh-cFXY

The inner monologue is nice, and I have it, but I believe I've also experienced the opposite. It's more of a "vibe/feeling check" where it just feels right to grab the rice and make a rice dish for dinner, it's not an active conversation in my head like: "What should I make for dinner? Fish? Rice?"

For people without an inner monologue, is that mostly correct or am I way off?

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