This is about programming specifically, but I guess you can experience similar things with many other activities as well. So if you can even remotely relate your thoughts are very welcome.
Alright so, every time when I sit down to programme it tends to start out great, I feel relaxed and kind of looking forward to it. However, at some point there is going to be a bug in the code or some library does not work as I expect it to. I then start googling; try something out; doesn’t work; google some more; try more stuff; still doesn’t work. While this is of course just what coding is like, during these “google, test, repeat” sessions I tend to go faster with every iteration and at some point I am in such a rush that it feels like I hardly remember to breathe. Needless to say that this is freaking exhausting. After an hour of this my brain is just mush.
Of course, the obvious solution to this is to just take a break as soon as I notice me speeding up. I will try to do this more, but sometimes it feels like I can’t. This unsolved bug will sit in my mind so that I can’t stop thinking about it even if I’m not at the keyboard. “It must be solved. Now”. Of course it doesn’t, but that’s what my mind is telling me.
In a few months I will probably be working as a full time dev again and until then I have to have solved this problem somehow if I want to do this any longer than a couple of years.
Ideally I want programming to be a meditative experience and feel refreshed afterwards instead of completely drained. This might be illusionary, but at least I would want it to be draining more like I’ve been on a good run, instead of feeling like being hit by a truck.
Anyways I’m wondering if any of you can relate to this and maybe has solved this in some way. Does this ever happen to you? What do you do to prevent this from happening? I appreciate any thoughts you have on this.
Personally the bug fixing part of it is the most enjoyable to me, so if I end up programming and there is no bugs, that’s when programming becomes a pain for me. Trick to fix it for me is to have my wife give it a test, bam, bugs to be fixed. Never fails.
I think sometimes I do enjoy bug hunting as well, but only if I didn’t write the bug myself and only if there is no research outside the editor involved. Fixing my own bugs feels like “not progressing” to me. So tell us your secret.
The issue is your mindset.
You write bugs because you have something to learn. You’re so focussed on what you’re making, that when a learning opportunity arises, you are not open to it. You’re just looking to speedrun/hack it.
You need to drop the delivery pressure and enjoy the journey. When a bug comes up, celebrate it “ah, you got me here. Interesting. What am I missing?”. Then you slow down, focus not on solving it, but understanding it. If you understand it, the solving is easy.
If you consider learning “not progressing”, then you need to reflect on what benefit the pressure and delivery focus is.
I should print this out. I really think this may be a big part of the problem.
Very well said. I agree with this guys assessment. He is way more better with the words then I am.
Especially as one potential “solution” to creating complex bugs in programming is to be less ambitious with the projects you choose. A friend suggested this to me once, when I was getting frustrated with how many bugs I was running into in a new problem domain. They knew better than I did at that point that the reason I kept diving into silly projects was because I did enjoy the challenge and the feeling of my capabilities expanding. That had gotten a little lost along the way.
Bug fixing only if it’s actually bug fixing and not just plumbing debugging where you’re not actually debugging you’re just hunting for a misconfiguration for hours or days.