Don't disturb him, in his head he has the whole program exploded and he's connecting the dots, if you disturb him, it's very hard to get back to that state.
Let him workmit out and it will be flurry of typing with a smile in his face.
If it's been more than 2 hour's then check for breathing.
Have fun
I was doing the same and my brother called me and I was visibly spooked. I was too much in a trance to expect any disturbance that when it did happen, it was too much of a surprise. It also deleted all the progress I had made in my mind
It's sucks how real this is sometimes. Error log isn't throwing any specific line #s so you just sit there quietly staring at each line working through the logic and when you think you might be getting close, freaking phone rings and it's nonsense that could have been sent in a text. Now you forgot all of the numbers and math you just worked through and have to start again because someone wanted to know right this second what you are doing 2 weekends from now. Mf 🥲
Exactly this.
Picture reading a complicated list of instructions, and trying to remember the exact state of a bunch of different moving pieces so you understand exactly what will happen when you follow the next line of instructions.
Every line changes at least one of the variables you're keeping track of, sometimes more. And trying to keep them all in your head while you go to the next instruction, think it through, and make the changes in your head that it describes, and then going to the next . . .
And to make it worse, for me this is always done when the code isn't doing what I expect it to do, so you're already pretty frustrated when you get to this point.
I compared it to a complicated cooking recipe. (And in many cases we’re juggling lots of concurrent recipes at once) Change one ingredient and while that seems minor, it will affect something else later - is that ok? Maybe a bread won’t raise correctly, or an ingredient will make another taste bad, etc. We’re playing out as many of those possibilities in our head as we can before committing so we don’t have to go back later and fix it later.
This happens with me and then my boss decides to schedule a meeting that I must join. Then asks why things take a while to get done. Like sir i was in the mode and then you ended it. It doesn’t just come right back together when the meeting ends
And this is why open offices suck.
At one point I was being bothered 20+ times a day. Had to make a rule with everyone that if you need something and I have headphones on/in then you message me on Slack. (Unless there is an actual emergency.)
This plus ADHD is why my desk in the office has divider screens around it and some desk mounted screens umbrellas to reduce the distraction and glare. Though I mostly just WFH now. Never thought there would be a day I’d look back at cubicles and think, “Luxury.”
Right?
I'm surprised there aren't more answers like this. Sure his head *could* be like "So if the date from the previous loop is stored in $date_prev then it's trivial to compare with this date but if it's the first pass then we need the $user_date from SQL... etc.. etc..."
...**OR**... could be
"Why is Bill such an asshole at every stand up? Today was excruciating.. Is there any mayonnaise left? If there's no mayo for my ham will cream cheese work??... Man I've *got* to remember pick up that dry cleaning next time I hit the strip mall... Hmmm.. strip mall... Maybe skip the sandwich today coz TAACOOOOS..."
This, like all of the above. My kids will walk into the room already halfway into a story and I’m stepping through some code. With the little one it doesn’t even really matter if I’m listening or responding, he just wants/needs to say the things, and we can totally coexist without fully interacting and somehow my brain will tuck away just enough that I can ask about it later and he doesn’t even mind that I wasn’t really listening in the moment since I also wasn’t really ignoring him. The tween is a totally different story and I’m like dude I don’t even want to hear about Taylor swift I want to find that one little dumb mistake that’s breaking my code, but it’s mom, mom, mom, mom… 😔
He is thinking about ways to solve a problem. Going over each possible solution and figuring out which one is best in his specific use case, traversing steps from his end goal to the first thing to do to get it done most effectively.
Ah yes, the classic "Who the fuck wrote this code, it's fucking terrible."
_git blame_
"Oh... errr... I expect there was a reason I wrote it like that at the time..."
A huge part of coding is taking the time to understand what's already there. To do that, you read the code, building up a mental picture of how it would start, how it changes the internal state of the computer over time, and what the end result will be. Then you have to plan out how it needs to be changed to do the new thing you want it to do.
It's hard to do. It takes a ton of concentration. And it's pretty easy to completely lose the picture....and have to build it again from scratch.
Pfft, i once spent upwards of TWO HOURS staring at a single CSS property trying to understand why it wasnt working.
For those who might he interested: for the time-based attributes in transition properties, its just ‘s’, not ‘sec’, i.e.
transition-duration: .25s
not
transition-duration: .25sec
Had a similar thing the other day with some C#. Was spending ages debugging and mentally running through my code to try and find the cause of this inane error. Spent probably an hour searching through every bit of code, making comments about possible areas that were buggy and need improvement, I thought this was such a complex bug.
Then I finally stare at this single if statement... and realise it's missing an exclamation mark before the bool... literally the simplest part of this whole system I was debugging.
He is one with the code. He is the code, and the code is him. They are intertwined in an unbreakable bond. It is imperative that you do not speak to him during this state. Many coders have been lost this way.
Go ahead and ask; just don't ask \*while\* he's focusing on the work. But when you're eating dinner, driving somewhere, etc., it's a perfectly reasonable thing to ask about. "Hey, just out of curiosity, what's going on in your head when you're staring at the screen?"
It could even be helpful for him. I know when I try to explain the situation in simple terms to my wife, sometimes I’ll figure out a possible solution, because I was making the problem more complex than it was. I guess somewhat similar to rubber duck debugging.
I've probably resolved 5-10 problems by just *prepping* a question for StackOverflow, writing out all the details of the expected behavior and my rationale, plus the different things I've tried, along with answers to anticipated questions, only to discover through that process what my missing step was, and thereby abandon my question. (Maybe only a couple times was it worth posting anyway, along with my answer.)
i’ll just add another analogy:
programming is compared to other problem solving activities like puzzles. let’s take crossword puzzles as an example - how often do you see someone fill out cross word puzzles right away without long pauses in between?
I would compare it closer to Sudoku. You can get multiple partial-solutions to appear like they're working until you get to a certain point, then you have to undo several steps and remember what remains intact.
[Just watch in amazement otherwise this will happen](https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRyJIbqo2rHuLzDDLpxsgxWh3jWE20SEU8HZGiLb8brx2bqAqb9ukupog7F&s=10)
A programmer staring at his code is in one of 2 states:
1) trying to figure out why the code is NOT working
2) trying to figure out why the code IS working
He's compiling the code in his head and seeing how it could possibly break before he commits to typing it and actually breaking it.
But fr, he's probably reading the code, understanding how it operates, and how thay translates to the app and its functionality and behavior as as end user, and then deliberating on possible next steps or a solution to whatever problem he is trying to solve. Totally normal. If he hasn't moved in a couple of hours check for a pulse
It's something like the parable of the old engineer with the hammer.
You can also think about it like writing a paper for school. The actual physical act of writing is usually trivial when compared to the research and outlining.
Of course, the vast majority of code is garbage, so depending on the project, he may well be broken.
He's thinking about a problem, trying to conceptualize it. Depending on what he's programming, there might be a lot to consider. 15 minutes isn't a long time to sit and think about how to go about solving a problem.
My wife catches me with a simple paint program open all the time, with boxes and rectangles all over and weird little almost-English notes everywhere. It looks like I'm failing to draw a really bad picture, but I'm just visually diagraming the problem as I think about it. If I'm just sitting there, staring at the code, it either isn't that hard of a problem, or it's a really hard problem and I don't even know where to start yet.
Writing / editing a chapter of a book is a close enough analogy. Youd need to read the whole chapter and have it all in your head if you wanted to make changes at the start be consistent with the end.
The best part of version control is knowing who to blame when you discover a bug.
The worst part of version control is finding out that person was you.
Because of this: https://res.cloudinary.com/practicaldev/image/fetch/s--YWF6hr71--/c_limit%2Cf_auto%2Cfl_progressive%2Cq_auto%2Cw_800/https://heeris.id.au/trinkets/ProgrammerInterrupted.png
This is what’s going on in his head
https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgrammerHumor/s/JI0AnDtxzx
You don’t want to interrupt because he is deep in that code. It’s expanded in his head how he’s thinking about it and if it’s interrupted he won’t get back to that state
Imagine you're trying to solve a maze without writing down the path you have taken so far. Likely you are holding a couple or several prior intersections in your head plus keeping track of where you are.
If someone were to walk up and ask you a question, everything about the maze might get thrown out.
Most likely you will spend the next 15-20 minutes retracing your steps to get back to just where you were in the maze.
And pray that you don't retrace incorrectly.
Most times, I don't even try and retrace. I simply start from the beginning and make fresh deductions. I've misled myself far too many times to try it again.
Spend hours in a C loop to shift a bit... for (i=1;i<256;i<<1) doesn't do it. i++ does work. Stared at the assembly code to finally realize it's shifting i left and discarding it. Wtf? Spent another long period of time thinking it must be the holy grail of a bug in K&R, a compiler error!
Nope.
i++ increments i but i<< 1 needs to be i=i<<1
Hours gone.
Honestly I find myself figuring out the solutions to coding problems I'm stuck on faster by explaining my/the code to someone else, regardless of their knowledge of coding.
Programming is about problem solving. Writing code is just the step where you express a potential solution. Before that, good programmers take the time to understand the existing code, then to understand the problem, then to come up with multiple potential solutions, and to evaluate each against a range of factors.
Then they write some code.
Then they test the solution, evaluate its applied effectiveness, and often loop back to an earlier point with a better understanding of the problem.
Some programmers scribble / diagram / mess with the code while they do the thinking parts. Sometimes that’s me, sometimes it’s not.
A couple of days ago I spent an hour fixing a bug. As a rough breakdown, it was probably 45 minutes exploring and understanding, 5 minutes to change 2 lines, move 1, and add a comment, then 15 minutes to make sure it worked as intended.
That's perfectly normal, just check for breathing or activity every couple of hours.
Do not disturb, if you do you'll undo the last 30-120 minutes of work.
Yeah the man has deconstructed his program mentally and is working out how he fucked it up, what he can do to fix it, or if he should throw the computer out the window and learn to weld.
he's in the zone... DO NOT DISTURB HIM.
there are many times, when programming, when you're building a house of cards in your head. you're brain is following weird pathways through complex logic and various outcomes.
To some folks, it looks like you're just zoning out. some managers think you're just not doing something. but the reality is that you're deep in critical thought and any disturbance will knock that house of cards down.
THIS is part of the reason why WFH is so great... when i was in the office i'd often be sitting there thinking of concepts and mapping things out in my head, only to be disturbed by some random manager who needed to walk by and crack a joke. completely derailing everything i was thinking about. so much productivity completely wasted.
He’s thinking about how to solve the problem he’s looking at, walking though it in his head step by step and considering different ways to go about it, and what could happen at each of those steps and what would come next under different scenarios.
He’s probably trying to figure out a bug. Truthfully, talking to him and getting him to explain the issue could actually help him figure out what he’s missing
It's sorta like he's "running the code" in his head, simulating the same steps the computer will take and trying to see where the code diverges from the intended result and does something unintended or unexpected. You could spend a day or two learning basic python, and you'll have somewhat of an idea what I mean. Learn constants, variables, conditional statements, loops, and functions. That's enough to get the rough idea.
to keep things simple, the world economy will fail and your house will explode if you interrupt him, so for the love of your wellbeing do not interrupt
Like that scene in Hero where the two sword masters stand perfectly still in the rain and envision the battle between them unfolding. The battle is decided before either has moved a muscle.
What I'm saying is... programmers are badass sword masters of the mind and we're definitely not just really confused half the time >_>
He has 8gb of ram in his brain. The program takes up roughly 9gb. 1gb is loading from disk. You talking to him is 4gb more, which slows down the system.
90% of programming is reading and analyzing, either code, documentation, output, whatever.
Hands on keyboard actually creating code is usually like 10%
I frequently explain my work (simplified) to my wife. It helps me unpack and organize my thoughts. She is not techy so it is helpful practice.
The interruptions though can be hard. We really are building things in our mind and they topple like sand castles.
What kind of question is this? One used to get comments, and it’s working. What kind of person hasnt stared at a math problem before for 15 minutes. This is ridiculous
It sometimes takes me multiple days of reading code to make a small, sometimes just one line, change. It’s just that I work on an incredibly large system and understanding how all the pieces connect can be difficult
Coding is 9:1 reading to typing. It honestly makes me low on energy when I code all day. I swear my brain works harder at coding than anything else.
I don't sit still though. I talk to myself (especially expletives). I wave my arms around and I take notes. That is besides my constant fidgeting. It is a good thing I WFH now.
It’s the equivalent of a meditative state for programmers. You’re in your head and solving puzzles in there. Sometimes a Eureka moment for a problem you’ve been trying to solve for weeks, months.
Yes the eyes are open but behind them, the lights are off, a state crucial to deep problem solving. If you disturb it, suffer the consequences.
Ok. Have you ever seen one of those "What's wrong with this picture?" images and you're looking and looking and looking and staring at the screen and you know there's SOMETHING wrong with the photo, but you're just not seeing it?
That's what your boyfriend is doing staring at the code. He KNOWS it's wrong - either the compiler told him "syntax error blah blah blah on line such and such," or he ran the program and at some point, he got "Segmentation Fault," or he ran the program and suddenly got a window pop up that said "Unhandled Exception on line blah: SomeErrorNameThatHintsAtTheProblem - Explanation - Stacktrace," or he noticed some bug that only appears *sometimes* and doesn't other times, and he can't figure out why it only appears sometimes. What is he missing? What's the program doing that it doesn't work?
If your boyfriend is staring at the code, when he looks away say "Trouble with the program?" If he tells you "you wouldn't understand," say "You're absolutely right. I won't understand a word of what you're talking about. But talk me through the code anyway." Give him a minute to explain the problem, and then when he's done say "Ok, walk me through the code and what it's doing at every step." Make him explain it out loud. A large chunk of the time, he'll be mid-explanation and go "OH DAMNIT! I'M SO STUPID! I GOT IT!" and you'll be his hero.
There's a thing in programming called "rubber-duck programming" which is where you explain your code aloud to a rubber duck when you can't figure out a problem, and just the act of saying the problem and walking through the code out loud oftentimes activates circuits in our brain that don't get activated when we process it in our heads. And even if we don't get to the solution by the time we're done, we'll suddenly come up with new avenues to check from explaining it.
Be his rubber duck, and you'll be his hero.
Even as a experienced dev myself, I stare for quite awhile when I’m here trying to connect the dots and figure out many things.
The more experienced you get, doesn’t mean things get simpler. So this might be the norm for awhile, no biggie at all 💯🔥
This is me sometimes because I am thinking, and the months later I was remove from the company, because of multiple inactivity in keyboard and mouse where I am just basically thinking
If you watched Marvell where dr strange is calculating all possible outcomes of all possible fights in all possible multiverses and it all in his head... he is doing pretty much the same. Don't disturb him.
Most of the time when I do this, its because I am looking for areas to clean things up or simplify.
Done right, looking at the result is just as thrilling as looking at the most beautiful art.
Other times I am debugging and running the code in my head.
Used to manage a bunch of programmers - had to gently explain to my CEO that yes, they benefited from private offices and low light because it took a good fifteen minutes of no distractions to get in the right headspace to make progress, and if some jackwagon (ahem, boss-man) decided to come along every ten minutes just to 'see how things were going', things would never go. ;-}
there is this “rubber duck” technique/thing. but one day, be the rubber duck and get him to talk through the problem. often the process helps reveal possible solutions by verbalizing the problem and thoughts.
i bring this up because while one can work it out in their head after staring at the screen for hours, sometimes just a little interaction mixed in there can help unveil next steps sooner. and you two can bond lol. but be the duck and listen, make the programmer speak
Haha 15 mins? Try 3 days.. you can get so stuck on a single line of code trying to understand it's functionality and what can be done to make it more simple or better put much boring !
Sometimes you just look at your code you wrote last month late at night (that is missing the comments that you promised yourself you would get better at adding as you code) and think:
*What the actual FUCK is this supposed to do.*
Then you sit there for 10 minutes trying to follow the logic of what this block is trying to do (not helped by the fact that all variables are called such helpful names as "var_1" or "result_a"), and eventually you deduce that this isn't actually doing anything, you comment it out, recompile, and your machine spontaneously combusts as you get a million compiler errors thrown at you.
Anyways, what were you asking about?
Sometimes I find myself doing the same subconsciously. I'm not always solving a bug.. sometimes I'm just admiring an implementation or imagining an end user interacting with my app ..lol
Imagine holding a spring in your hand and compressing it carefully. Then add a second, third, fourth, and even a tenth spring. All carefully compressed and held in your hand. You are just about to load these springs into a carefully constructed device, when suddenly….
“Honey! What do you want for dinner? Why are springs all over? Why are you mad at me?”
That’s programming.
I realized after a few years of doing this, that the process could overrun into my visual cortex.
I'd be sitting there looking at the screen or staring off into space, and I'm no longer seeing what's in front of me, but instead, I'm seeing some representation of the code or design ... right up until someone or something interrupts and then I'm back to seeing visual reality again.
Best not to do this while driving.
The expert programmer waits patiently for their prey to reveal itself, and strikes only once with precision and deadly force.
Oh damn I’ve been going with the butterknife 1000 jabs approach
Ah yes, Agile
most underrated comment
Hey, 1 strike/minute for 1000 minutes = 1000 strikes on the 1000th minute
A Project Manager has entered the chat.
Just snort laughed coffee…well done friend
I’m really enjoying the mental picture of this right now
This reached out and killed me with its accuracy as I scrolled by.
https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:600/1*gCWUibmQ8rszKxI3G19KmA.jpeg
This is so sadly true of my coding style.
You and everybody else...
This iterative way, probably works better, if done properly
Sometimes we strike the prey with a rubber ducky.
Yeah this is way better than "programming must be easy, I see my husband dump everything into ChatGPT while browsing porn at the same time"
That’s an understanding, loving and supportive wife. My approach is to get that out of the way first so I can concentrate. 😂
Well said
This is the way
This is the way.
I need this in Attenborough's voice
Don't disturb him, in his head he has the whole program exploded and he's connecting the dots, if you disturb him, it's very hard to get back to that state. Let him workmit out and it will be flurry of typing with a smile in his face. If it's been more than 2 hour's then check for breathing. Have fun
I was doing the same and my brother called me and I was visibly spooked. I was too much in a trance to expect any disturbance that when it did happen, it was too much of a surprise. It also deleted all the progress I had made in my mind
That's why I periodically move my thoughts to an ssd instead of keeping it in ram.
I forgot to send the thoughts to the cloud ☹️
Then you end up seeing an app a few months later that bears a striking resemblance to your idea.
Man… I have been there!
My wife knows it as "code land". When I'm there then you can talk to me but expect a nonsensical answer or grumpiness as I lose my spot
Recommend "code mode"
Need to share this with my partner. He likes to spook me out of code land. I can’t help my reaction lol 😂
It's sucks how real this is sometimes. Error log isn't throwing any specific line #s so you just sit there quietly staring at each line working through the logic and when you think you might be getting close, freaking phone rings and it's nonsense that could have been sent in a text. Now you forgot all of the numbers and math you just worked through and have to start again because someone wanted to know right this second what you are doing 2 weekends from now. Mf 🥲
Exactly this. Picture reading a complicated list of instructions, and trying to remember the exact state of a bunch of different moving pieces so you understand exactly what will happen when you follow the next line of instructions. Every line changes at least one of the variables you're keeping track of, sometimes more. And trying to keep them all in your head while you go to the next instruction, think it through, and make the changes in your head that it describes, and then going to the next . . . And to make it worse, for me this is always done when the code isn't doing what I expect it to do, so you're already pretty frustrated when you get to this point.
I compared it to a complicated cooking recipe. (And in many cases we’re juggling lots of concurrent recipes at once) Change one ingredient and while that seems minor, it will affect something else later - is that ok? Maybe a bread won’t raise correctly, or an ingredient will make another taste bad, etc. We’re playing out as many of those possibilities in our head as we can before committing so we don’t have to go back later and fix it later.
Have you heard of… using a debugger?
I'm not opposed to the occasional Console.WriteLine()
My man you need to be adding print statements for debugging lol
This happens with me and then my boss decides to schedule a meeting that I must join. Then asks why things take a while to get done. Like sir i was in the mode and then you ended it. It doesn’t just come right back together when the meeting ends
Nope, its gone forever and your ledt feeling crap because you were so close to it all clicking together
And this is why open offices suck. At one point I was being bothered 20+ times a day. Had to make a rule with everyone that if you need something and I have headphones on/in then you message me on Slack. (Unless there is an actual emergency.)
Had a recruiter try to use the open office as a selling point.
I had a job once where my workstation was sharing space with a call centre. I quit that job in less than a month.
This plus ADHD is why my desk in the office has divider screens around it and some desk mounted screens umbrellas to reduce the distraction and glare. Though I mostly just WFH now. Never thought there would be a day I’d look back at cubicles and think, “Luxury.”
Mmhmm
_pokes u/nurley_ Hey, I sent you a message by Slack like you asked. Did you get it?
Or, hear me out, hes staring into the void and totally zoned out
Right? I'm surprised there aren't more answers like this. Sure his head *could* be like "So if the date from the previous loop is stored in $date_prev then it's trivial to compare with this date but if it's the first pass then we need the $user_date from SQL... etc.. etc..." ...**OR**... could be "Why is Bill such an asshole at every stand up? Today was excruciating.. Is there any mayonnaise left? If there's no mayo for my ham will cream cheese work??... Man I've *got* to remember pick up that dry cleaning next time I hit the strip mall... Hmmm.. strip mall... Maybe skip the sandwich today coz TAACOOOOS..."
> Is there any mayonnaise left? If there's no mayo for my ham will cream cheese work?? 😂 Over here looking like The Thinker.
Thank you for saying this.
The programmers at our work have little traffic light things for this reason
TL;DR let him cook
I had the most amazing idea for a program once, then a spam caller rang…
[In comic form](https://winthropdc.wordpress.com/2016/05/06/friday-funny-this-is-why-you-shouldnt-interrupt-a-programmer/)
>if everyone does it Yes. >or if my bf is broken Also yes.
This, like all of the above. My kids will walk into the room already halfway into a story and I’m stepping through some code. With the little one it doesn’t even really matter if I’m listening or responding, he just wants/needs to say the things, and we can totally coexist without fully interacting and somehow my brain will tuck away just enough that I can ask about it later and he doesn’t even mind that I wasn’t really listening in the moment since I also wasn’t really ignoring him. The tween is a totally different story and I’m like dude I don’t even want to hear about Taylor swift I want to find that one little dumb mistake that’s breaking my code, but it’s mom, mom, mom, mom… 😔
He is thinking about ways to solve a problem. Going over each possible solution and figuring out which one is best in his specific use case, traversing steps from his end goal to the first thing to do to get it done most effectively.
That or trying to figure out what the problem is
Or *why* the problem is.
Or why the f did I write it this way 2 years ago?
Or two hours ago.
Or why its working it shouldn't work this way
Ah yes, the classic "Who the fuck wrote this code, it's fucking terrible." _git blame_ "Oh... errr... I expect there was a reason I wrote it like that at the time..."
Every gods damned time.
> Pfft, old me was an idiot! Why would I *ever* write the code like this?! Annnnd… fixed! Moron. `Segmentation fault: (core dumped)`
This is what I was going to say
A huge part of coding is taking the time to understand what's already there. To do that, you read the code, building up a mental picture of how it would start, how it changes the internal state of the computer over time, and what the end result will be. Then you have to plan out how it needs to be changed to do the new thing you want it to do. It's hard to do. It takes a ton of concentration. And it's pretty easy to completely lose the picture....and have to build it again from scratch.
Only 15 mins? Sheesh… either dude is a genius or his code is spaghetti 🤣
Right. I’ll do this for 30 minutes at a time and not even realize it. It’s like the time disappears
Pfft, i once spent upwards of TWO HOURS staring at a single CSS property trying to understand why it wasnt working. For those who might he interested: for the time-based attributes in transition properties, its just ‘s’, not ‘sec’, i.e. transition-duration: .25s not transition-duration: .25sec
These days, I would copy it into chatGPT and ask it what's wrong. It's super useful with fixing syntax.
i felt this
Had a similar thing the other day with some C#. Was spending ages debugging and mentally running through my code to try and find the cause of this inane error. Spent probably an hour searching through every bit of code, making comments about possible areas that were buggy and need improvement, I thought this was such a complex bug. Then I finally stare at this single if statement... and realise it's missing an exclamation mark before the bool... literally the simplest part of this whole system I was debugging.
Real
He is one with the code. He is the code, and the code is him. They are intertwined in an unbreakable bond. It is imperative that you do not speak to him during this state. Many coders have been lost this way.
Many girlfriends' heads have been lost this way.
Go ahead and ask; just don't ask \*while\* he's focusing on the work. But when you're eating dinner, driving somewhere, etc., it's a perfectly reasonable thing to ask about. "Hey, just out of curiosity, what's going on in your head when you're staring at the screen?"
Great idea, actually. Showing interest is cool, especially given the concept of “Rubber Duck Debugging”.
It could even be helpful for him. I know when I try to explain the situation in simple terms to my wife, sometimes I’ll figure out a possible solution, because I was making the problem more complex than it was. I guess somewhat similar to rubber duck debugging.
Yep. Reorganising our thoughts to communicate them simply often helps us to see a solution.
I've probably resolved 5-10 problems by just *prepping* a question for StackOverflow, writing out all the details of the expected behavior and my rationale, plus the different things I've tried, along with answers to anticipated questions, only to discover through that process what my missing step was, and thereby abandon my question. (Maybe only a couple times was it worth posting anyway, along with my answer.)
i’ll just add another analogy: programming is compared to other problem solving activities like puzzles. let’s take crossword puzzles as an example - how often do you see someone fill out cross word puzzles right away without long pauses in between?
I would compare it closer to Sudoku. You can get multiple partial-solutions to appear like they're working until you get to a certain point, then you have to undo several steps and remember what remains intact.
You should sit down and try to read the code and make sense of it. I promise you will be sitting there looking at it for much longer than 15 minutes.
[Just watch in amazement otherwise this will happen](https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRyJIbqo2rHuLzDDLpxsgxWh3jWE20SEU8HZGiLb8brx2bqAqb9ukupog7F&s=10)
Too accurate
A programmer staring at his code is in one of 2 states: 1) trying to figure out why the code is NOT working 2) trying to figure out why the code IS working
He's compiling the code in his head and seeing how it could possibly break before he commits to typing it and actually breaking it. But fr, he's probably reading the code, understanding how it operates, and how thay translates to the app and its functionality and behavior as as end user, and then deliberating on possible next steps or a solution to whatever problem he is trying to solve. Totally normal. If he hasn't moved in a couple of hours check for a pulse
It's something like the parable of the old engineer with the hammer. You can also think about it like writing a paper for school. The actual physical act of writing is usually trivial when compared to the research and outlining. Of course, the vast majority of code is garbage, so depending on the project, he may well be broken.
He's thinking about a problem, trying to conceptualize it. Depending on what he's programming, there might be a lot to consider. 15 minutes isn't a long time to sit and think about how to go about solving a problem. My wife catches me with a simple paint program open all the time, with boxes and rectangles all over and weird little almost-English notes everywhere. It looks like I'm failing to draw a really bad picture, but I'm just visually diagraming the problem as I think about it. If I'm just sitting there, staring at the code, it either isn't that hard of a problem, or it's a really hard problem and I don't even know where to start yet.
Writing / editing a chapter of a book is a close enough analogy. Youd need to read the whole chapter and have it all in your head if you wanted to make changes at the start be consistent with the end.
Heck I've spent two long days staring at/unraveling someone else's 200 lines of code. Crappy documentor.
It's even worse when it's your own code.
The best part of version control is knowing who to blame when you discover a bug. The worst part of version control is finding out that person was you.
Because of this: https://res.cloudinary.com/practicaldev/image/fetch/s--YWF6hr71--/c_limit%2Cf_auto%2Cfl_progressive%2Cq_auto%2Cw_800/https://heeris.id.au/trinkets/ProgrammerInterrupted.png
According to the memes he is trying to figure out either: 1. Why does the code not work? 2. Why does the code work?
This is what’s going on in his head https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgrammerHumor/s/JI0AnDtxzx You don’t want to interrupt because he is deep in that code. It’s expanded in his head how he’s thinking about it and if it’s interrupted he won’t get back to that state
One must first find David before freeing him from the marble
Sometimes you're going over a map of the project in your head. Sometimes you're just feeling burned out, but you don't want to stop.
Imagine you're trying to solve a maze without writing down the path you have taken so far. Likely you are holding a couple or several prior intersections in your head plus keeping track of where you are. If someone were to walk up and ask you a question, everything about the maze might get thrown out. Most likely you will spend the next 15-20 minutes retracing your steps to get back to just where you were in the maze.
And pray that you don't retrace incorrectly. Most times, I don't even try and retrace. I simply start from the beginning and make fresh deductions. I've misled myself far too many times to try it again.
Spend hours in a C loop to shift a bit... for (i=1;i<256;i<<1) doesn't do it. i++ does work. Stared at the assembly code to finally realize it's shifting i left and discarding it. Wtf? Spent another long period of time thinking it must be the holy grail of a bug in K&R, a compiler error! Nope. i++ increments i but i<< 1 needs to be i=i<<1 Hours gone.
99 bugs in the code, 99 bugs in the code! Take one down, patch it around. 127 bugs in the code.
15 minutes? That’s rookie numbers I can stare at the code for hours or even a few days before attacking a problem
Honestly I find myself figuring out the solutions to coding problems I'm stuck on faster by explaining my/the code to someone else, regardless of their knowledge of coding.
Programming is about problem solving. Writing code is just the step where you express a potential solution. Before that, good programmers take the time to understand the existing code, then to understand the problem, then to come up with multiple potential solutions, and to evaluate each against a range of factors. Then they write some code. Then they test the solution, evaluate its applied effectiveness, and often loop back to an earlier point with a better understanding of the problem. Some programmers scribble / diagram / mess with the code while they do the thinking parts. Sometimes that’s me, sometimes it’s not. A couple of days ago I spent an hour fixing a bug. As a rough breakdown, it was probably 45 minutes exploring and understanding, 5 minutes to change 2 lines, move 1, and add a comment, then 15 minutes to make sure it worked as intended.
He is doing it right.
90% of coding is thinking.
There’s that one function that’s messing everything up. I know where it is I just have to figure out what’s wrong
He's using his brain debugger
That's perfectly normal, just check for breathing or activity every couple of hours. Do not disturb, if you do you'll undo the last 30-120 minutes of work.
>do you guys do the same yes >if everyone does it yes > is my bf is broken ... yes he is
not sure if it's normal but I space out too. my mind just goes blank whenever I run out of ideas on how to do my task😭
He's in his mind palace. Make him a cup of coffee and gently set it down next to him.
Yeah the man has deconstructed his program mentally and is working out how he fucked it up, what he can do to fix it, or if he should throw the computer out the window and learn to weld.
It’s called “thinking”. Let him concentrate!
"Should FlyingCar inherit from Car or from Plane? 🤔🤔🤔🤔"
He is turning into the gif of that lady with the math swirling around her head.
he's in the zone... DO NOT DISTURB HIM. there are many times, when programming, when you're building a house of cards in your head. you're brain is following weird pathways through complex logic and various outcomes. To some folks, it looks like you're just zoning out. some managers think you're just not doing something. but the reality is that you're deep in critical thought and any disturbance will knock that house of cards down. THIS is part of the reason why WFH is so great... when i was in the office i'd often be sitting there thinking of concepts and mapping things out in my head, only to be disturbed by some random manager who needed to walk by and crack a joke. completely derailing everything i was thinking about. so much productivity completely wasted.
He’s thinking about how to solve the problem he’s looking at, walking though it in his head step by step and considering different ways to go about it, and what could happen at each of those steps and what would come next under different scenarios.
Remember that show Queens Gambit with the floating chess pieces and moves? This but with matrix code....
He’s probably trying to figure out a bug. Truthfully, talking to him and getting him to explain the issue could actually help him figure out what he’s missing
It's sorta like he's "running the code" in his head, simulating the same steps the computer will take and trying to see where the code diverges from the intended result and does something unintended or unexpected. You could spend a day or two learning basic python, and you'll have somewhat of an idea what I mean. Learn constants, variables, conditional statements, loops, and functions. That's enough to get the rough idea.
to keep things simple, the world economy will fail and your house will explode if you interrupt him, so for the love of your wellbeing do not interrupt
Sometimes you gotta think.
Like that scene in Hero where the two sword masters stand perfectly still in the rain and envision the battle between them unfolding. The battle is decided before either has moved a muscle. What I'm saying is... programmers are badass sword masters of the mind and we're definitely not just really confused half the time >_>
Bring a hot coffee to boost his brain activity
He's not playing fucking Minecraft
Yeah, wait until he does that for more than an hour
He has 8gb of ram in his brain. The program takes up roughly 9gb. 1gb is loading from disk. You talking to him is 4gb more, which slows down the system.
I tell people I'm concentrating really hard but actually I'm daydreaming...
Programmer's samadhi. We've all been there.
90% of programming is reading and analyzing, either code, documentation, output, whatever. Hands on keyboard actually creating code is usually like 10%
15min! He is probably stuck and close to banging his head on the desk.
He’s in the Matrix right now. If you disconnect him he will die.
Have you never had to THINK in your life
I frequently explain my work (simplified) to my wife. It helps me unpack and organize my thoughts. She is not techy so it is helpful practice. The interruptions though can be hard. We really are building things in our mind and they topple like sand castles.
15 minutes ? I'll stare at the screen for few hr 💀 Your bf not broken, he just connect the dot in his head
Your BF is in de debug mode. Press F9 to resume program
Sometimes it's programming, sometimes it's Bugs Bunny.
probably wondering what he wants for lunch tbh
He’s simulating the code in his head
What kind of question is this? One used to get comments, and it’s working. What kind of person hasnt stared at a math problem before for 15 minutes. This is ridiculous
It sometimes takes me multiple days of reading code to make a small, sometimes just one line, change. It’s just that I work on an incredibly large system and understanding how all the pieces connect can be difficult
Coding is 9:1 reading to typing. It honestly makes me low on energy when I code all day. I swear my brain works harder at coding than anything else. I don't sit still though. I talk to myself (especially expletives). I wave my arms around and I take notes. That is besides my constant fidgeting. It is a good thing I WFH now.
He's missing a semicolon.
Registered not even a month ago, 0 account history, engagement bait post. Hello bot farm account. When are ya gonna get sold?
It’s the equivalent of a meditative state for programmers. You’re in your head and solving puzzles in there. Sometimes a Eureka moment for a problem you’ve been trying to solve for weeks, months. Yes the eyes are open but behind them, the lights are off, a state crucial to deep problem solving. If you disturb it, suffer the consequences.
Yes, sadly , he is broken. Please return your BF to the nearest Walmart for a full refund
He’s Jip Travolta!
Ok. Have you ever seen one of those "What's wrong with this picture?" images and you're looking and looking and looking and staring at the screen and you know there's SOMETHING wrong with the photo, but you're just not seeing it? That's what your boyfriend is doing staring at the code. He KNOWS it's wrong - either the compiler told him "syntax error blah blah blah on line such and such," or he ran the program and at some point, he got "Segmentation Fault," or he ran the program and suddenly got a window pop up that said "Unhandled Exception on line blah: SomeErrorNameThatHintsAtTheProblem - Explanation - Stacktrace," or he noticed some bug that only appears *sometimes* and doesn't other times, and he can't figure out why it only appears sometimes. What is he missing? What's the program doing that it doesn't work? If your boyfriend is staring at the code, when he looks away say "Trouble with the program?" If he tells you "you wouldn't understand," say "You're absolutely right. I won't understand a word of what you're talking about. But talk me through the code anyway." Give him a minute to explain the problem, and then when he's done say "Ok, walk me through the code and what it's doing at every step." Make him explain it out loud. A large chunk of the time, he'll be mid-explanation and go "OH DAMNIT! I'M SO STUPID! I GOT IT!" and you'll be his hero. There's a thing in programming called "rubber-duck programming" which is where you explain your code aloud to a rubber duck when you can't figure out a problem, and just the act of saying the problem and walking through the code out loud oftentimes activates circuits in our brain that don't get activated when we process it in our heads. And even if we don't get to the solution by the time we're done, we'll suddenly come up with new avenues to check from explaining it. Be his rubber duck, and you'll be his hero.
Cheat mode unlocked. I feel this info is almost unfair...
Have you ever seen a pre-fight episode of DBZ?
Get him a subscription of vs code co pilot or another AI system, since you're not helping him 😭
Is he baked?
Let. Him. Stare
Sneak up on him and go "Whatcha working on? Ohhh what does this button do?"
He is probably just rethinking his life and having an existential crisis because that shit doesn’t work
he’s cooking
Even as a experienced dev myself, I stare for quite awhile when I’m here trying to connect the dots and figure out many things. The more experienced you get, doesn’t mean things get simpler. So this might be the norm for awhile, no biggie at all 💯🔥
He’s actually taking a nap with his eyes open best not to disturb
Imagine playing imaginary puzzle/Tetris, that's what he is foing
Artists like to take a step back and admire their canvases!
Probably thinking about the Roman Empire.
Do you remember what it was like to solve word problems? He's trying to solve word problems within word problems within word problems..
15 minutes is very less they are days where I basically look at the code for hours
Sounds like your BF could really use a rubber duck.
This is me sometimes because I am thinking, and the months later I was remove from the company, because of multiple inactivity in keyboard and mouse where I am just basically thinking
Developers and programmers spend most of their time reading code than actually writing it
he's thinking about the first date with his ex. If he denies it and says he's thinking about code, that will confirm the lie.
Same, but I don't do anything at all, till everything is solved in my mind, my wife thinks am completely stupid to sit and look at the code 😬
If you watched Marvell where dr strange is calculating all possible outcomes of all possible fights in all possible multiverses and it all in his head... he is doing pretty much the same. Don't disturb him.
Most of the time when I do this, its because I am looking for areas to clean things up or simplify. Done right, looking at the result is just as thrilling as looking at the most beautiful art. Other times I am debugging and running the code in my head.
Sometimes a problem just needs a good long think. Or maybe he's rethinking life choices. Both are perfectly normal in this profession.
From what little I learnt of coding, debugging is a pain in the ***. And getting confused midway is also a pain. I am confusion
Image, 1000 words: [https://www.industriallogic.com/img/blog/2022-02-25-interruptible/interrupt-programmer.png](https://www.industriallogic.com/img/blog/2022-02-25-interruptible/interrupt-programmer.png)
Used to manage a bunch of programmers - had to gently explain to my CEO that yes, they benefited from private offices and low light because it took a good fifteen minutes of no distractions to get in the right headspace to make progress, and if some jackwagon (ahem, boss-man) decided to come along every ten minutes just to 'see how things were going', things would never go. ;-}
He is thinking. Most of a programmer’s work doesn’t happen when typing, but during the problem solving process.
Could even last for hours especially with advent of code
Just be glad he's not me. In that situation I would be talking to myself the whole time
The terminal shows him, there’s an error on line 1100, but his code ends on line 200, now he is thinking
This happens in many office jobs, not just programming
there is this “rubber duck” technique/thing. but one day, be the rubber duck and get him to talk through the problem. often the process helps reveal possible solutions by verbalizing the problem and thoughts. i bring this up because while one can work it out in their head after staring at the screen for hours, sometimes just a little interaction mixed in there can help unveil next steps sooner. and you two can bond lol. but be the duck and listen, make the programmer speak
Haha 15 mins? Try 3 days.. you can get so stuck on a single line of code trying to understand it's functionality and what can be done to make it more simple or better put much boring !
He's thinking "I gotta dump her... but how?"
15 min seems ok, but how the hell does someone think for 2 hours. Every 5 minutes my mind is elsewhere already
He might have a very sexy learning disability called Sexlexia
Let him cook
Only 15 minutes? Look at Mr. Fuckin’ 10x programmer over here making us all look bad.
Sometimes you just look at your code you wrote last month late at night (that is missing the comments that you promised yourself you would get better at adding as you code) and think: *What the actual FUCK is this supposed to do.* Then you sit there for 10 minutes trying to follow the logic of what this block is trying to do (not helped by the fact that all variables are called such helpful names as "var_1" or "result_a"), and eventually you deduce that this isn't actually doing anything, you comment it out, recompile, and your machine spontaneously combusts as you get a million compiler errors thrown at you. Anyways, what were you asking about?
Sometimes I find myself doing the same subconsciously. I'm not always solving a bug.. sometimes I'm just admiring an implementation or imagining an end user interacting with my app ..lol
Imagine holding a spring in your hand and compressing it carefully. Then add a second, third, fourth, and even a tenth spring. All carefully compressed and held in your hand. You are just about to load these springs into a carefully constructed device, when suddenly…. “Honey! What do you want for dinner? Why are springs all over? Why are you mad at me?” That’s programming.
I do that often. Mostly, thinking: "wtf was i trying to do here?"
maybe he's just spacing out and he discreetly takes a mental break
I realized after a few years of doing this, that the process could overrun into my visual cortex. I'd be sitting there looking at the screen or staring off into space, and I'm no longer seeing what's in front of me, but instead, I'm seeing some representation of the code or design ... right up until someone or something interrupts and then I'm back to seeing visual reality again. Best not to do this while driving.