As a programmer we sometimes might look like we are not doing much from the outside but actually we're dead inside thank you

I honestly needed to hear this today, so thank you. I'm at work trying to work out someone else's uncommented code and have just been staring at it mumbling to myself. I'm new to the position so I'm anxious my new coworkers will think I'm just dicking around... This is the validation I needed. Thanks everyone!

I find for coding problems it's actually better to walk away and let it tick over in your mind.

You'll often get a shower thought type moment.

A true software developer will also raise their hands in celebration when they finally solve a problem that’s been plaguing them.

Even if you’re working from home, alone.

My personal favourite is to break from staring after 30 mins, exclaim, “Hang on, we’re going about this completely back to front!” then spend the next hour deriving from first principles, only to arrive back at the original problem, but now with slightly different notation. At which point I realise that all I’ve done is get myself back to my starting point… Then it’s back to the staring.

Aside from "learning to spell hypnotized or just trusting your phone knows better than you," there are a bunch of tricks we use.

1. Staring at it and going over the code path
2. Talking to a proverbial duck
3. Going out for a proverbial cheeseburger
4. Sleeping on it

Half of these tricks force the brain to stop confirming and start seeing, which is our biggest error source. The rest of these tricks let the problem ruminate in our subconscious which is sometimes really good at solving shit.

My math teacher in high school always said "math is 90% looking" and if you didn't get the task directly: "look again" ... Funny part is, that actually worked for most of the class xD

I used to work in an office with 4 other developers. It was a common occurrence to have the lights go off in the room, for energy saving.

Simone would wave their arm, then go back to staring.

I refer to the process as "loading" and it helps so much when coding, debugging or even playing puzzle games

If staring at it isn't giving the results you expect, try not staring at it. Math, much like photons, functions differently when observed.

What I do is I read over something, take a nap, and then read it over again. If I don't get it after that I'll ask someone for help.

I had a theoretical math professor. He said something along the lines of, "Being a theoretical math professor is the best job in the world. You can lean back in your chair, put your feet on your desk and close your eyes, and no one can tell if you're working or having a nap."

Tbh a good builder/technician will do this too when faced with a complicated fix

Same thing; every action has an opposite reaction, whether it's code or physical engineering

Don't ask him, he will be angry and mumbling something about "the zone".

I’ve often been accused of looking angry when I’m thinking about a problem. Of course I’m angry! How dare the solution allude me! 😡

If I intimidate it by staring at it long enough, it'll work eventually.

I don't like coding, so I became a systems administrator.

Today, I spent about three hours "coding" a script. Before I started my testing phase to see if all the code put together would work as intended, I just did a pass over the code. I literally just stared at it for a solid 20+ minutes to make sure it made sense.

I imagine any form of "real" programming is going to require a lot more staring for a lot longer just to make sure the code isn't profoundly screwed up.

Whenever I'm asked for help by IT colleagues, I never say I'll help solve an issue. I just say "Sure, I'll come help stare at it for a while" - it's the most I can really promise.

Damn, I can't think about something for more than a minutes or two without getting distracted... Maybe I'm the one who's broken.

Wait until she walks in on him explaining the problem out loud to a rubber duck.

Meetings where you're working on a problem together are also fun. Just a bunch of people staring silently at a whiteboard.

True!! I love that part!!

then I have to somehow explain what seemed obvious to me for that split second where magic struck...

Programmers do that a lot? I always just start trying stuff in the command line until it works. It's in research though, so maybe different from what is typical developer stuff?